That award is one of four Hollyshorts categories that grant the winners automatic entry into the Oscar short-film race, provided they meet the categories’ other requirements. The other Hollyshorts winners to qualify for the Oscars are Jan Saska’s “Hurikán,” which won the award as the festival’s best animated short; Andrés Ramírez Pulido’s “A Son and a Father,” which won the best live action award; and Irving Serrano and Victor Rejón’s “Voices From the Abyss,” which won the top documentary award.

Lee Knight won the best director award for “A Friend of Dorothy.”

The Hollyshorts Film Festival was established in 2005. This year, it showcased 427 films that screened in Hollywood from Aug. 7 through Aug. 16.

Here is the complete list of winners:  

Oscar qualifying categories
Grand Prize: “Trapped,” Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz
Best Animation: “Hurikán,” Jan Saska
Best Live Action: “A Son and a Father,” Andrés Ramírez Pulido
Best Documentary: “Voices From the Abyss,” Irving Serrano, Victor Rejón

Other categories
AAPI Award: “Mushroom Dad,” Michael Yuchen Lei
Best Cinematography: “Lo Que Desaparece,” Mario Lerma and Alex Rapariz
Best Comedy: “Susana,” Gerardo Coello Escalante and Amandine Thomas
Best Drama: “Trapped,” Sam Cutler-Kreutz – David Cutler-Kreutz
Best Director: “A Friend of Dorothy,” Lee Knight; Special Mention: “A Son and Father,” Alexander Farah
Best Editing: Say Wuff!” Fabian Podeszwa
Best Horror: “Heirlooms,” Dan Abramovici
Best International: “The Painting & the Statue,” Freddie Fox
Best Midnight Madness: “Stomach Bug,” Matty Crawford
Best Music Video: “Earth Defender,” Sil van der Woerd, Jorik Dozy and Kynan Tegar
Best Podcast: “Moonburn,” Robbie Hyne
Best Producer: “Money Talk$”: Tony Mucci (Director and Producer), Scott Aharoni (Producer), Bryan Schmier (Producer) and David Mazouz (Producer)
Best Sci-Fi: “The Second Time Around,” Jack Howard
Best Special Effects: “Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting,” Alexander Thompson
Best Student Film: “1:10,” Sinan Taner
Best Thriller: “Plastic Surgery,” Guy Trevellyan
Best TV: “Chasers,” Erin Brown Thomas
Best Web Series: “Hasaan Hates Portland,” Mischa Webley
Kodak Best Shot on Film, 16MM: “Ragamuffin,” Kaitlyn Mikayla
Kodak Best Shot on Film, 35MM: “The Singers,” Sam Davis
Kodak Honorable Mention: “Synthesize Me,” Bear Damen
Latine Award: “Cura Sana,” Lucía G. Romero
LGBTQIA+ Award: “Dancing in Tomorrowland,” Jakob Roston
SAGindie Award: “L’avance,” Djiby Kebe
Social Impact Award: “Rise,” Jessica J. Rowlands
Best Sports Drama: “Negro League Nights,” Kyle Sykes
Best Sports Documentary:  “It’s On Like a Pot of Neckbones,” Joey Garfield

Top 10 Live Action Short Films Finalists
“A Son and a Father,” Andrés Ramírez Pulido
“Mercenaire,” Pier-Philippe Chevigny
“Ragamuffin,” Kaitlyn Mikayla
“Amarela,” André Hayato Saito
“L’avance,” Djiby Kebe
“Trapped,” Sam Cutler-Kreutz and David Cutler-Kreutz
“One Of Them,” Mostafa Vaziri
“A Friend of Dorothy,” Lee Knight
“Rise,” Jessica J. Rowlands

Script Awards
ISA Story Award – Best Feature Screenplay: “The Dope Friend,” Matt Ferrucci
Best Female Screenplay: “The Unraveling,” Samantha Mallory
Best Short Screenplay Grand Prize – “Mudslide,” Frederik Ehrhardt

The post ‘Trapped’ Wins Grand Prize at Hollyshorts Film Festival, Qualifies for Oscars appeared first on TheWrap.

The telecast, which has aired on ABC since 1976, has a contract with the Disney owned-company through 2028. Before that, the show alternated between NBC and ABC since it was first televised in 1953.

NBC, which carried the Oscars for most of the 1950s and 1960s, is also a suitor, Bloomberg reported. But two people familiar with the inquiry told the outlet that YouTube is also actively interested.

The most-watched video platform in the world has been open about its interest in streaming high-profile live events, and the Academy Awards would certainly be a crown jewel in its stable, which now includes the NFL Sunday ticket and a small but growing roster of live sports.

Messages sent to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is in the middle of negotiations for the telecast beyond 2028, were not immediately returned Sunday. Inquiries sent to Google and YouTube were also not immediately returned.

YouTube offers a huge audience on streaming, but it lacks the broadcast component of other companies – all of which also have their own streaming platforms. And at least three active bidders own major movie studios that send product to movie theaters – a huge priority for the Oscars and the films they showcase.

The 97th Academy Awards, which aired on March 25, drew an average of 19.6 million viewers across TV and streaming, according to Nielsen, a slight uptick from 2024, and the highest viewership in five years.

The post YouTube Inquires About Becoming Next Home of the Academy Awards | Report appeared first on TheWrap.

It’s a dry, silly and brutally frank response — exactly what you’d expect from Hoffman, who plays Randi, the unnerving assistant to Paul W. Downs’ and Megan Stalter’s characters, Jimmy and Kayla. There’s also a note of truth to it. “Hacks” was Hoffman’s second high-profile acting job ever, after FX’s “Dying for Sex,” in which she plays a BDSM practitioner who helps Michelle Williams’ character on her quest for sexual exploration. She doesn’t have a PR team — a must for most Hollywood stars — which makes being thrust into the Emmys’ campaign machine, with its many panels and press interviews, “weird.”

“There are the biggest stars you’ve ever seen on [these panels and me, and we’re
talking about the difficulties of acting,” she said, perhaps referring to the SAG-
AFTRA interview she did recently with Zoë Kravitz, Bryan Cranston and Ron
Howard (who seemed particularly amused by her anecdotes). “I feel weird even contributing to the conversation. I find acting one of the easier things I’ve done. I just thought it was a pleasure and a great gig and really a dream job.”

If you’re familiar with Hoffman’s intense yet sincere style, you won’t be surprised to learn that the “Hacks” team wrote Randi specifically with her in mind. “I’m an inspiration in the industry,” she deadpanned.

A comic’s comic known for her stand-up and for writing the PBS children’s
series “Odd Squad “(for which she won a Daytime Emmy in 2019) as well as “The
Chris Gethard Show” and “Workin’ Moms,” Hoffman, 35, often appears on “Comedians You Should Know” lists. Initially, her “Hacks” character seems to be the result of another questionable decision made by Stalter’s impulsive Kayla. Randi saw her first movie a week before joining a talent agency and seems more excited to talk about her Hasidic Jewish roots and sexuality than anything related to showbiz. But as the season wears on, Randi’s openness and dedication to the job win Jimmy over.

“It’s very intimidating. I will say that Randi and I felt very similarly in the sense
that she was new to this job and wanting to be a good assistant — overly eager, aggressive but kind, hard-working, a little rough. But in real life, I wanted to keep this job,” said Hoffman, who grew up in Brooklyn and Montreal, the seventh of 10 siblings in a Hasidic family. In January, she married “The Bachelorette” and “The
Traitors” alumna Gabby Windey.

Hoffman’s acting journey is just beginning. When she spoke to TheWrap, she was in the middle of shooting HBO’s as-yet-untitled Steve Carell comedy created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses. Though this side of the industry may be new to her, she’s embracing the increased attention with the same excitement and confidence that’s integral to her comedy.

“Everything I do takes time. When you’re doing things on your own, that can be especially true,” she said. “But when you do get the time, wow, you really get to shine. You’ve been cooking. So it does feel nice to come out of the oven a
little more baked.”

This story first ran in the Down to the Wire Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

Read more from the Down to the Wire Comedy issue here.

The post ‘Hacks’ Star Robby Hoffman Has a Question for Emmys Voters About Her Nomination appeared first on TheWrap.

When The Studio was nominated for all those Emmys, I looked at the reaction statements from all the nominees. I don’t understand why nobody thanked Sal Saperstein.
It’s really disrespectful. I was obviously let down by the lack of mention. I can only assume that they’re gonna save that for when they eventually win.

You should probably talk to them before the show.
Yeah. We’re gonna do an awards-campaign thing where I’m gonna personally visit every nominee and tell them what’s at stake if they forget to mention Sal.

Have you compared notes with your fellow acting nominees Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard?
I have not checked in with those guys yet. But I did see Marty’s reaction on Instagram and he seemed to be genuinely flattered. I just hope those guys get a break. It’s been tough for them in show business, and I think it would just be nice for Ron and Marty to have some kind of recognition in this industry at some point.

It’s kind of crazy, because The Studio got five of the six nominees in guest actor and one in guest actress, and yet I didn’t think, “Oh, wow, that’s a lot.” I thought, “Why didn’t Sarah Polley and Olivia Wilde get in too?”
Honestly, truly, yes. Like, I’m thrilled for everyone. Zoë is incredible — she gave it her all. But those two in particular, Sarah and Olivia, I thought were arguably the two best guests we had all year. So they’ll have to come back in Season 2.

Do you have a wish list for Season 2?
In terms of actors, I think Leo would be very funny. I know he doesn’t like to do a ton of stuff, but he is the biggest movie star around, still. Timmy C. would be great. Get some Chal going, Chal in the chat.

And then, you know, I do love the directors we have on. So let’s keep that train going. Would love to see Steven Spielberg on there. Would love to see the Coen brothers. Bigelow, PTA. Quentin!

Come on, QT, get on here!

You’re aiming high. But I guess when you start with Scorsese in the first episode, why not?
Literally, we have Scorsese, Charlize and Steve Buscemi in the last [scene]. So it’s like, we have to heighten, which is tough.

Making the show, it must be a kick to have this endless cycle of people coming through and doing these killer guest spots.
Oh, yeah. Season 1, because it’s a new show, sometimes you have to pull a little bit harder to persuade people, but hopefully now people will see that if you come on the show, you’re gonna have fun. You’re gonna look cool or look like you have a good sense of humor about yourself. So hopefully it’ll be even easier to get some of the folks for Season 2.

Plus they might get an Emmy nomination.
The odds are you will get an Emmy nomination, so why not? And we give you your own half-trailer. And the craft table’s great.

When you got the scripts, did you have a sense of “OK, I know who Sal is” from the start?
Yeah. I love the way that (Rogen and Goldberg) write, and I love the way in one or two lines early on, you can tell what this character is all about. The first time you meet him, he’s like, “Hey, do I smell like vodka? I was out partying with Pedro Pascal all night.”

Right away, that said to me, “You know this guy. You’ve had drinks with this guy. This guy made an inappropriate joke when he came to the set to visit.” This is a party guy who loves his job, who has maybe overstayed his welcome a little bit.

Have people in the business told you, “Oh, yeah, I know lots of Sals”?

Oh, yes. And I’ve heard from some guys who are Sals who are like, “Hey, man, that was so funny, really great character.” And I’m like, “Yeah, it’s kind of based on you a little bit.” (Laughs)

You’ve already won “Celebrity Jeopardy!“and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” How would winning an Emmy compare in terms of satisfaction?
I mean, winning those was incredible. Being able to give that money to charity was a dream. They’re different levels of happiness, but I’m humbled and honored to even be in the conversation. Also, I could sell the Emmy and use that money for charity, so it would be like being on one of those shows.

I wonder if maybe we should start a new EGOT-style acronym for Emmy, “Jeopardy!” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.“
I would call it EGOG. Replace the T in Tony, which is tough. I’m not doing Broadway right now and I don’t see it happening in the foreseeable future. But, you know, Emmy, Grammy — ’cause I have my collection of spoken-word poetry that’s coming out — Oscar and then game show. So EGOG is what I’m trying to get started.

I was thinking of being more specific and doing something like JEM for “Jeopardy!,” Emmy and “Millionaire.“
Oh, that is good. So “Jeopardy!,” Emmy, “Millionaire” and then we need one more. I think these are both very viable. 

This story first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.

The post Ike Barinholtz Has a Bold Wish List for ‘The Studio’ Season 2 Cameos: Spielberg, Leo and Tarantino appeared first on TheWrap.

Those same rules could apply to late-night comedy’s approach to tackling Trump 2.0. Just over seven months in, Trump’s threats have already spurred a flurry of corporate parents to ante up large sums of money to settle lawsuits many experts deemed frivolous (higher body count), Stephen Colbert was fired from “The Late Show” mere days after blasting Paramount for paying the president (more elaborate death scene) and a scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein’s client list that would have ended any other president’s tenure continues to be carefully brushed aside by Trump allies in power (don’t assume the killer is dead).

When Trump was initially elected in 2016, late night comedy wasted no time finding humor throughout his first term in office.

But how do you make him funny again? And what happens when the stakes of those jokes now include potentially losing your job?

The questions hang over this year’s talk-show and scripted-variety Emmy nominees: Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and “The Daily Show” hosts and correspondents in the former category, John Oliver and the “Saturday Night Live” writers and performers in the latter.

Late night comics like Colbert, Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers and “The Daily Show’s” Desi Lydic and Jordan Klepper (the last three of them nominated in the short-form or hosted nonfiction categories) were mixing standard zingers with more pointed critiques throughout the first few months of Trump’s second term, but the heat got turned way up when, in mid-July, Colbert abruptly announced that CBS would be ending “The Late Show” in May 2026.

The announcement came only two days after the show had been nominated for its eighth consecutive talk-show Emmy. While the network said the decision was “purely financial,” the timing raised more than a few eyebrows: The axing came just after Paramount settled its “60 Minutes” lawsuit with the president for $16 million, thus paving the way for Trump-friendly FCC commissioner Brendan Carr to finally approve Skydance’s acquisition of the company one week later.

Stewart went scorched earth on “The Daily Show” the Monday after the decision was made, but — as he so often does — eloquently connected this isolated event to a larger problem looming over the country.

“If you’re trying to figure out why Stephen’s show is ending, I don’t think the answer can be found in some smoking-gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives or in CBS’s QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night,” Stewart said. “I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment, institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic-hair-doodling commander in chief.”

The same night, Colbert told Trump, “Go fuck yourself” and once again called Paramount’s settlement a bribe. Later in the episode, every New York-based late-night host made a cameo appearance on “The Late Show” in a touching proof of solidarity.

So late night has chosen to fight back, but it comes at a perilous time for the medium as the decline of linear viewership has hit these shows particularly hard. Six years ago, the average audience for Colbert’s show was 3.81 million, according to Nielsen. By the second quarter of 2025, it was 2.4 million. During that same period, average viewership has dropped 13% for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and 51% for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Ad revenue has experienced a downturn as well.

The dwindling numbers come despite robust social and YouTube performances for many of these brands, but that reach doesn’t make up for the traditional ad dollars lost. Intangibles like brand ambassadorship and viral moments have kept the shows afloat and continue to provide value to their corporate owners. Still, as major corporations bend the knee to Trump after he lashes out at anyone who dares to poke fun, late night comedians find themselves quite literally sticking their necks out.

Evidence of the format’s decline can also be seen in the Emmy nominations themselves. The Television Academy bases the number of nominees in most categories on the number of programs that have qualified in that category, with 20 eligible shows being the baseline that guarantees a full slate of five nominees.

This year, though, Outstanding Talk Series had only 13 programs that qualified, reducing the category’s number of nominees to three, the lowest ever. Outstanding Scripted Variety Series, meanwhile, had just eight entries, giving it two nominees for the fourth time in the past five years. Emmy rules suggest that a category with so few entries should be dropped or combined with another one, but a 2021 decision to merge the talk and sketch categories met widespread criticism. The separate categories were restored before that year’s voting even began.

Now that late night comedy’s uncertain standing at the Emmys has been joined by increasing political pressure, its hosts are aware that they are on shaky ground.

“We’re very clear-eyed about the world we’re living in. We also see these canaries in the coal mine,” Meyers, nominated for his “Late Night With Seth Meyers” short-form YouTube spinoff “Corrections,” told TheWrap prior to the Colbert cancellation. “I don’t feel as though ‘Late Night’ is a quieter voice than it was 10 years ago. I think, ultimately, there are challenges to make it as valuable a property. But we’re not doing our show and thinking we’re just yelling into a void. We feel very heard, and I would prefer that to anything.”

That voice has changed a bit in Trump’s second term, and Meyers admitted that his show — which found its stride and received its first talk-show Emmy nomination as it leaned into politics during Trump’s first term — has needed to pivot.

“We had to shift from sort of this fist-shaking, ‘This isn’t who we are!’ to finding comedy in the fact that this is who we are, and we have to figure out how to be something else,” he said.

Indeed, Colbert, Stewart, Meyers, Kimmel and even Fallon to a degree have all developed a somewhat sharper edge when it comes to their Trump jokes this time around, and they’ve defiantly stayed the course in the wake of Colbert’s axing.

Stewart, again, put it best in that post-cancellation “Daily Show” monologue when he made a direct address to the companies that own the late-night shows.

“Shows that say something, shows that take a stand, shows that are unafraid…” are what made the corporations money, he said. “If you believe — as corporations or as networks — you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king’s radar…Why will anyone watch you? And you are fucking wrong.”

This story first ran in the Down to the Wire Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.

The post Late Night Comedy Discovers the Dangers of Resistance Under Trump 2.0 appeared first on TheWrap.

“My first cut of [the episode ‘Blame It on the Rain’] was actually pretty serious and straightforward. Then, when I was working with Carl Franklin — my director on that episode — we decided to loosen up some of the moments, go more to the audience and really have the audience tell us how ridiculous that moment was,” Tachdjian told TheWrap in a new installment of How I Did It, presented by Netflix. Watching a son dedicate a breakup song to the mother he murdered was one of the many complicated tonal changes the team behind “Monsters” had to navigate.

The story of the Menendez murders is one of the best known true crime sagas in modern American history. In 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez shot their parents, José and Kitty. Initially, the brothers told authorities the killings were connected to the mob. But the more police poked into the case, the more the grisly truth came to light and the more the public became fixated on these handsome, wealthy murderers.

According to Tachdjian, it was important to series co-creator Ryan Murphy that the series captured both the weight of these crimes and Erik’s allegations of sexual abuse as well as the public’s fascination with these brothers.

“We were underlining a pre-existing style that had to be a part of the show because appearances is really a part of what made the Menendez story so interesting,” composer Julia Newman said. “What the show does so well, what [Tachdjian] really set the tone for was establishing the psychological spectrum, the emotional spectrum that we were going to be playing with, which was quite large, quite stylish and quite dark. It really hit the most intense points of all of those.”

This care was also baked into the music of the series. The second time “Monsters” shows the murders, the scene is accompanied by a low, ominous hum that later becomes the soundtrack of sorts for the series.

“The whole idea was that when you see the boys kill their parents for the second time, it was meant to elicit something different,” Julia Newman said.

Thomas Newman, who collaborated with his daughter as a composer on the series, agreed, noting the sound is meant to “deepen your sense of the characters, what they are and how far they had to go.”

“It helped give you a sense that these characters had a deep hunger for something,” Thomas Newman said.

Julia Newman was responsible for crafting the humming melody, which started with her playing low fifths on the piano. She then recorded herself actually humming, though her intention was to have someone rerecord the vocals.

“We were like, ‘Don’t touch it,'” Tachdjian recalled.

“It really set the tone for the nature of our collaboration on the rest of the series,” Julia Newman said.

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is now streaming on Netflix.

The post ‘Monsters’ Editor and Composers Talk Navigating the Tonal Shifts in Netflix’s Intricate Menendez Story | How I Did It  appeared first on TheWrap.

No, Hiller genuinely had no reason to believe he’d earn a supporting-actor nod for HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere.” His name was near the bottom of most awards prognosticators’ prediction lists, if it even appeared at all. So on July 15, the longtime character actor used to playing what he calls the “bitchy customer-service agent” wasn’t watching the Television Academy’s live feed or monitoring social media with butterflies in his stomach.

He was at home in New York City, chatting with his sister on the phone. When his agent kept calling, he wondered if it was about a role in a Fox series he’d recently auditioned for. “I was like, ‘Did I get it? Am I the gay restaurant owner?’” he said, referencing another familiar role. He figured he’d call his agent back. But then his manager rang, and in a panic, Hiller thought he’d missed a call time on an Apple TV+ series shooting in Boston. “I was like, ‘Am I supposed to be there right now?!?’

“I mean, it’s bonkers,” he said in an office in downtown Manhattan following a photo shoot for TheWrap. “I keep saying that. It’s not even about, do I think I’m worthy of it or deserve it? It’s just…I can’t believe it.” He pauses for the tiniest of beats before adding, with a rip-roaring laugh, “People who are reading about it are like, ‘We don’t care, girl! We don’t care that you’re having a moment!’”

As becomes clear during the course of our conversation, this kind of self-deprecation is par for the course with Hiller, who in person is open and unassuming, despite his 6-foot-5 stature. But the truth is, people do care that he beat the odds and was nominated for his work on a treasure of a show that, over three seasons, amassed heaps of critical praise, a Peabody Award and a modest but loyal viewership.

I used to be a social worker taking care of people who were experiencing homelessness. And now I’m like, ‘How’s my hair?’

Hiller’s character, Joel, is a church-going gay man living in Manhattan, Kansas, adrift in middle age until he befriends Sam, an acquaintance from high school played by exec producer Bridget Everett, whose life loosely inspired the series. With the lightest of touches and a fly-on-the-wall realism, “Somebody Somewhere” explores grief, loneliness, faith and community. The soulmate friendship between Joel and Sam is the show’s emotional center, and Hiller, who auditioned for the role while he was making ends meet through cater-waiter gigs and temp jobs, brings what could have been a one-note gay sidekick to vibrant, three-dimensional life.

It helped that he understood who Joel was from the moment he read the first script, written by series co-creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen. “In the pilot, he talks about how he goes to church, and he’s also clearly gay,” said Hiller, 49. “And I thought, Oh my God. Because it takes a lot of nuance to discuss that and show that. In popular culture, gay and the church, they don’t mix. But when you are in the Midwest, you see lots of queer folks who find community in the church. I grew up in the church and I knew a lot of queer folks who found community (there). So I thought that was amazing.”

The similarities between actor and character didn’t end there: Like Joel, Hiller had a vision board featuring a Vitamix, got stress rashes as a kid and drove a Buick LeSabre in his 20s. The part was not written specifically for him, but as the cast settled into their roles, Bos and Thureen encouraged improvisation “just to make it more authentic and more real,” Hiller said. “And I really found freedom in that. After Season 1, they were all like, ‘the Joel giggle!’ And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? The Joel…?’ And then I was like, ‘I think that’s just me.’” The distinctive giggle then rippled out of him like sonic ribbon candy.

What makes the surprise Emmy nomination even sweeter is that it came while Hiller was promoting his memoir, “Actress of a Certain Age,” an upbeat, witty read that chronicles the bullying he endured as a kid in San Antonio, Texas; his mother’s unconditional support; his stint as a social worker in Colorado; his discovery of improv at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade; and his two-decade struggle to be a working actor. He talks about the joy of making “Somebody Somewhere” and how the series helped him land bigger parts, including the “gay serial killer” he played in the 2022 season of Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story.” As does “Somebody Somewhere,” the book leans into the importance of not giving up on yourself.

“When I turned 40, I did have this moment where I was like, ‘I need to go to grad school. I need to do something,’ because I gave up hope of becoming an actor,” he said. “I mean, I was working, like, two days a year on acting. It was embarrassing. I was afraid that it would be pitiful if I was middle-aged and still following my dream. And so when I wrote the book, I wanted to say…” He stops as his voice shakes and his eyes well up. “It’s not pitiful to believe in yourself. I think I did still have hope and I was embarrassed to still have that hope. But I stuck with it. And I’m glad I did.” Then comes the trademark self-deprecation: “It feels a little selfish. I used to be a social worker taking care of people who were experiencing homelessness. And now I’m like, ‘How’s my hair?’”

Still, for the first time since “Somebody Somewhere” ended after last year’s Season 3, Hiller has been allowing himself to feel more than a little optimistic about what’s ahead. There’s the supporting role in the series shooting in Boston that he can’t talk about in detail yet, and he’s pitching shows that he’s written. He’d love to go back to Broadway, where he appeared in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” 15 years ago — but “in a play, not a musical,” he said, “because musicals are hard. It’s the dancing. I’m too old!”

He is looking forward to attending the Emmys in September with his husband, visual artist Neil Goldberg, as well as Everett, Bos and Thureen, who were nominated for writing. He would love to meet Pedro Pascal and RuPaul there. And his formalwear? “You know, I’m a bit of a fashion plate,” he said jokingly. “I do like dressing up, so I want to wear something just shy of ridiculous. Nobody’s going to look at me and be like, ‘Who’s that straight person?’ They’re gonna be like, ‘Wow, that homosexual is walking the carpet.’” He flashes the wide, warm smile that helped make Joel such a beloved character. “I want that.”

This story first ran in the Down to the Wire Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.

The post ‘Somebody Somewhere’ Star Jeff Hiller Is Still Getting Used to Being an Emmy Nominee: ‘I Mean, It’s Bonkers’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Past recipients of SFIFF’s Lifetime Achievement Award include Tantoo Cardinal, Bryan Cranston, Catherine Hardwick, Sterlin Harjo, Shirley MacLaine, Godfrey Reggio, Jay Roach, Gena Rowlands, John Sayles and Oliver Stone.

“Beyond the screen, Olmos has been a relentless advocate for underrepresented voices,” SFIFF organizers said in a statement. “As a co-founder of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, Latino Film Institute and Latino Public Broadcasting, he has helped shape the cultural landscape for future generations.”

Olmos began his career as a stage actor, with one of his first significant roles being that of El Pachuco in the play “Zoot Suit,” a fictionalized retelling of the Zoot Suit Riots and Sleepy Lagoon murder trial written by Luis Valdez. This role earned Olmos a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. Olmos later broke out onto the screen by appearing in the film adaptation of “Zoot Suit,” written and directed by Valdez, in 1981.

The following year, Olmos went on to appear in Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir “Blade Runner,” portraying Officer Gaff alongside Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard. Olmos later appeared as Gaff in “Blade Runner 2049.”

1984 saw Olmos appear for the first time in the series “Miami Vice,” with his character Lt. Martin Castillo eventually featuring in more than 100 episodes. In 1985, Olmos won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the role.

1988 saw Olmos pick up his first and only Academy Award nomination — Best Actor in the Jaime Escalante biopic “Stand and Deliver.” Olmos likewise received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor (Motion Picture Drama) for the role, and won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.

One of Olmos’ most notable roles came in the early 2000s, when he portrayed Commander William Adama in “Battlestar Galactica.” Olmos starred in the series, appearing in all of its four seasons and directing four episodes of the show.

“Known for a myriad of roles and an ability to inspire countless audiences, Edward James Olmos has demonstrated through his exceptional career an aptitude in many aspects of cinema, from sci-fi to Latino Film to animation,” said Liesette Bailey, Executive Director of SFIFF, in a statement. “We’re thrilled to honor an actor and director who is not only known for his enduring performances, but also for being a leader in so many different types of film.”

SFIFF 2025 will run from Oct. 15 to Oct. 20. The festival will present Olmos with the Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday, Oct. 18, at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

The post Edward James Olmos to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at Santa Fe International Film Festival appeared first on TheWrap.

Going against “The Daily Show,” “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “Saturday Night Live” is the Season 17 “Drag Race” episode “RDR Live” — which just happened to be an improv-comedy challenge/”SNL” send-up.

“There’s an aspect that’s just very over-the-top, a lot of innuendo, a lot of
humor that’s exaggerated. I think the writers have a lot of fun with that,” production designer Jen Chu told TheWrap of parodying the NBC late-night staple. “There aren’t a lot of [‘Drag Race’] episodes where you get to do four or five sets within one episode. Usually it’s just one stand-alone set, so as a designer, it’s fun to get a script that has a lot of components. We get to do some heavy set decorating, we get to do some scenery construction and we have to turn it over really fast.”

How fast? “Sometimes they’re like, ‘How much turnover time do you need? Thirty minutes? Can you do it in five?’” Chu said. “It’s not quite as fast-paced as ‘Saturday Night Live.’ But even though we’re not on live, we’re still always really challenging ourselves to make the shoot day similar to live TV.”

The nominated episode featured four different sets. In addition to the
Tickled Pink runway on the mainstage, there was the Beaverologist Podcast,
Emergency Room (featuring “Hacks’” Paul W. Downs as a hospital doctor),
Neanderthal Town Hall and the Queen News Network, an obvious wink to
“SNL’s” Weekend Update. The latter is a perfect example of the way “Drag Race”
allows Chu to poke loving fun at pop culture through the drag lens.

“I love that it’s loose and a little bit improvised. And I like that it’s a contemporary approach to referencing pop culture itself, which is really fun,” she said.

“Sometimes I think the fans might be even more in tune with the references
than I am, because I’m constantly expanding my drag-reference vocabulary,” Chu added. “There are so many layers to drag references, and they date back so
many decades — just very, very obscure, old but iconic moments in pop culture.”

As a child of immigrants, she was the first person in her family to watch much
American TV. “I have a very deep education and I studied design extensively,
but I haven’t necessarily studied sketch comedy as much. It’s my job to just keep
up with what’s considered to be iconic or important or recognizable within the
culture, and it is very broad.”

Chu came to “Drag Race” three seasons ago after a career that included the reality shows “Project Runway” and “Real Life: The Musical.” She feels lucky that she joined the show at a time when it was reworking its mainstage. “They had
to get some new gear, which gave us the opportunity to redesign it. We felt
like screens would give us a little bit more flexibility, so I got to do some pretty
major facelifts with them.”

The biggest change for Season 17, though, came in the form of the Badonka
Dunk Tank. For this twist, two eliminated queens would be able to remain in
the competition if they randomly pulled a correct lever that dropped RuPaul’s
best friend, Michelle Visage, into a tank of lukewarm water.

“There happened to be a dunk tank that was pretty famously on Nickelodeon and also on the ‘Ellen’ show. We were like, ‘OK, how can we take that framework and make it draggy?’ So we rented the apparatus and made it our own by giving it a little bit of an illuminated proscenium and whatnot. Our lighting department lit it up from within to be really beautiful, and I think it actually exceeded everybody’s
expectations and it was one of our favorite parts of the season.”

“That’s why I love working in L.A.,” Chu noted. “If you’re like, ‘I need a dunk
tank that can hold 65,000 gallons of water and it has to be really deep and
strong and you have to be able to heat the water,’ you can just call around and
somebody’s like, ‘I got a friend who’s got a friend who’s got a friend who’s got a
friend who has that tank.’ It’s all just part of the challenge.”

“Obviously, in drag, there’s so much improvising and so much creativity and so much turning one thing into another thing, so we definitely are doing that behind the scenes just as much as they’re doing it in front of the camera,” she concluded.

This story first ran in the Down to the Wire Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the Down to the Wire Comedy issue here.

The post ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Production Design Team Does Just as Much Improv Behind the Scenes as the Queens Do on Camera appeared first on TheWrap.

“It’s hard to actually portray how complicated it is on television,” director of photography Joshua Gitersonke told TheWrap of the long-running reality series, whose recently aired Season 37 has been nominated for six Emmys. “The show is based on the relationships, how hard it is for the contestants to get from place to place and do the events and deal with other teams. But it doesn’t really show that the camera and sound teams are doing basically everything that the contestants are doing while also shooting a television show, making sure that they don’t get run over by a taxi or run over by a bus in a random country, keeping themselves safe as they run through a city.”

Quite deliberately, camera crews are rotated amongst the contestants as they travel across the globe as their numbers are narrowed down from 14 two-person teams to one winning pair.

“Every episode, the teams will have a new camera and sound team,” Gitersonke said. “It’s only toward the end of the race, where once they’ve gone through all of the camera people, that they will again see a crew that they’ve run with. I do my best to make it as fair as possible. You’d be amazed to see how, in real life, what the camera and sound people are doing — they’re running with 50 pounds of gear, split between the camera and sound person.”

Gitersonke, who joined the CBS reality series as a camera operator in 2010’s
Season 17, has served as DP since Season 30. “I know exactly what everybody’s
going through,” he said. “While it’s an amazing, visceral experience, it’s still a
pretty difficult one. The people working on the show are like very high-level athletes as well as great cinematographers, because you have to be both to follow a real race around the world, up hills and down hills, through cities. The show has
complete trust, since the cinematographers are following, essentially, by them-
selves from place to place. The show transforms from a single-camera, documen-
tary-style show to a multi-cam show minute by minute. Wherever they’re going,
everybody has to be really good at knowing when other people are around.”

One constant in the operators’ tool bag is the show’s classic zoom-in shot that
occurs when a team makes a costly error along the way, and the camera points
out their mistake without alerting the contestants. “We are pretty good about
panning to things when they’re not paying attention,” Gitersonke said. “You
only have limited time to get the mistake or shoot them running by something
and then also panning up to the sign that says they should have run the other
way. I don’t believe I’ve ever known any contestant who really paid attention to
the camera people. They are in blinders, they don’t pay attention to what we’re
doing most of the time, but everybody does try to time those things so that
they’re not telegraphing what the contestants need to do.”

For Season 37, the 14 teams raced more than 29,000 miles through 10 countries across three continents, careful to follow each country’s laws and customs. “All of the crews work on the idea of respecting the country we’re in,” Gitersonke said. “Most of us wear lightweight pants and shirts with sleeves, so we’re not running around with shorts and a T-shirt if the event happens in a mosque or a church or a federal building or something like that. Everybody looks respectable.”

And after working on “TAR” for 15 years, the DP admitted it’s impossible to
pick a favorite locale. “With ‘The Amazing Race,’ you could be in the most innocuous country and end up seeing the most interesting thing,” he said. “We go to places where a regular vacation wouldn’t take you, or where you wouldn’t go if
you were a tourist. I always tell the contestants that it’s the best vacation you
can’t pay for.”

This story first ran in the Down to the Wire Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the Down to the Wire Comedy issue here.

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