Category: TV

A new book by Maureen Ryan that seeks to expose “patterns of harassment and bias in Hollywood” takes aim at the writers room of Lost, where executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are accused of maintaining a culture of toxicity on the hit ABC drama.

In an excerpt from Burn It Down, Power, Complicity and A Call For Change in Hollywood (out June 6), Ryan interviews several people from the long-running drama that aired from 2004 to 2010. Those who did speak on the record, including writer Monica Owusu-Breen, recalled an environment rife with bullying and inappropriate comments about race.

“All I wanted to do was write some really cool episodes of a cool show. That was an impossibility on that staff,” said Owusu-Breen, who worked on Lost’s third season. “There was no way to navigate that situation. Part of it was they really didn’t like their characters of color. When you have to go home and cry for an hour before you can see your kids because you have to excise all the stress you’ve been holding in, you’re not going to write anything good after that.”

When asked to respond to the allegations of bullying and racism, Lindelof told Ryan, “My level of fundamental inexperience as a manager and a boss, my role as someone who was supposed to model a climate of creative danger and risk-taking but provide safety and comfort inside of the creative process—I failed in that endeavor.”

Deadline also reached out to Lindelof, who declined further comment. Reps for Cuse did not respond.

Actor Harold Perrineau, who played Michael Dawson, told Ryan he was written off the show in season 2 after expressing concern about his character’s story arc. Perrineau was particularly upset at how Michael seemed not to care about the whereabouts of his son, Walt, after the boy was kidnapped by The Others in season 2.

“I can’t be another person who doesn’t care about missing Black boys, even in the context of fiction, right?” said Perrineau. “This is just furthering the narrative that nobody cares about Black boys, even Black fathers.”

The actor recognized it would be difficult bringing up the issue with Lindelof and Cuse.

“That was the thing that was always tricky. Any time you mention race, everybody gets—their hair gets on fire, and they’re like, ‘I’m not racist!’ ” Perrineau said in the book. “It’s like, ‘Nope. Because I say that I’m Black doesn’t mean I’m calling you a racist. I am talking to you from my perspective. I’m being really clear that I’m not trying to put my trauma on you, but I am trying to talk to you about what I feel. So can we just do that? Can we just have that conversation?’”

Multiple sources told Ryan that when Perrineau’s Lost departure came up, Lindelof said the actor “called me racist, so I fired his ass.”

“Everyone laughed” when Lindelof said that, Owusu-Breen recalled to Ryan. “There was so much shit, and so much racist shit, and then laughter. It was ugly. I was like, ‘I don’t know if they’re perceiving this as a joke or if they mean it.’ But it wasn’t funny. Saying that was horrible.” She began leaving the room when she couldn’t take it anymore: “I’m like, once you’re done talking shit about people of color, I’ll come back.”

When asked about the incident involving Perrineau, Lindelof said, “What can I say? Other than it breaks my heart that that was Harold’s experience.” He didn not recall “ever” saying those words about Perrineau. “And I’ll just cede that the events that you’re describing happened 17 years ago, and I don’t know why anybody would make that up about me.”

Owusu-Breen also recalled how she and her writing partner were tasked with killing off Mr. Eko, who was played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. The actor wanted to leave the show and was ultimately killed by the Smoke Monster in season 3 — though Cuse had allegedly wished out loud for a different ending.

“Carlton said something to the effect of, ‘I want to hang him from the highest tree. God, if we could only cut his dick off and shove it down his throat,’” Owusu-Breen recalled. “At which point I said, ‘You may want to temper the lynching imagery, lest you offend.’ And I was very clearly angry.”

Cuse responded to Ryan by saying “I never, ever made that statement above, and this exchange never happened. To further add to this lie and suggest that someone was fired as a result of a statement that I never made is completely false,” adding that the implication is “completely outrageous.”

You can find the excerpt to the book here.

SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains details from the series finale of HBO‘s Barry.

“Wow.”

Not only is this the title of the Barry series finale, written and directed by co-creator and star, Bill Hader. It’s also, naturally, the sentiment with which we, as an audience, are left.

By the end of the episode, Hader’s hitman-turned-actor is dead, even if he was about to turn himself in to the police, shot in the chest and head by his one-time acting teacher Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler). Also dead is NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan), who’s shot after a stand-off with Fuches (Stephen Root). 

Barry’s acting-class love Sally (Sarah Goldberg) and son John (Zachary Golinger) survive the shoutout at NoHo Hank’s offices, where they were being held captive, after Sally admits to John that both she and Barry are murderers, with Fuches disappearing into the wind. We then move forward in time and find an older John (Jaeden Martell) taking in a school play directed by his mother, who now works as a teacher in a snowy town that isn’t identified by name. After the play ends, she’s asked out by new teacher Robert but quickly rejects him and gets on her way, leaving John to go stay the night at a friend’s. And it’s there that John works up the courage to watch The Mask Collector, a film that casts Cousineau as the villain in Barry’s story, as society now believes him to be, explaining that Cousineau is serving life in prison for murder, and that his father was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery with full honors. 

Speaking with Deadline ahead of the airing of tonight’s finale was Goldberg, who in 2019 scored her first Emmy nomination for her breakout role as Sally. Here, the actress gives her take on the fate of Barry, Sally and John, also touching on an upcoming role on HBO’s Industry and more.

DEADLINE: When did you learn how the events of Barry‘s finale would play out? What was your first impression when you did?

SARAH GOLDBERG: They started writing [the final season] back in 2020 because we were due to go back to Season 3 when the pandemic hit, and when we couldn’t go back to set, the writers went back. So, some of the arc of the season was pitched to me back in 2020, including the time jump, which I loved, because I just felt like, “Oh, that’s going to open us up to so many possibilities.” But Barry’s ultimate death and all of the details of the finale were things that Bill pitched in pieces throughout the season, as we were shooting. Normally for previous seasons, we would get all the scripts before we started shooting, which is a real luxury in TV, to know your whole arc before you start shooting. But for many reasons, including making sure that we didn’t blab about it, we didn’t see that script until quite close to shooting it.

But yeah, there were details. Bill pitched out to me where we were going with the second half fairly early, and that was something that we wanted to do all the way back in Season 1. I’d hoped that we would go really dark with Sally’s storyline, and I was like, “I don’t care what we do. I just want to go full Woman Under the Influence or Opening Night, and do something surprising with her.” So, that direction was always there, but the final details, we found out very late.

I was pleasantly surprised by all of it, but also, everything in the story felt right to me, so it felt like it was ending where it should end. I loved the idea of the film at the end. That just made me laugh, and it felt so true to the tone of the show, and like a callback to previous seasons, as well.

DEADLINE: It is very funny, the kind of Hollywood movie where the actors are completely wrong for the real people they’re portraying, as is the characterization of events…

GOLDBERG: Exactly. And all the tropes and all the things we tried to avoid all these years for Sally, coming through in this Hollywood version, played so brilliantly by Louisa Krause, who I just think is genius. I’ve seen her in lots of plays in New York, and she’s so talented, and it was just so funny.

In terms of Sally’s final moments, I didn’t know anything about those until I read it on the page. And I remember thinking, “Okay, interesting. There’s no big fireworks, no murder scene, no suicide, no big, dramatic event. It’s just a very simple end, driving in the car with a bouquet of sh**ty flowers in the passenger seat. And she’s happy?”

Then, in the shooting of it, it just felt so lovely and so right, and I felt like, here’s this actress we met all these seasons ago who wanted to be a star, who wanted an Oscar, who had this kind of myopic narcissism. And we leave her in a place of, she’s working in a small town, she’s doing a high school production of Our Town. And the joy of that is so real for her that it may as well be an Oscar in that passenger seat, for what those flowers represent. I just loved that. I thought it was so poetic and simple, and yet we still see a glimmer of the old Sally when her son says, “I love you.” And instead of saying, “I love you, too,” she says, “Was it good? It was good, wasn’t it?”

She still needs that external validation. There’s still a callback to the old Sally, somebody who does have that twinkle of narcissism. That piece of her is still alive. The duality in her still exists, it’s just kind of muted. And there’s a real contentment there. I had hope for her, which surprised me. I wasn’t expecting any hope at the end of this show.

DEADLINE: What was discussed as far as that final moment, lingering on her in the car? There is the sense that she maybe has hit on a happy ending of sorts.

GOLDBERG: I felt that she’s in a place where she’s become maybe not a good mother, but maybe a good enough mother, and maybe she’s getting joy out of teaching. She’s turned down a date, so she’s finally out of the cycle of these abusive relationships. I feel like she’s changed and evolved. I don’t know whether she’s arrived to a place where her demons can’t still rear their head, with needing that external validation as an example. But I think that she’s definitely taken a huge leap forward and there’s reason to hope that she’s going to be okay.

DEADLINE: Do you see her fully swearing off of dating?

GOLDBERG: I think so, yeah. I feel sad for Sally. I don’t know that love is something she’s ever even really experienced. Her marriage was loveless and brutal, and her relationship with Barry was so toxic. They each saw what they wanted to see, and then by the time they let those guards down, they were in such a terrible situation, there was no room for love. It was survival. So, I don’t know that she’s ever had a healthy, loving relationship. I think she’s happy now raising her son and teaching these students, and I think that relationships are not on the cards for her.

DEADLINE: It is very fitting to see her come around to teaching, which Cousineau had suggested she explore.

GOLDBERG: It’s great. Definitely, love was not something that was real there either, but I think maybe the closest thing she’s felt to love was her relationship with Cousineau. It was a place where she felt seen, where she felt challenged, where she felt heard. He’s not a licensed therapist, so I’d say it was actually kind of a dangerous dynamic. [Laughs] But I think that she really loved that class, and teaching is something that I don’t think she ever saw…for herself. Certainly, not when she started out in Los Angeles. But I think there’s a contentment that’s come from taking on that role.

DEADLINE: Did you speak with Bill and co-creator Alec Bergabout how things played out prior to the show’s final time jump? How exactly Gene came to take the fall for Barry’s crimes, with Sally getting away scot-free and being able to start over, without looking over her shoulder?

GOLDBERG: We did talk about it briefly, and I’ve been asked about the other time jump as well. And I don’t want to sound like a lazy actor, but we didn’t write their journals for eight years, and go method on it, and figure out all the places that they’d been and things that they’d done. But just in terms of practicalities, I suppose, my big question was around, what did Sally do when she found out Cousineau was in prison for this crime? Because she obviously has such an averse response to it earlier in the episode.

So, we talked about that, that there’s multiple versions, and it would really be up to the audience to decide what they thought was right. But a few things we thought were that she did try to come to his defense and speak up, but she was so far gone at that time, no one took her seriously, which I think is a generous read that I’d like to go with. But the other version is that she was too afraid to come forward in any way because Barry was dead, and John would be left parentless if her crimes came out and she was in any way sent to jail for the man that she killed.

So, there’s different paths there, different story that the audience can fill in. Any way you cut it, Gene went down for the crimes, which is terrible. But I feel like Sally, where she was at, where we left her, and her trying to get Barry to see what was right in the world, I think she would’ve tried. I feel like she would’ve run in a frenzy to the police and maybe came off as just somebody who was hysterical in Los Angeles. But I feel like she would’ve given it a shot, to try to come to his defense.

DEADLINE: This was one of the big questions the episode left me with. She comes off as maybe a bit of a hypocrite after lecturing Barry for taking responsibility for his actions, given that she’s managed to evade doing so for hers. But at the same time, it feels like the show itself doesn’t view her as a bad person at the end of the day, in the way it does Barry.

GOLDBERG: It’s interesting because I’ve always felt that Barry is a morality tale, and the thesis has always been, am I a good person? And ultimately, Barry is not. He has the one moment just before he dies where he is about to do the right thing, and I thought it was such brilliant writing that it gets cut short, that he does have that sudden change of heart, and yet we don’t get to see the follow-through. I think for Sally, it’s interesting. I’ve always said I never wanted her to become the moral barometer on the show by virtue of being the only female series regular. I always wanted to keep her as morally bankrupt as the men on the show, and for her choices to be as ambiguous and self-serving. But I felt like I enjoyed coming to the end of the story and seeing the final pivots, her having these self-realizations in real time, in the face of death.

Ultimately, the scene with her and John, when NoHo has her captive, is the first time in four seasons, essentially, where we’ve seen Sally really drop everything — drop all masks, all performance, and be completely honest, and not in a self-serving way, either. So, I thought it was a beautifully written scene, and a kind of pivotal shift for that character. It’s in the face of death. She thinks that her and John are going to be killed at that poin, and with nothing left to lose, she does drop everything and has a genuine, honest moment. I think in that moment, she has a bunch of realizations in real time, and has a kind of moment where she is stacking up her life choices and going, “Am I a good person?” And ultimately deciding, “I’m not,” but looking at this human that she’s made, that she’s completely ignored and isn’t raising in any real way, and going, “Somehow, despite your two doses of crappy DNA, you’ve turned out okay.”

I think that after that moment, she’s changed. And I don’t think she’s become a saint. I don’t think that she’s necessarily making all the best life choices going forward, but I think that something in her has changed, and for the better. And she is not a bad person at that point. She is making better decisions that are about other humans, including her son.

You know, I didn’t want a bow on it, and our writers would never reduce this show to that, which I’m so grateful for. I didn’t want it to tie up in it in a way that was one thing. Sally’s never been one thing, and I wanted to keep it complex, but at the same time I was delighted that there was some peace for her.

DEADLINE: How did you prepare for that incredible scene where she drops the act and tells her son the whole, ugly truth of her situation?

GOLDBERG: Again, not to sound like a lazy actor, but I didn’t really prepare. I didn’t know how to prepare for that. It’s such a big moment, I felt like I had to take a leap and trust that we would find it on the day. Barry changes tone so much; the tone is very elastic, and within the tone there’s so many pivots. And over the various seasons, there’s been different ways to prep different scenes. Sometimes, it would require serious technical rehearsal, or being backwards-forwards, front to back with your lines. If you were doing a huge speech that’s all tight comedy beats, [there’d be a] precision you’d have to bring to the way you would prepare that. And then in the more dramatic moments of the show, or the more horror thriller moments of the show, it was almost like you couldn’t really prepare.

It sounds kind of cheesy to say, but you had to just be incredibly present, and I feel like with that scene, I liked Bill’s choice of shooting it with my back to the camera to begin with. I think that allowed for a real privacy in the moment…so to be able to be alone in that way to start the scene was really useful for me. Then, as it turned and I was able to look at John and speak just to him, it was really just about being incredibly focused in that moment and really looking at this kid who’s such a great actor and such a present performer, Zach, and just delivering it as simply as possible, just dropping all the performance. I feel like the fun of Sally has always been performances within the performances. She’s performing Shakespeare, or she’s performing some crappy TV script, or she’s performing herself, as an actress in Los Angeles. And to be able to drop all of that, I think the only way to prepare was to not prepare, and get out of my own way to let the story out.

DEADLINE: What was it like having Jaeden Martell come in, just for a couple of scenes, to bring to life an older John?

GOLDBERG: It was great. That’s something that is so good on Barry, where we were able to have so many different people come in and play different roles. And it was important at the end to keep us fresh. On my last day shooting, it was a scene in the snowscape outside the college, and that’s their first day. It’s my last day of Barry and it’s their first day, so you’re sitting at cast chairs just doing the regular chat. “Where are you from? Where do you live? Where’d you go to school?” That was, I think, really helpful in keeping the story alive and fresh, and not letting our nostalgia, as we were finishing the show, take hold and take over.

DEADLINE: Do you think John is going to be okay?

GOLDBERG: Questionable. [Laughs] I love the ambiguity of his response, watching the film. It’s like you’re watching his face move from relief… “Okay, this is the story that the world has about my father, and that’s a relief, to know the world see’s him as a hero, not a bad guy.” And yet you can see…He’s so wonderful; he’s such a brilliant, nuanced actor, you can see in his face he’s not buying it, as well. Obviously, he remembers. Like, “That’s not what happened when we escaped the Chechens.” He can remember what his mother told him, which is that his father was in prison for killing a lot of people. He’s old enough at that age. So I feel like what’s obvious is he’s a decent person — again, despite his DNA. So I hope he’s going to be okay. I feel like if he’s not, he got it honestly. [Laughs] Like, that’s a tough break, having Sally and Barry for parents.

DEADLINE: What do you see as the ultimate takeaway from the way this story ends?

GOLDBERG: Well, I’ve only just seen it myself as well, so I’m still digesting and trying to figure out words to articulate what I feel about that ending. I mean, I thought it was brilliant in that it just feels like such a bleak but humorous commentary on where we are, really, as a society. I feel like there’s the version of events, and then there’s the version that we want to believe, and I just felt like there’s something really twisted about that.

We’re in a world where the internet has become gospel somehow, and yet the technology is so new and our morality hasn’t caught up to the technology. I feel like we’re in a world where show business is changing, and what is presented as fact isn’t always the case. And we have leaders that lie. At least, thank God, [Donald Trump] is not in power anymore. But the world has changed in such an extreme way since we started Barry. We started in 2016, before Trump was elected. The world has changed [with] the pandemic, all of these things. And I feel like satirizing that, but also showing the bleakness of that, I thought it was pretty powerful.

It’s not a happy ending. I know that Sally has something adjacent to a happy ending, but I think that there is a bleakness to the ending, and that is sadly a little bit of a match for some things that are happening in our world. I thought it was pretty moving while being very funny.

DEADLINE: What has this show meant to you, personally and professionally?

GOLDBERG: That’s such a huge question. It’s difficult to even sum up, but personally, it was seven years, so it’s a full life cycle. We’ve become a family, and the friendships that I formed on that show are people I’ll have in my life for the rest of my life. I’m so grateful for that. And professionally it was a wild ride. It’s what you hope for. You read so many terrible scripts, and you audition for them anyway because you need to pay your bills, and then something like this comes along and it’s such a gift. The writing only got better and stronger as the seasons went on, and we made a point of never repeating ourselves, so the challenges within it were so satisfying.

I feel like I really learned to let go, as an actor. I came from a theater background and most of what I would do would be very rehearsed. I always joke that when we started out, I’d come to set having rehearsed in such a meticulous way, and Bill would come to set and he didn’t know his lines. [Laughs] And I’d be like, “Bill, I know you wrote it, but you’ve got to learn your lines or we’re not going to get to scene.” And equally for him with me, he was like, “Don’t worry so much about the lines, or don’t worry about getting it perfect. Just let it go and let’s see what we find.”

So, somewhere, we met in the middle. And I think I learned a lot as a performer. Going back to that scene when you were asking how I prepared, there’s something about trusting yourself that something can happen between action and cut if you’re with the right group of people who are as focused on telling the story as you are. And you can get out of your own way and just have fun with it. I think that was a big adjustment for me, and I hope I can bring it to other jobs. I felt like the freedom we found within the show, because of the trust we had in each other, was pretty profound and unparalleled. I hope I can sustain it. I mean, starting a new job you’re going to get first-day-of-school jitters, of course. But I hope that we can take what we found creatively onto other jobs.

DEADLINE: You’ve already found your next job, joining the cast of Industry for Season 3. What can you tell us about your experience with that show so far?

GOLDBERG: Listen, talk about preparation. That’s a show you’ve got to prep for. [Laughs] I’ve got to say a lot of things about money that I don’t understand, really quickly, and look like I do. So, that is not one you can phone in. It’s great. The character’s called Petra and she couldn’t be more opposite to Sally. Mickey [Down] and Konrad [Kay], the showrunners, are such smart guys, and there’s also a collaborative atmosphere on that set which I love. It’s very cool. It’s shot in a completely different way to Barry. Barry, this season in particular, it had such a cinematic scope, and we’d have these huge wides, or the landscape would be a character in the scene, [with] these locked-off shots and these oners.

On Industry, the camera plays a very voyeuristic role and is kind of roaming with you all the time, and catching things in real time as they happen. So, it’s a very different technical exercise, and it’s really fun. It’s a total change for me, and the cast are just so talented.

I do feel old. [Laughs] I got to be the youngest on Barry, and not on this set.

DEADLINE: What are your goals as you look ahead to the next stages of your career?

GOLDBERG: I’m really hoping to write and create my own work. I feel like one thing that I really learned on Barry was, it can take 10 s**t ideas to get to the 11th one that’s the good one, and you’ve just got to keep throwing muck against the wall and not have an ego about it. It was such a collaborative set and I was given a lot of creative freedom with Sally, which was such a gift, that it gave me a lot of confidence in my own writing. Sally was a brilliant part, and it’s not always the case for women. Things are getting better, but sometimes I look at my inbox and it can be a bleak Tuesday, when you’re looking at another worried wife role where every line she has is a question or a piece of exposition.

So, I feel inspired to write my own material. I’m not really supposed to be promoting Sisters, but I made my own show called Sisters, and I enjoy being on the other side of the camera so much. I love acting, and I’ll hopefully always be able to do that, but it was very fun to explore all the other sides [behind the scenes], and humbling. You just realize how much work goes into it for years, so that you might stand on a little mark and say a few lines. I’ll never approach acting the same way after understanding just how much blood, sweat and tears goes in before and after that moment.

Endeavor President and COO Mark Shapiro said the ultimate resolution of the WGA strike will improve the fortunes of the company’s representation business.

“This is a growth opportunity for us,” Shapiro said during an appearance at a media conference hosted by Wall Street firm JP Morgan. “When this gets settled, however some of these issues get sliced, the writers are going to do better. That’s just a fact. They’re not coming back for lesser deals or the same deals. They’re going to do better economically. And as they do better economically, that plays into the ecosystem. And then we, as a leader in that space, WME, we’ll take our fair share of that ecosystem.”

Shapiro also reiterated points Endeavor execs have made recently about the company’s diversification across fashion, digtial, sports and other areas. TV and film, the company has said, represent about half of core agency revenue.

Endeavor is “in a good place” despite the current production shutdowns during the WGA impasse’s fourth week and soon-to-expire contracts for the DGA and SAG-AFTRA, Shapiro maintained. Compared with 2022, “our back ends are significantly up,” he said, with revenue from residuals “stemming the tide.” Ultimately, Shapiro continued, the strike “is temporary. That’s what this is. Is it two months? Is it three months? I don’t know. Is the debt ceiling going to get figured out before the deadline? These are negotiations that take place, and both sides are really trenched in and there are significant issues, but it’s temporary.”

Recent cutbacks by media companies coping with an advertising slowdown and sluggish economy have amplified the perceived impact of the labor strife, but Shapiro predicted a bounce-back. The strike “happens to be coming at a time of content contraction, so when they get their stuff figured out and streaming gets rolling and content comes back the other way, it’s going to come back in spades,” he said. “Development is still going on right now, and demand for premium content will never, ever die.”

Shapiro, who had a lengthy tenure as an ESPN exec before arriving at Endeavor, also weighed in on sports rights, cord-cutting and ESPN’s deliberations about a more bulked-up direct-to-consumer streaming offering. He said cord-cutting will “normalize” at about 2% a year, meaning that the pay-TV bundle will remain at 50 million to 60 million households in the coming years.

“As the bundle erodes and you have to move more and more customers to streaming, where you have to charge higher prices, which makes it harder to get acquisitions, you are going to need premium content,” he said. “There’s no other way around it.” That means a continued seller’s market in terms of sports rights, Shapiro said. As evidence, he cited NBCUniversal’s decision to spend $110 million for exclusive rights to an upcoming NFL playoff game to stream on Peacock.

Returning to his alma mater, he said, “If ESPN+ wants to go up from 25 million subs to 50 million and charge more than $9.99 a month, it isn’t going to be tertiary or secondary content that moves the needle. It’s going to be the big stalwarts.”

Shapiro conceded a bias in the analysis, of course. Endeavor acquired full control of the UFC two years ago and has announced plans to merge the mixed-martial-arts circuit with the WWE into a new entity in the coming months. As far as the UFC’s rights outlook, he said so far it has worked well to have a single media partner, Disney. The WWE and others have found it productive to combine partners and divvy up rights among multiple media and streaming companies. “Different strokes for different strokes,” Shapiro shrugged.

Channel 4 content boss Ian Katz has criticized broadcasters, including his own, for too often “defaulting” to “clichéd, picture postcard” depictions of the UK.

Following on from the success of Birmingham-based BAFTA-winner Late Night Lycett, Katz told the Wales Screen Summit his team is “thinking hard about the way in which our shows represent different parts of the country, differentiating between representation where place is at the heart of the program and what we call incidental representation.”

“We want both, and we want less of the clichéd, picture postcard representation that all broadcasters including Channel 4 have often been guilty of defaulting too,” he said.

In Late Night Lycett, comedian Joe Lycett, who famously took on David Beckham by pretending to burn £10,000 in protest at the footballer’s Qatar World Cup partnership, has “done more to change perceptions of Birmingham than anyone beyond [Peaky Blinders] star Cillian Murphy,” added Katz. The show won the BAFTA on Sunday, in what was Channel 4’s record BAFTA haul for 22 years. Katz said the shows that had won “would not have been made by any other streamer or broadcaster.”

Speaking from Cardiff, Katz said he is now seeking a similar show from Wales, which could do for the nation what Steph’s Packed Lunch has done for Leeds or Scotland: Escape to the Wilderness has done for Scotland.

Katz also revealed that next year’s coverage of the Paris Paralympics will be produced from Wales by established Sony-backed Paralympics producer Whisper, which will see around 200 staff from the region working across the coverage.

EXCLUSIVE: Elvis Presley’s relationship with the women closest to him is to be revealed in an Amazon Prime Video documentary series.

Premiering this week, Elvis’ Women aims to “uncover a man who was much more complex than the public perception of the titular American icon,” according to the show’s synopsis.

Elvis’ Women goes offstage to reveal more about the King of Rock through the eyes of the women whose love for the man endures: his nurse, his fiancé, his live-in girlfriends, his many dalliances and fans.

Episode one sees his rise to fame in the 1950s recounted by the various women he dated at the time while revealing a mama’s boy who never recovered from his mother’s sudden death, while the second instalment follows the ups-and-downs of his relationship with Priscilla Beaulieu and Ann-Margret. Episode three charts his post-Priscilla search for true love in the 1970s, towards the end of his life.

The show will be available on Prime Video in the UK and other European territories this week and is also streaming on RTL+ in Germany. It is produced by UK indie Renowned Films, which also makes the likes of Discovery+’s Ice Cold Catch and BBC Three’s The Drop.

In the UK, Prime Video has been on a documentary drive of late, ordering shows on maverick reporter the Fake Sheikh and The Greatest Show Never Made, along with several true crime offerings.

The show comes off the back of Baz Luhrmann biopic Elvis, which was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Actor and Best Picture.

Telly, a startup led by a co-founder of Pluto TV, is taking a novel tack in promoting its dual-screen smart TV sets.

After emerging from a 24-month stealth period, the company says it will offer its first 500,000 mass-produced models for free to consumers when they start shipping this summer. Ilya Pozin, founder and CEO of Telly, told Deadline in an interview that the 55-inch sets, which have 4K HDR picture quality and a built-in premium sound bar, would retail for more than $1,000.

Telly says it is bringing to market the first dual-screen smart TV. Below the main panel, a smaller screen is a conduit for sports scores, news, weather, display ads and other supplemental information. The bottom screen can also go dark, for example when a movie is playing on the bigger screen.

The free giveaway is an effort to upend the prevailing business model in streaming and have advertising more completely fund the device itself. “TVs have become a commodity,” Pozin said. “When a category becomes a commodity, what happens? It’s a race to the bottom on price. There’s very little margin to be made on the hardware.” Over time, he went on, smart TVs became “drastically under-powered. They’re the largest screen in our home, but they are as dumb as an ATM machine.” Instead of setting out to make a bargain-priced TV, Telly has targeted the higher end of the market. After the rollout of the 55-inch set, larger sizes are expected to follow.

Investors in Telly, which launched two years ago, include LightShed Partners and Vayner Media, and Ryan Reynolds-backed connected-TV ad firm MNTN has formed a partnership with the company. Principals have not said exactly how much money they have raised, though they say Telly’s post-raise valuation will be in the nine-figure range. The hope is to emulate the trajectory of Pluto, which Pozin founded with Tom Ryan in 2013 and sold to Viacom six years later for $340 million. While the acquisition price seemed hefty at the time, it has turned into a steal as Pluto has become a multi-billion-dollar pillar of Paramount Global’s streaming portfolio, which is now overseen by Ryan.

Mindful of the challenging economics in the hardware business, smart-TV players like Samsung, Vizio and LG have pivoted toward free, ad supported streaming television [FAST]. Telly’s strategy differs from theirs in that it is not promoting its own streaming ecosystem. Instead, it is meant to be a living-room hub for thousands of apps — video streaming, of course, but also videoconferencing, music, fitness, gaming and other categories. A video chat feature enables the lower screen to gather a group of friends or family and synchronize their collective viewing of a game, event or movie on the main screen.

Numerous times during a 30-minute demo offered to Deadline in New York, Pozin referenced the iPhone, saying Telly’s goal was to be as disruptive to the streaming marketplace as Apple’s device was when it was first introduced. Once-essential items like digital cameras, GPS devices and others were instantly made obsolete. Instead of fiddling with their phones, Telly believes, viewers will be able to access an array of supplemental information without turning their focus to another screen. That extra degree of attention is worth a lot to advertisers in the fast-growing but distinctly fragmented streaming ad sector.

Of course, there will be tradeoffs made by those signing up for a free Telly in terms of agreeing to surrender certain data, but Pozin said the company has made an effort to prioritize consumer privacy. The smart-TV sector has seen other violations over the years Vizio in 2017 was fined $2.2 million after federal regulators found the company’s data practices were deceptive. TV data firm Alphonso also was reported to be accessing viewers’ audio inputs without sufficient disclosure.

“Everything is very transparent with our consumers,” Pozin said of Telly. “Everything is opt-in. We don’t bury things in long terms-of-service agreements. You know exactly what you’re getting into. We stay above-board.”

Any cable or satellite TV input can be connected to Telly via its three HDMI ports. The set ships with a 4K Android TV streaming stick. Users can also plug in a connected device from Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV or other providers (another point of difference with existing smart TV makers, who are focused on keeping viewers within their operating system).

“While everyone talks about smart TVs, the reality is that TVs have not changed dramatically over the past couple of decades and the dream of truly interactive TV has never materialized,” said Richard Greenfield, general partner at LightShed and a veteran media analyst. “Telly is a huge leap forward, leveraging the explosion of the connected TV ad market and the desire from consumers for greater control and interactivity that does not disrupt the TV viewing experience.”

Vayner Media CEO Gary Vaynerchuk said he believes Telly will help his firm’s clients “create an entirely new form of brand engagement that is truly valued by their consumers.” Mark Douglas, CEO and founder of MNTN, sounded a similar note. “Brands will be able to seriously level up their performance marketing strategy — right there on the biggest screen in the house,” he said.

Hollywood’s Covid-19 protocols, which added hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of making movies and TV shows over the course of the pandemic, officially end today, concurrent with the date the federal government has identified as the expiration of the Coronavirus public health emergency. 

The final dollar cost of the protocols may never be known, but the latest annual reports from the California Film Commision offer a glimpse of the magnitude. In California alone, the 92 feature films and seven TV series that received the state’s tax incentives over the past two fiscal years are estimated to have racked up a whopping $223.5 million in Covid-related costs, which in turn were covered by the state’s tax credit program.

The California Film Commission’s 2021 annual report called the raw numbers “startling.”

And that’s just in California, and only for projects that received the state’s tax credits, which also cover Covid-related costs. The vast majority of films and TV shows shot in the state, however, don’t receive the tax credits, and they’re also bound by the Covid protocols.

SAG-AFTRA and the Joint Policy Committee of the advertising industry, meanwhile, will also end their Covid safety protocols for commercial productions effective today. There are no figures currently available about the overall cost of those protocols, but it’s substantial, and they are not eligible for tax California’s tax credits.

First enacted in September 2020 per a return-to-work agreement between Hollywood’s unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the protocols protected the lives and livelihoods of thousands of industry workers while allowing production to safely resume after a three-month shutdown in the early days of the pandemic, which officially began in March 2020.

Since then, Covid-19 has killed more than a million Americans, and according to the Center for Disease Control, was the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S last year.

Hollywood’s unions showed remarkable solidarity in negotiating the protocols with management. Unions signing on to begin and end the protocols included the DGA, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399, IBEW Local 40, Laborers Local 724, Plasterers and Cement Masons Local 755, and Plumbers Local 78. The WGA was the only guild not directly involved.

The unions have long maintained that safety is the first and foremost the responsibility of the employers, who along with taxpayers, footed the bill for the protocols.

The California Film Commission’s latest data, seen here exclusively, show that for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022, producers of 42 feature films that received tax credits were expected to spend $91.5 million on Covid-related costs, while producers of seven incentivized TV series were expected to spend another $42 million. The year before, producers of 50 incentivized projects were expected to have spent $90 million on Covid-related costs, for a grand total of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars over two years.

The Film Commission estimated that in 2021, feature films with budgets greater than $20 million that had qualified for the state’s tax incentives program would spend between 5% and 6.5% of their total budgets on Covid-related costs, while low-budget films and television series would spend about 4.25% of their total budgets on Covid-related costs.

Last year, the percentage was slightly higher for mid-range budget movies (5.8% of the total budget) and slightly lower for low-budget independent movies (3.8% of the total budget). “In terms of raw numbers,” the Commission says, “films with budgets over $60 million planned to allocate an average of $5.6 million to Covid compliance. Films with budgets between $15 million and $60 million planned an average of $1.5 million. Low-budget independent films planned around $220,000. Estimated spending for the seven television series mirrored feature films, with an average of 5.35% of total budget.”

A company source said that on some productions, Covid-related costs ran up to 20% or even 30% of the budget, especially if traveling was involved, and in the early days, quarantining. 

Film and TV projects shot in New York, Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona, and elsewhere in the country were also subject to the industry’s return-to-work protocols, and their Covid-related costs could run to over a hundred million dollars as well.

So where did all that money go?

The California Film Commission, which allowed all Covid-related expenditures in the state to qualify for tax credits, says that “project budgets submitted for review in the tax credit program indicate that approximately 40% of Covid expenditures go to labor costs and 60% go to materials.

“Covid departments typically range from two or three people on lower budget projects and up to as many as 15 people on large crews with multiple units. Labor positions include Covid supervisor, Covid coordinator, Covid protocol compliance managers, set sanitation production assistants, Covid testers, Covid medical personnel, and additional drivers and locations assistants to help maintain social distancing.

“Materials include tests, sanitation stations, face shields, PPE masks, outside testing contractors and medical personnel, additional vehicles, and stipends paid to crew to quarantine or work remotely.”

The protocol’s vaccination mandates, which were added to the protocols in July 2021, were far and away the most controversial of the rules, giving producers “the option to implement mandatory vaccination policies for casts and crew in Zone A on a production-by-production basis.” Zone A, where unmasked actors work, was the most restrictive of the safe work zones on sets.

Opponents of the mandates, including SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, argued that they discriminated against those who refused to be vaccinated.

The mandates were “subject to reasonable accommodations as required by law for individuals who cannot be vaccinated due to disability or a sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance.” But vaccination-mandate opponents argued that those exceptions were too rarely honored.

Those mandates are also ending except on projects in production as of today that had already established a mandatory vaccination policy in Zone A. In those cases, the mandate may continue for the duration of the production.

And beginning tomorrow and effective through July 31, performers working in scenes that require close or intimate contact or extreme exertion can still request Covid antigen self-administered testing for themselves and other performers with whom they will be working in those scenes.

Covid testing also ends today, although SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP have reached an agreement on continued testing through July 31, during which time performers and background actors working in scenes involving close or intimate contact or extreme exertion will have the right to request Covid antigen self-administered testing of themselves and other performers and background actors with whom they will be working in close or intimate contact.

Can I get an amen? Season 3 of “The Righteous Gemstones” will arrive on June 18 at 10 PM on HBO, with streaming on Max.

Created, written, and executive produced by Danny McBride (HBO’s “Vice Principals” and “Eastbound & Down”), the first two episodes of the nine-episode third season will kick off the new season.

The series tells the story of a world-famous televangelist family with a long tradition of deviance, greed, and charitable work. When the spoiled Gemstone children finally get their wish to take control of the Church, they discover leadership is harder than they imagined, and that their extravagant lifestyle comes with a heavy price.

“The Righteous Gemstones” is directed and executive produced by Danny McBride, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green; executive produced by John Carcieri, Jeff Fradley and Brandon James; co-executive produced by Jonathan Watson; produced by David Brightbill; consulting produced by Kevin Barnett, Edi Patterson and Chris Pappas.

Michael J. Fox may be the only man on earth who doesn’t remember Susanna Hoffs.

Fox made the revelation Friday during an interview to promote his new Apple TV+ documentary, Still. The story focuses on his life and current battle with Parkinson’s disease.

“When I look at that period in the [documentary] it just seems crazy,” Fox told The Sunday Times. “Look at all the girls I dated. Some of them I can’t even remember. I mean, I dated Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles, and I can’t even remember it. But that’s just an example. Stuff like that happened all the time.”

The Back to the Future and Teen Wolf star briefly dated Hoffs in 1986. She went on to marry Austin Powers director Jay Roach and Fox married his “Family Ties” costar Tracy Pollan.

Recently, Fox allowed that too much partying may have played a role in his Parkinson’s disease.

“I mean, there’s so many ways that you can … that I could’ve hurt myself,”  Fox said in a “CBS on Sunday” interview with Jane Pauley. “I could’ve hit my head. I could’ve drank too much at a certain developmental period.”

Parkinson’s is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s, according to the CDC. Memory loss is considered to be a symptom.

Doctor Who has added Jonathan Groff to its growing cast list.

The Frozen and Glee actor will join BBC and Disney+’s iconic sci-fi drama in a “mysterious guest” as filming continues in Wales.

The BBC declined to offer further detail, but did say that Groff would “jump aboard the TARDIS,” suggesting his character could become an ally of the Doctor.

Showrunner Russell T Davies said: “This is an incredible coup, and a great honour, to get such a huge star striding on to our set. So strap on your space boots, this is going to be a blast!”

Doctor Who is getting a major makeover for Season 14, with Ncuti Gatwa stepping into the shoes of the famous Time Lord. His first episode will land over the Christmas holidays.

Millie Gibson has been cast as the Doctor’s companion, while Heartstopper breakout Yasmin Finney has joined the show as Rose. RuPaul’s Drag Race star Jinkx Monsoon also has a major role.

Jock Zonfrillo, the MasterChef Australia judge and award-winning Scottish chef, has died unexpectedly aged 46.

His family confirmed he passed yesterday in a statement: “With completely shattered hearts and without knowing how we can possibly move through life without him, we are devastated to share that Jock passed away yesterday.

“So many words can describe him, so many stories can be told, but at this time we’re too overwhelmed to put them into words. For those who crossed his path, became his mate, or were lucky enough to be in his family, keep this proud Scot in your hearts when you next have a whisky.”

A new season of MasterChef Australia was due to air this week, but has been postponed.

In a statement, Network 10 and Endemol Shine Australia said: “Network 10 and Endemol Shine Australia are deeply shocked and saddened at the sudden loss of Jock Zonfrillo, a beloved member of the MasterChef Australia family. Jock passed away in Melbourne yesterday. MasterChef Australia will not air this week.”

Zonfrillo joined the MasterChef team as a judge alongside former winner and chef Andy Allen and food critic Melissa Long in 2019 after the exits of Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston. While some were concerned the changes would impact ratings, the show has continued to be one of Australia’s top performing reality competitions and sells internationally.

The restauranteur was born in Glasgow, Scotland, as Barry Zonfrillo. By 15, he had an apprenticeship in the kitchens of The Tunberry Hotel before working under Marco-Pierre White. He was named head chef at The Tresanston aged 22 in the UK before moving to lead the kitchen at Restaurant 41 in Sydney, Australia, where has previously spent a year working. He opened two restaurants of his own in 2013, one of which, Orana, was named Australia’s Restaurant of the Year by two publications, in 2018 and 2019. Zonfrillo was named Hottest Chef in Australia in 2018 by The Australian newspaper.

Despite his success, Zonfrillo was forced to put both of his restaurants, Orana and Bistro Blackwood, into administration over unpaid debts. In 2002, he deliberately set fire to an apprentice chef, Martin Krammer, who had been worked slowly. He claimed it was a practical joke that went wrong but a judge awarded damages of A$75,000 ($50,000). Zonfrillo declared bankruptcy in 2007 after Krammer issued a creditors’ petition.

He released a memoir, Last Shot in 2021. Former mentor White claimed “almost everything” Zonfrillo had written about him was “untrue,” but Zonfrillo defended the chapters, saying, “This is the story of my life.”

Zonfrillo is survived by wife Lauren Fried and four children.

Hank Azaria has previously expressed his regret for playing the character Apu in The Simpsons, with a stereotypical Indian accent. 

Now he has revealed that he was “afraid” to appear in the 2017 documentary The Trouble With Apu, where Indian comedian Harry Kondabolu called out all the problems with the depiction, including the real life mockery of Indian people it had helped perpetuate. 

“I was really freaked out,” Azaria revealed on the NPR podcast Code Switch, which also had Kondabolu as a guest, explaining why he turned down the offer to appear in the doc. “I don’t know if I would have felt safe to have the conversation privately, let alone roll them, you know, we’re going to record it.”

Azaria added that he was grateful for the comedian to have brought him to the topic, saying, “I’m so grateful for having – for Hari, you pushing – dragging me and pushing me…into this conversation.”

Kondabulu answered, “It means a lot for you to say that.”

Azaria told the podcast that, while he still found the documentary personally embarrassing, he understood that it was “a drop in the ocean compared to what [Kondabolu] went through.

“Through my role in Apu and what I created in the Hollywood messaging…I helped to create a pretty marginalizing, dehumanizing stereotype.”

Azaria revealed he hadn’t realized how many people took issue with Apu until after watching the doc.

“It’s symbolic of a much larger dynamic. If nothing else, watching the doc, I was like: ‘Oh, I admire all these performers. A character I did – I, like, hindered them? I caused them pain? I actually actively made their path harder? That sucks.’”