Candice Frederick

We are in a golden age of acting — make that platinum — as we realized when we decided to select our favorite film performers of the past 20 years. There’s no formula for choosing the best (just squabbling), and this list is both necessarily subjective and possibly scandalous in its omissions. Some of these performers are new to the scene; others have been around for decades. In making our choices, we have focused on this century and looked beyond Hollywood. And while there are certainly star...

It’s a wonder how Kiera Allen has any time on her hands. She’s currently studying creative writing at Columbia University and taking a whopping six classes — all via Zoom, of course. On top of that, she anchors the buzzy Hulu thriller, Run, with a debut feature performance alongside Sarah Paulson, who plays her mother, Diane. Oh, and she’s the first wheelchair user to star in a major thriller in over 70 years, so her calendar has been filled with press interviews.
That said, Allen is understa...

In today's era of unnecessary reboots, Hollywood has taken a special interest in trying to redo — or perhaps more awkwardly, replace — less socially aware series with a younger, more inclusive cast and politically correct narratives. Sometimes it works very well and insightfully like on One Day at a Time or Party of Five, or even the upcoming Animaniacs. Then other times, it's Saved by the Bell.
That's because much of its original characters — Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkeley), Kelly Kapowski...

The Academy is constantly telling on itself. There’s an illusion that it’s inching toward closing the gap between inclusion and meritocracy, with Oscar wins for the likes of Parasite, Black Panther, and Roma. Recently, the Academy implemented a new diversity initiative, taking effect in 2024, mandating that any Best Picture nominee check off certain boxes complying with representation standards based on race, gender, sexuality, sexual identity, and/or ability. But if films that do are already...

It’s fitting that La La Anthony is in motion when she hops on the phone with me in late October. She’s The New York Times bestselling author of The Love Playbook and mom to a 13-year-old son, Kiyan (with Carmelo Anthony), and is in high demand in Hollywood, in spite of pandemic slowdowns. She’s currently starring on Showtime’s The Chi, and is working on an upcoming series inspired by Cyntoia Brown Long’s devastating story. When we speak, she’s only just touched ground in her native New York a...

We’ve spent most of the year barely hanging on to our sanity and sense of hope in the midst of a pandemic and *gestures vaguely* the general state of the world. But if we’ve learned anything about this moment, it’s that movies are still thriving against seemingly insurmountable challenges.
As we struggle to cope with our individual loneliness, the greatest contributions this year have helped us to access our lack of connection, understanding our own history and how we relate to each other. Fr...

When it comes to combating the horror that has been 2020, Marin Ireland seems to be managing surprisingly well. With Broadway dark until May 2021 due to the pandemic, the stage and screen actress, who in 2009 earned a Tony Award nomination for her performance in reasons to be pretty, created an online theater space where thespians could meet remotely and continue to exercise their chops. “I've been very busy with theater!” she laughed on a WhatsApp call from Canada, where she’s filming her ne...

It’s nearing the end of an unusual October in New York, where the temperatures are still in the 60s and there are far fewer people in the streets due to quarantine. But for Kindred star Tamara Lawrance, things are starting to look a little more normal. She’s in Morocco, where production on her next film has finally resumed after being delayed in the wake of Covid-19. It’s around 90 degrees there and even I can hear the warm breeze cutting through our Zoom session. “There are worse places to b...

Clifford Prince King for The New York Times
Tony Todd, the veteran horror star, has found himself in an unusual state: He’s scared. But not of what comes after you say “Candyman” five times in the mirror or of the frights in his myriad other films, like “Final Destination,” that keep his fans up at night. He’s afraid for the fate of live performance amid the pandemic. “Opera, dance, ballet, museums, everything,” Todd said on a phone call from his Los Angeles home, where he’s been quarantined....

Spoilers for The Haunting of Bly Manor below.
On the surface, love stories and ghost stories are nothing alike. But when you think about it, both explore passionate, overwhelming desires to connect (or reconnect) with someone. One involves two people existing within the same reality, while in the other, the spirit of a person struggles with feelings that can be just as inexplicable and precious. As Jamie (Carla Gugino), a woman pining for her long-departed love in The Haunting of Bly Manor, c...

Up until a few weeks ago, writer-director Maïmouna Doucouré was known mostly among those who attended the Sundance Film Festival back in January and were blown away by her debut feature, Cuties. The semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama centers on Amy (Fathia Youssouf), an 11-year-old French immigrant who is newly exploring a kind of feminine freedom and sexuality that are in contrast to her conservative Senegalese upbringing. Seen then only by festival goers, the film received an overwhe...

Nearly 30 years ago, Salma Hayek made the decision to bet on herself. She was at the height of her career in her native Mexico, starring in the wildly successful soap opera Teresa, when she left it all behind to try to make it in Hollywood. It was a move that puzzled fans like comedian Paul Rodriguez, who invited her on his Univision talk show in 1992 to ask why she would take such a risk in an industry notorious for refusing to cast Latina actresses. "I'm going to change it,” she recalls tel...

Genre isn’t exactly known for its fashion. Audiences usually remember the gore, the monsters—both real and metaphorical—or that creepy old house with a horrifying history. But HBO’s Lovecraft Country, which reimagines Jim Crow America through a horror lens, is different. It has all those things and pushes the boundaries of style without tearing us from the narrative. That’s thanks to costume designer Dayna Pink, whose impeccable eye for clothing and reverence for the era slayed showrunner Mis...

While many of us were at a loss after lockdown orders were announced in March due to the pandemic, which triggered furloughs and brought Hollywood to a screeching halt, writer and director Hilary Weisman Graham went into productive mode. She saw how isolation began to change our relationships and mental health, compounded by an already fragile socioeconomic system and an exasperating 24-hour news cycle, and three days later she came up with the remarkable new Netflix series, Social Distance.
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It’s the middle of August, and Radha Blank is down to the wire on post-production of her first feature film, The Forty-Year-Old Version. She has been scrambling to complete the movie over the past six months with her team on lockdown, her editing crew siloed on opposite coasts, the likelihood of any sort of traditional theatrical experience derailed for the foreseeable future by the pandemic. “It’s tough because I have to do tweaks and sound mixes remotely,” Blank tells me from an editing sui...