Creative Space
‘Property Brothers’ Drew and Jonathan Scott on Taking Control — and Taking Sides in the Gas Stove Debate
Drew and Jonathan Scott might be Canada’s most successful double export. Identical twins and serial entrepreneurs, the Scotts have parlayed their original home improvement series, Property Brothers, into an unscripted empire. Since wresting production duties on their flagship, they’ve become a dominant supplier to HGTV — accounting for roughly 17 percent of original programming at the […]
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Cannes: Plus M Entertainment CEO on Turning the Family Firm Into a Korean Content Powerhouse
South Korean executive Jeongin Hong never planned to become a movie mogul. After studying economics at Princeton and putting in distinguished stints in private equity at Boston Consulting and Goldman Sachs (“I’m a science and economics guy,” he says), he was lured back to the family business in 2015. His family’s firm happens to be JoongAng Group, arguably […]
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How Actor and Writer Kelvin Yu Redirected His “Flawed” Hollywood Business Model
The beach has always appealed to Kelvin Yu. Having grown up in Palos Verdes before eventually settling in Santa Monica with his wife and two young children, he’s rarely lived far from it. This proximity has allowed him to become a deft surfer, though he’s too modest to call himself one. “I’m not incredibly proficient, […]
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How Ray Romano Liberated Himself From “Sitcom Guy” Status
Eighteen years after Ray Romano’s final curtain call on his loosely autobiographical sitcom, the comedian still dutifully works from an office on the Burbank lot where he filmed eight of Everybody Loves Raymond‘s nine seasons. “When the show ended, Warner Bros. gave me this nice little office,” he says. “Not gave. I do pay rent.” […]
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‘Tiny Beautiful Things” Liz Tigelaar Talks About the Tightrope Walk of TV Adaptations
When writer Liz Tigelaar isn’t on set, in her Fox lot bungalow office or at the Venice home she shares with her wife, their 7-year-old son and two French bulldogs, she occasionally relaxes at (and, yes, works from) one of the tonier trailer parks on the planet: Malibu’s Paradise Cove. That’s where she’s shared a […]
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‘Yellowjackets’ Creators Get Real on Season 2 Pressure, Showtime Tumult and Spinoffs: “We Have a Couple of Ideas”
When Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson first moved to Los Angeles, working as a dog walker and P.F. Chang’s bartender, respectively, the native New Jersey couple liked to splurge on dinner and drinks at Tam O’Shanter — the 100-year-old Scottish house of prime rib in Atwater Village. These days, however, it’s where they go to […]
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‘John Wick’ Filmmaker Chad Stahelski Talks Sequels, Oscar Stunt Snubs and Why Guns Still Show Up on Sets
Few, if any, stunt doubles go on to direct their A-list counterparts in a string of blockbusters, but that’s been the curious trajectory of Chad Stahelski. The exceptionally fit filmmaker, who stood in for Keanu Reeves in the first Matrix movie before becoming the trilogy’s martial arts coordinator, has now collaborated with the star for […]
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Ike Barinholtz on Having “7 Side Hustles” and the Truth About Cancel Culture
“Make sure you put the things that will get me canceled right up in the headline,” Ike Barinholtz jokes in early February as I leave the Los Angeles home he shares with his wife and three daughters. We’ve just spent the past hour-plus talking about everything from casting to cancel culture in the guest house […]
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‘Your Place or Mine’ Filmmaker Talks Rom-Com Must-Haves: Chemistry and Star Power
Soon after wrapping four seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the cult CW musical that saw her segue from screenwriter to showrunner, Aline Brosh McKenna decided to revisit her past before turning her attention to the future. She rented the garden apartment in the same Larchmont-adjacent duplex she and her now-husband shared during the mid-’90s, not too […]
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Howard Gordon on Fox Panic Over New Show ‘Accused,’ Making More ‘24’ and Being “A Writer of a Certain Age”
Howard Gordon has spent much of the pandemic consumed by his latest thriller, an anthology series titled Accused. The weekly collection of topical stories, where viewers come in knowing nothing about the featured crime or how the defendant ended up on trial, has him back at Fox — home to his earlier entries The X-Files […]
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Octavia Spencer on Knowing Her Worth and ‘Truth Be Told’ Season 3
An Oscar-winning actress with a perennially full plate, Octavia Spencer has earned the right to be jaded. But after more than two decades in the business, Spencer remains unabashedly enthusiastic about her job and, more telling, the work of her peers. “This is not something to be taken for granted,” she says in late December, […]
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‘Friday Night Lights’ Director Peter Berg on the Power of Football and His Long-Simmering Rihanna Doc
Peter Berg didn’t know how to respond to the 2020 murder of George Floyd. It was not the Minneapolis that the filmmaker, a graduate of Saint Paul’s Macalester College, thought he knew. Eventually, he turned to football, as he had before in his career — following the predominantly Black players at the city’s North Community […]
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