#somebody give her a golden globe | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sfarticles · 10 months

Text

Browsing stores for cookbooks is time well spent Foodies will love the gift of a cookbook, and it won't be hard on your wallet.

Check out my latest column for gifts those who enjoy food and like to cook

I hope you had a joyous Thanksgiving. For me it was a dual celebration, celebrating my parents’ 68th anniversary, as well. They are snowbirds, so it is a great opportunity to enjoy some warm weather and explore Florida’s food scene while in the Sunshine State. Visiting local bookstores to check out their cookbook shelves, especially those books by local authors and restaurateurs, has been time well spent. One thing I learned years ago, don’t take mom along when I am scouting out cookbooks, since mother is not like son when it comes to cookbooks and cooking. To mom’s credit, she still saves the food section from her local newspaper, so upon my arrival, I have plenty of columns upon which I need to catch-up. Dad, who is 91, on the other hand, enjoys cooking, however, he won’t follow a cookbook recipe, so cookbooks are out for him. I am his “go-to” when it comes to recipes.

With the eight days of Hannukah beginning the evening of Thursday, December 7, and Christmas about three weeks away, the race is on to find that desirous, perfect gift. I am asked by many people, “what cookbook do you recommend for my foodie friends and relatives?” It isn’t easy to pick just a few suggestions. My list is quite extensive; cookbook collecting for me is addictive — I read cookbooks the way one would read a novel. I am sure I am not alone; some people on your gift list — perhaps you, too — are like this. Some of these will fit the bill for a welcome addition to one’s cookbook shelf. And a cookbook gift won’t be hard on your wallet.

For Pennsylvanians, or those that wish to explore the culinary scene in the Keystone State, “Pennsylvania Good Eats: Exploring the State’s Favorite, Unique, Historic, and Delicious Foods,” by Brian Yarvin (2021, Globe Pequot, $21.95) gives the recipient the “tip of the iceberg” of Pennsylvania’s eclectic and vast food culture. The author gives the perfect starting point for exploration. Those who crave food prepared by older relatives now long gone, there is a place out there preparing those dishes, perhaps using techniques now not common. He writes, “Pennsylvania, is so filled with nooks and crannies that any food, no matter how archaic or obscure, can find an out-of-the-way place to thrive. Anytime you hear somebody say, ‘Nobody cooks that anymore!’ you can be sure that somebody in the Keystone State is preparing it.” He mentions scrapple, buckwheat cakes, smoked sausage, and fried noodles. His exploration via car, foot and train made him realize there is no “best.” From John’s Roast Pork Shop (Philadelphia), Appel Valley Butcher Shop (Lancaster), Caputo Brothers Creamery (Spring Grove), Patterson Maple Farms (Westfield) to Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum & Candy Emporium (Orrtanna), you’ll visit food landmarks, where some of your food memories can be rekindled again.

Those interested in food and history will welcome “The Gilded Age Cookbook: Recipes and Stories From America’s Golden Era,” by Becky Libourel Diamond (2023, Globe Pequot, $34.95). This excerpt was contributed by food historian and culinary stylist, Dan Macey: “Theatrics were an integral part of fine dining. Lavish centerpieces, ranging from floral arrangements to ornate sugar molds and plaster-cast animals, were front and center on the banquet table. This same pageantry was often applied to the centerpiece of the meal—the main meat course.” It gives a glimpse of that “perfect” table that impressed guests in the day and still do. I enjoyed the tasteful combination of recipes that are approachable, the artistry and history. The recipient of the book will get a sneak peek of what the Gilded Age looked and tasted like through the beautiful pictures, historic menus, and recipes. My friend, Diane Jacob, the author of “Will Write for Food,” gives the book her thumbs up by saying, “A beautifully designed and photographed cookbook, filled with intriguing stories. The parties and events may have been excessive, but the classic recipes here look simple and doable to make. Bring back a bit of the past and celebrate it today with a copy of “The Gilded Age Cookbook.”

Those on your list who enjoy entertaining, perhaps it is you, a copy of “Butter Boards: 50+ Inventive Spreads for Entertaining,” by Alejandra Diaz-Imlah and Jamison Diaz-Imlah (2023, Cider Mill Press, $27.99) is a must. The “Board craze” is amazing. A plethora of books, websites, and videos, teaching the art of creating food boards (charcuterie, cheese, dessert) are available. There’s even a company that ships beautifully prepared gift boards. Boards make entertaining easy, whether it be for a formal dinner, brunch or a casual afternoon tea. A new concept is butter boards. You might be thinking, what is this? It’s quite simple…softened butter is spread on a board and paired with ingredients, savory or sweet or both. Then, take a piece of bread, a cracker, vegetable or fruit and swipe some delectable butter spread on it. I suggest you use good quality butter for the best flavor. The author describes cultured butter, Irish and European butter as well as plant-based butter, the latter welcomed by vegans and those who don’t eat dairy products. Savory recipes include: bacon butter with bacon and maple biscuits; Christmas butter with radishes and cranberries; pesto butter with rosemary focaccia; dill, caper and cream cheese butter with lox and bagels. For those with a sweet tooth: cinnamon and honey butter with butter rolls and candied almonds; lemon and ginger butter with strawberry rhubarb jam; Spanish chocolate butter with churros.

The use of mason jars has gone beyond making and storing preserves. “Mason Jar Cocktails,” by Shane Carley (2022, Cider Mill Press, $19.95) is perfect for those on your list who would like - as the book jacket says, “to combine the best aspects of your favorite creative cocktails with the rustic simplicity of the Mason jar; you’ll be sipping at that martini with country-living style.” Included are cocktails based on a variety of liquors as well as creative mocktails such as Mason Jar Fuzzless Navel and a virgin mudslide.

For the bakers or want-to-be bakers on your list, “I’ll Bring the Cake: Recipes for Every Season and Every Occasion,” by Mandy Merriman (2023, Harvest/HarperCollins, $40) will be a welcome addition to their baking cookbooks, especially those who enjoy or want to learn the art of decorating. The beautiful cakes that are truly works of art, begin with a boxed mix and then several ingredients to the mix. She said, “there’s a special way to make a cake mix taste like it’s from scratch, and my recipes are the best way to make that possible.” What is handy about her recipes is that they can be converted to make cupcakes, Bundt cakes, 9 x 13 inch cakes, etc. The section on buttercream essentials, baking tips and troubleshooting, assembling, and frosting are accompanied by step-by-step photos. One tip that she shares (and I agree with) is to avoid substitutions, with the exception of those avoiding ingredients for allergies. She writes, “I don’t recommend changing a recipe the first time you make it. If you change an ingredient, know that you may end up with a different result.” The flavor combinations are mouth-watering: Cannoli Cake with Cinnamon Mascarpone Buttercream and Ricotta Filling; Creme Brulee Cake with Vanilla Bean Buttercream and Custard Filling; Grapefruit Poppy Seed Cake with Grapefruit Poppy Seed Buttercream and Grapefruit Curd; Gingerbread Cake with White Chocolate and Ginger Buttercream; Eggnog Latte Cake. The stunning photos of every cake will entice the recipient want to make them all!

If you’ve noticed, small plates and tapas are appearing on menus like never before. For many people, this is the preferred way to eat, grazing on a few small plates to experience flavors of different food. Entertaining this way at home, rather than preparing an elaborate meal is the trend. “The Complete Small Plates Cookbook: 300+ Shareable Tapas, Meze, Bar Snacks, Dumplings, Salads, and More,” by the editors of America’s Test Kitchen (2023, $34.99) explains how to put it all together…think about what each dish “brings to the table” (no pun intended), flavor, texture, and color. The recipes are categorized into nibbles, little bites, and heartier bites. The editors give pointers on how to create a small plates menu by asking…What’s the occasion? How much to serve? How much time do you have? The editors share strategies to use when choosing what small plates to prepare. Sample menus, some themed, along with recipes, are provided to make the decision easy. For example: Indian Tea Party (Orange-cardamom spiced nuts; Pakoras with cilantro-mint chutney; Naan with ricotta, sundried tomatoes, and olive tapenade; Gajarachi Koshimbir; pine nut macaroons; Masaka chai). Maybe the recipient will invite you to enjoy the small plates prepared from this gift!

A recent study has shown that Chinese food is the most Googled cuisine in the United States The research, conducted by foodfirefriends.com, analyzed Google search data. Chinese food is Americans’ most-liked food. The ingredients used in preparing Chinese food are now available in many supermarkets due to the popularity of the cuisine, and the number of folks preparing it at home. To assist in this endeavor, Kevin Pang and Jeffrey Pang, the father-son hosts of the video series “Hunger Pangs,” teamed up with America’s Test Kitchen and published “A Very Chinese Cookbook: 100 Recipes from China & Not China (But Still Really Chinese),” (2023, America’s Test Kitchen, $35). General Tso’s Chicken and dumplings to not so well-known dishes, this gift is perfect for people who love Chinese cuisine and would like to prepare it at home. The tips, techniques and step-by-step instructions and illustrations along with the authors’ stories, hosting a Chinese New Year party just might be on the horizon.

With New Year’s Eve around the corner, “Friday Night Cocktails: 52 Drinks to Welcome Your Weekend,” by A.J. Dean (2023, Collective Book Studio, $19.95) is perfect for those cocktail afficionados on your list, especially if they are staying at home to celebrate and wish to experiment with new cocktail ideas. The fifty-two recipes are a collection of classic, contemporary and unique drinks. They are divided by season and month, so the libation can be matched with the weather and holidays. This time of year, the Pumpkin Pie Cocktail, Cranberry Mule or Apple Jack Sour would be appropriate to celebrate the season. The Summer Shandy would be a good choice for the warmer weather. The author writes,“ with a little understanding of the roles of the main components—alcohol, water, sugar, bitters—you can begin to experiment on your own. For example, the French 75 cocktail (gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, sparkling wine); Why not try grapefruit juice in place of the lemon? Or make the same recipe but use different gins?” This joyous holiday season, try something new, but don’t forget the tried-and-true.

Let the shopping begin!

Stephen Fries, is Professor Emeritus and former coordinator of the Hospitality Management Programs at Gateway Community College, in New Haven, CT. He has been a food and culinary travel columnist for the past 15 years and is co-founder of and host of “Worth Tasting,” a culinary walking tour of downtown New Haven, CT. He is a board member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. [email protected] For more, go to stephenfries.com

#cookbooks #holiday gifts #cookbook roundup 2023

0 notes

agapeeternal · 1 year

Note

Gigi gained 30k followers from her posts about the cheating/breakup. She’s playing the narrative that Glen was horrible meanwhile she still follows his entire family (even though everyone wants to say his family ‘helped him cheat’). Also Gigis mother still follows Glen and so do many of her friends. If it was ich a nasty breakup, they would have cut ties completely.

No, Gigi and Glen were over in November. They reconciled in January but I really think that was for the Golden Globes because Glen probably didn’t want to go alone and Gigi might have had a deal with a designer for the dress and jewelry.

She’s posting stories to further her modeling career now with no regards to Glen or the comments that are destroying him. I’ll say it again, I worry for his future because he isn’t well known and now because of this, he is not well liked on Twitter. There’s a picture of him on meme pages just making fun of his smile and face and saying he looks like an animal.

Hope it was worth it for Gigis 30k additional followers. She had 70k likes on her walk away video but her newest photo is back to her normal 7k. She will most likely be forgotten quickly but her damage is going to stay with Glen and Sydney for the rest of their careers.

And before everyone screams misogynist, I’m sorry but Gigi was literally posted with another guy in March at a restaurant in Manhattan getting very cozy. She is not so heartbroken victim, she’s a business woman. She knows EXACTLY what she is doing. (Cough- Jennifer Anniston video- cough).

I don’t like injustice and I’m sorry I don’t believe the mantra believe all woman. If they cheated, you’d be seeing photos in hotels or grainy security feeds of them kissing- NOT TOURIST PICTURES THAT THE COUNTRY OF AUSTRALIA PAID THEM TO POST.

End rant

So much for people saying she didn't do it for the clout. Honey gained 30k since she dragged Glen without actually dragging him. I mean, if whoever I was dating cheated on me and we broke up, I'd unfollow them and their family with the quicks. And my family definitely wouldn't be following them, so that doesn't even make sense. And why would his family help him cheat? Honestly, make it make sense. She's definitely milking it and letting Glen get dragged through the mud over it. Immediately people took sides and she knew it.

I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't wanna go by himself and she got a deal to wear a certain designer to the awards.

She's literally giving zero shits about him and what it's doing to his career and, for all we know, how it's effecting him personally. People are cruel sometimes and to know people are making fun of him and calling him names, and a lot of it stems from her and her posts just pisses me the fuck off. He seems like a genuine person and I hate to see that happen to someone.

I think as she's seeing that follower count tick up, she's probably thinking it was worth it for a while, even if she's damaged Glen in the process. At least she got a little bit of a ride out of it. It's so gross to me.

I can hear the misogynist comments coming but oh well, the facts are the facts. It's okay for her to actually be seen being cozy with somebody and people will defend it, meanwhile Glen is out here taking touristy pics with the WHOLE CAST and his family. She knows how to play the game and if she didn't, somebody working with her does. She's going for that victim narrative without outright saying it so if someone says "she said he cheated" they can come back and say "well she never said that".

I mean, I'm all for believing the victim and listening to their stories. But when you're clearly walking all over somebody to further yourself and not caring about what's happening to them, that's where I draw the line (*coughs* Amber Heard *coughs*)

Thank you for coming to our Ted Talk.

#glen powell

1 note · View note

firstpersonnarrator · 2 years

Text

Grace was amazing this season. All that worshipping.

#jordan claire robbins #grace hargreeves #tua s3 #the umbrella academy #tua #mom #mom hargreeves #awards season #somebody give her a golden globe #real talk

7 notes · View notes

mrsseverussnape · 3 years

Note

Can you please do alan rickman x reader where alan gets jealous of y/n's crush on another celebrity

A/n: Hi lovely, it took me so long but you should accept me like this😂 Hope you enjoy it💕 also i didn’t do proof reading because i cringe myself when i read my own writing, hopefully it is not so bad😅

Theme: Slight smut

Characters: Alan Rickman x reader, Geoffrey Rush

Ps: Geoffrey Rush might be a questionable celebrity crush choice for the most of you but i took the 1997 Golden Globe Awards as my reference and he was one of the winners + in reality he was one of my celebrity crushes so it is what it is💁🏼‍♀️

Celebrity Crush

“Come on Y/N! We are going to be late!” Your husband Alan called out for the third time in half an hour. You were going to Golden Globe Awards tonight and he was nominated for his role in Rasputin, maybe that’s why he was abnormally impatient tonight.

“Coming!” You checked yourself in the mirror one last time before going downstairs to meet your impatient husband. You were looking like an award yourself in your gold dress; you were sure he would win but in case he would have his very own award afterwards. “You can’t rush the beauty honey.” You twirled around yourself when he looked at you head to toe with lustful eyes.

“You are naturally beautiful my love, you don’t need to do anything extra.” Alan took your delicate hand in his and pulled you closer to him before giving you a kiss on your lips.

“Alan if you mess up my lipstick, I will be needing another 10 minutes and I guess you don’t want that.”

“I will mess it up later on tonight when we have free time then. As you said, you can’t rush the beautiful things.” He spoke with his husky voice while staring deeply into your eyes. A tiny smirk played on his lips when you looked away from his gaze with your blushed cheeks.

You have arrived Beverly Hilton Hotel on time where this year’s Golden Globe Awards were held. You have attended couple of awards with Alan but still every time the press took your photos you got extremely nervous. Actually you were a known author but being in front of the cameras wasn’t your cup of tea at all. After being photographed for some time, you and Alan finally managed to get to your table where you were seated with the cast of Rasputin. You and Alan got in a deep conversation with your dear friend Ian McKellen, had some appetizers and drinks until the award ceremony started. After an exciting waiting, they announced Alan’s and Ian’s names as the winner in different categories. You were so happy and proud of your husband and he definitely deserved a special treatment tonight. You were not paying much attention to the ceremony no more until they announced Geoffrey Rush’s name as the winner and you gave all your attention to the stage immediately when Alan did the same thing for you. Geoffrey was your all time favourite celebrity crush and it was no secret from Alan, though he was lowkey jealous of this situation but still he came to Geoffrey’s plays with you time to time or watched his movies. Alan watched you applause Geoffrey with a wide smile on your face and gave a squeeze on your thigh to get your attention back to himself.

“You seem more excited for him, dearest…” he whispered with a sulky face.

You caressed his cheek lovingly. “You got a kiss, he did not. I think I am more excited for you.” Alan leaned into your touch and rested his hand on top of yours. He was looking so cute but you decided to tease him a bit about this topic tonight, it would be fun.

Couple of hours later you were at the after party and chatting with some people here and there. While Alan was in a deep conversation with Helen Mirren, you were wandering the place with your eyes then they landed on Geoffrey Rush nearby. You excused yourself and made your way to him while Alan was thinking you will renew your drink so he kept his conversation with his friend. It has been almost 10 minutes since you have left and getting a drink shouldn’t take that long. He was looking around for you and it didn’t take him too long to find you with your eye-catching gold dress. You were the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and he was so lucky to have you. You were holding your drink in your hand and laughing charmingly, that view brought a smile on Alan’s face until he took a second to realize that you were laughing with Geoffrey Rush. Alan excused himself from the conversation and directly walked up to you. When he came he wrapped his arm around your waist which startled you a bit since you didn’t see him coming.

“Hello Mr. Rush, congratulations on your winning.” Alan held his hand out to him with a lowkey forced smile. Geoffrey shook his hand kindly and congratulate him as well.

“I met your wife before I could meet you Mr. Rickman, it was such a pleasure though. Such a witty lady we have here.”

“I hope I didn’t interrupt your chat, it seemed like a very funny one since it is hard to make her laugh that much.”

“Oh really? Then I am in my lucky day I guess; won the award, met this beautiful lady and made her laugh.” Geoffrey smiled widely at you which made Alan to pull you closer to himself.

You grinned at his pettiness, surely he was jealous. “I am in my lucky day too I guess, look at these two charming men beside me.”

“I don’t want to put an end to your fun darling, but we shall go. Tomorrow we have an early flight to London as you know.”

You sulked at Alan but nodded, you both said goodbye to Geoffrey but before you could walk away he called out to you with a huge smile. “I will be in London in a week for my new play. I would be honoured if you be my guest.”

“We would love to Mr. Rush!” You replied with a grin before Alan could say anything. “And we would love to have you at our home for dinner one night.”

“With pleasure!” He smiled. “But please call me Geoffrey, mister is way too formal.”

“Alright, have a good night Geoffrey.” You waved at him and Alan gave him a nod then you two left the party.

Alan didn’t speak a word on the way home but just sulked his cute face. This continued until you entered the house, apparently he didn’t want to say anything in front of the driver.

“Good night Geoffrey…” He scoffed after mocking you and headed to your bedroom to undress.

“Somebody is jealouuus.” You said melodically and laughed while following him. You held his hand and made him to face you, you found his sad puppy eyes adorable. You took of his jacket slowly and let it drop to the floor. “Now all my attention is on you my love.” You started to unbutton his shirt and put chaste kisses on his exposed skin one by one until the shirt joined the jacket on the floor. Alan was watching your every move carefully then with a swift move he turned you around to unzip your dress. He stripped you down and caressed every curve of your body with his hands, you could feel his growing member behind you. Your hand made its way to the bulge of his trousers and you gave it soft squeeze which drew a moan from him. You held onto his belt and walked him to the bed, you unbuckled his belt with your quick moves and freed him from his trousers and boxer before making him sit on the bed. Then you knelt down in front of him with hungry eyes.

“Now it’s time to mess up my lipstick.” You winked at him with a smirk and gave a kiss on the head of his member then took him in your warm mouth. His hand directly went to grab your hair when you started to bob your head on his shaft. His soft moans were like a music to your ears and you fastened your moves while taking him deeper. Now he was fully hard in your mouth and he was moaning your name while helping you to move your head on him. Soon his breath quickened and when you started to play with his balls, it was a last straw for him. He started to twitch in your mouth and you suckled on him harder than before. His head fell back and he let out a loud grunt while coming down your throat. You swallowed every drop and looked at him with a sultry grin. Alan pulled you up and made you straddle him.

“Maybe I should get jealous more often if i will get that treatment afterwards.” Alan smirked and bit down on your bottom lip softly.

“Perhaps this was for the award you won, not for the jealousy.” You raised your eyebrow mischievously. “But we will see after Geoffrey’s play in London, maybe this will repeat. Who knows?”

“You are such a naughty girl, Y/N. And naughty girls get punishments.” Alan whispered to your ear with his silky voice.

Taglist:

@snapefiction @lizlil @elizabeth-baelish @misselsbells06 @mais-e @lunnybunny12 @anfre109 @entirelymesmerising @wolvesofwinter13 @mrssnivellussnape @mestin-writes @echoofawind @pamelalur15 @myamortentia

If you wanna be on my taglist, let me know!

#alan rickman #alan sidney patrick rickman #alan rickman fanfiction #alan rickman x you #alan rickman x reader #rickmaniac #fanfiction requests #fanfic #celebrity fanfiction #geoffrey rush #geoffrey rush x reader #celebrity crush #mrsseverusnapefanfic #mrs.severussnape

250 notes · View notes

d-criss-news · 3 years

Text

Nine Songs: Darren Criss

When Disney, Phantom Planet and Mr Hudson collide: Glee star, Emmy and Golden Globe winner and musician Darren Criss talks Andrew Wright through the pivotal songs in his life and the unexpected ways they found him.

“When we are younger, our gateway drugs to a lot of popular things don’t come from the sexiest of places. It’s up to you how proactive you want to be with your curiosity from there, and how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, if you go down at all.”

Choosing the songs that define you is a tricky business to say the least, especially when the power of song has provided an ongoing soundtrack to your life. “When you’re as avid a music consumer as musical artists are, trying to pin down Nine Songs is difficult,” Darren Criss laughs. So much so, his final choices only really crystallise as our conversation draws to its close. “It’s hard for me not to see the value and joy in literally everything,” he explains. “The curse of the creative person is that your ideas and your interests always move way faster than your body can execute.”

Criss is a creative par excellence. As well as his Emmy and Golden Globe winning performance in The Assassination of Gianni Versace, where he played serial killer Andrew Cunanan, to his upcoming role in Muppets Haunted Mansion Halloween special as The Caretaker, he’s also a prolific musician. Criss enjoyed a decadent musical consumption since childhood, so “this was a bit of an archaeological dig,” he admits. As such, everything from jazz standards, to 808s, punk rock, ‘90s teen pop, and musical numbers are excavated in the course of our extemporaneous journey through the music he loves.

Equally on his mind is how to go about approaching the task of creating his Nine Songs, full stop. “The interesting social experiment is: Are my answers going to be songs that actually shaped my life and were formative to me as an artist? Are they songs that were formative to me as a human being? Or am I picking songs that I think represent who I am to people that do not know me? All three of those things aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

He reaches a conclusion of sorts. “For the purposes of making some kind of decision, I’m gonna lean less into trying to look cool to your very cool readership, and more into the literal, ‘What made me think about music in a different way? And hit me in a very emotional way?’ I think that’s probably the healthiest route.”

Embracing the accessibility that characterises Criss’ picks - or at times the initial touchpoints that led him to them - are something he vacillates over during our chat. “I’ve seen a lot of other people’s Nine Songs and they’re super cool. It’s like Leonard Cohen B-sides and old opera records and stuff. I’m gonna be pretty honest with the pop culture zeitgeist of how I grew up but explain why there is so much value in those moments.” His contemplation continues into the next day, Criss’s publicist passes on his regrets at being tentative to admit how he encountered one of his song choices via the Shrek soundtrack.

A yearning to reinterpret accessibility and the value attached to it drives Criss, however. He tells me that a festival performance that applied the anarchic verve of punk rock to a more refined Great American Songbook number remoulded his perception of music entirely. His love of the fusion of these two genres in particular symbolises the salient musical backdrops of his childhood - the guitar bands he played in with friends, and his musical theatre endeavours that led him to Broadway and multiple Ryan Murphy juggernauts, including his breakthrough playing Blaine Anderson in Glee.

Criss employs these contrasting musical lexicons, and other areas in between, on Masquerade, his new EP. Comprising five stand-alone “character-driven” singles, it sees Criss donning different musical personas. “I’m leaning into people that might know me as an actor,” he explains. “Because if actors can do Shakespeare, romantic comedy, and then do a horror movie and wear a prosthetic nose and a wig, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just do that with music.” The song “walk of shame” draws on jazz-standard chords interlaced with hip-hop production, “i can’t dance” looks to new-wave, and “for a night like this” is the product of Criss’ goal to create the ultimate end-of-the-night crowd-pleaser for a new-year bash, wedding or bar mitzvah. “This is all of the parts of me as a lifelong fan of these genres, trying my hand at servicing the pieces of them that I love.”

“I really love all styles of music and understanding what makes them unique and special and what makes them really pop. There are so many things that really make things sing - for lack of a better verb - and I like acknowledging those things and celebrating those things.”

“So, let’s begin. I have runners up and shit, and I have artists, I don’t just have the songs, so we might have to pick them as we go.”

youtube

“Part of Your World” by Jodi Benson

“When people read this, they’ll go ‘That’s cute, he likes Disney songs’, but it’s more profound than that. Some of the most formative pieces of music to hit me at a very early age would have been any of the songs that were coming from ‘The Disney renaissance.’ The early-mid ‘90s explosion of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast.

"One of the through lines between the three of those musicals was Howard Ashman, who is one of my all-time heroes. Dramaturg, songwriter - he really was the voice behind what made those songs great. I have always loved Howard’s lyrical sensibility and also Alan Menken, his partner who wrote these songs with him. There was a musical structure to a lot of the songs which I would unconsciously pick up in my own songwriting, not just musically, but the idea that not only did somebody make these songs, but they wrote them for a story.

“There’s a clip of Howard Ashman vocal directing Jodi Benson, who was the original voice of Ariel. It’s a wonderful example of his genius, where not only was he songwriting but he was storytelling in the way he would tell her how to perform it, and you can really see the song coming to life in that clip. That’s when you cross the street from ‘It’s a song’ to ‘This is an experience.’

"There are certain ingredients that are required to elevate music that goes beyond just a nice melody, a beautiful orchestration and a good voice. There are things that are required to really give a performance a characterisation, context and a vulnerability, that he architects in real-time with Jodi Benson. You see that what he’s doing is what makes the record so special, and that’s something that’s always been inspiring to me.”

youtube

��MMMBop” by Hanson

“I think my love of Hanson was because some people didn’t like it, so I was like ‘Fuck you, I like this, how do you feel about it?’ But this is difficult for me, because you know, I’m speaking to The Line of Best Fit and we’re trying to be cool! Although, do you know what’s cool? Being accessible! Writing a pop hit when you are 10 years old. Being in a band with your brothers and you’re all below the age of 15, you have a record contract where you are writing, producing and performing songs that are doing well.

“I was 10 years old when their first album Middle of Nowhere came out, and I remember reading somewhere that there were these kids that had a record. At the time, I was playing guitar and I was writing songs, but in my mind I was a kid, and that was it. I couldn’t be on the radio; you had to be a grown up to do this.

"This was the first time where I realised ‘Holy shit, kids can do stuff!’ It’s the value of seeing yourself in the media - that’s a whole other conversation to talk about - but there’s an immense value in feeling like there’s a piece of you out in the zeitgeist and doing well because it’s encouraging. You go, ‘Holy shit, maybe I can do this as well.'

“When you see children doing things, you’re ‘Wow, this is so cute and fabulous’, but then when you actually look at it you go, ‘This is miles above what most people in this age group are capable of,’ and that’s all I saw, because I was in the same age group and I was so inspired by that. This whole album was really a turning point for me, where I was like, ‘I can do this, I can do music too, because these guys can.'

youtube

“Ooh La La” by Faces

“This song really blew my mind. It became my own theme. It’s that ‘Make your heart sing’, nostalgic moment when you’re a teenager, driving in the car listening to it, playing guitar with your friends and you’re singing “I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger.” You’re like, ‘because I’m an adult now, I’m 15-years-old. If I only knew what I know now.’

“I was doing theatre from a young age and I was part of a young conservatory called A.C.T. in San Francisco. By way of somebody who knew somebody, I had an audition for a movie. As a kid not being near New York or Los Angeles it was really exciting, and this audition was for a film called ‘Max Fischer’, which would become the movie Rushmore, which would become one of my favourite movies of all time by the now very distinguished Wes Anderson.

“Separate from my own objective love of Wes Anderson, when this movie came out I was just around the age of getting into my own sort of identity with music, but also movies - indie movies - and trying to assert who I was. So, I see this movie Rushmore and I love it. I love the soundtrack, I love it so much, it’s one of my favourite albums ever. This song is the end sequence, and the way it made me feel - the vocals on it, I could play it on guitar and it was part of a cool movie - it really represented a lot in my life.

“And because of the acting thing, and Rushmore being great - it’s about this kid in high-school who's misunderstood but has his own agenda - everything about it was just so fucking cool to me. To this day, I cite that song as one of my favourite records of all time.”

youtube

“Recently Distressed” by Phantom Planet

“A guy that really formed the way I would sing and write songs is Alex Greenwald, the frontman of Phantom Planet. I went to see Phantom Planet because I loved Rushmore and I found out that Jason Schwartzman [who had been cast as Max Fischer] was also the drummer for a band called Phantom Planet.

"So, when I saw their name on the bill I went, but I didn't know their music. I was barely 14, but their set blew my mind. It was Rock and Roll, but I loved Alex Greenwald’s voice. I loved everything, and I would follow their career from there. I always tell people that my voice is a combination of me trying to be Alex Greenwald, Paul McCartney and Rufus Wainwright, but failing. Alex was incredibly formative for me.

“One of their biggest records was a little while after I first saw them, which was the song for The O.C., "California." That was more of an Elvis Costello thing, and they employed a lot of stuff that sounded to me like The Beatles and a lot of ‘60s mod/pop-rock. But later they would employ things from Fugazi, Radiohead and harder shit, and that eclecticism, again, only accelerated my love for Phantom Planet.

“Recently Distressed” is from their 1998 album Phantom Planet Is Missing. This was a cool rock song that employed these George [Harrison] and Paul [McCartney] background vocals and included all of the things that I loved. It was harder but melodic and employed minor 4th chords and more complicated chords than I was used to. I had grown up with power chords - which are very Gregorian - on a lot of alt. punk rock, like Green Day or Nirvana, and if Kurt Cobain was using power chords then that’s how I was playing guitar. Hearing this music was like ‘Oh, I’m using full chords, not sevenths, minor 4th chords, diminished chords’, shit that I would learn to use more and more.

“When you haven’t experienced much, anything that gives a hint towards possibility, even though it’s probably always been there, you’re like, ‘I like this, I’ve always kind of liked this, but it’s very encouraging to hear somebody else do it and it’s gonna make me reconsider my possibilities.’ That was literally the moment that my power chords turned into full barre chords.”

youtube

“Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk” by Rufus Wainwright

“I forgot the other day how I got into Rufus Wainwright, because all of this stuff I was getting into quite young. It’s like when I talk to 11-13 year olds, it’s funny to think that this was when I was really starting to build my musical identity. But then I remembered, and I didn’t want to say because I didn’t want to sound uncool, because he is such a revered artist who exists in a much cooler place than what I’m about to say.

“I loved soundtracks and I would always buy soundtracks for movies that had cool playlists. I had the Shrek soundtrack, and there’s a cover of Leonard Cohen’s seminal “Hallelujah” that Rufus does and he smashes it, and I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is Rufus Wainwright? What a beautiful voice.’ Then I saw that he was going to be at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco one week, so I go and he’s there promoting his new album Poses. I remember I didn’t have enough money to buy the album that day, so I had him sign my sneaker and I saved that shoe.

“The first song on Poses was “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, which is a very dark and reflective song about his own battles with addiction, but he’s singing it over this really beautiful, whimsical song that has a lot of really great wordplay. I always love when artists, especially lyricists, can encapsulate an idea with not exactly what they’re talking about. The song’s called “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”, it’s not called “Addiction”. Its talking about things that he craved and how that’s representative of other things that he’s gone through. There was a sophistication and elegance to that that I really gravitated towards, that I didn’t possess but wanted to shoot for. So when I saw him, that was a big one for me and he would also continue to influence me later in my life.

“I’ve become friends with Rufus since. I’ve performed with him and we’ve made records together, which is crazy. His songwriting was very complex and punk-rock, but he had this classic cabaret voice, the kind of voice that I don’t have. I was fascinated that there was somebody that could write this really dark material but have such elegance on top of it. He was virtuosic on the piano, which I thought was very cool because musicianship is always the thing that gets me going the most about artists.

“You know what? People say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes.' I completely disagree. Chase the living fuck out of your heroes. I’ve spent a lifetime doing so, it’s made me a better artist, and I’ve sometimes got to meet them and work with them. I’ve worked on music with Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet. I’ve performed with Hanson. I’ve performed those Disney songs with Alan Menken at The Hollywood Bowl.

"This is all because there are people that I love who I have put on my vision board, and the things that they have done are the things that are bringing me to them. So it is nuts, but at the same time you’re like, ‘Well, what else did you think would happen?’ They did stuff that some part of me connected with, so obviously there’s a magnetic pull towards that person.

“Rufus Wainwright is one of my absolute favourite artists of all time and like I said, me trying to sing like him and failing is a big part of my own journey as an artist.”

youtube

“3x5” by John Mayer

“John Mayer’s another guy that came around when I was 15. I heard a song of his on a middle-of-the-night, singer/songwriter college radio show. This is where I used to get music. You would listen to these carefully curated playlists that you wouldn’t be able to hear anywhere else, and the host played “No Such Thing”, a new song by this young kid who had just dropped out of Berklee College of Music - John Mayer.

“I’m listening to this song and I’m like, ‘Not only is this guitar playing really interesting, but the lyrical value and everything that is going on here ticks all the boxes.' It was jazz, but it was pop. And he did something that all these other guys and girls I’ve mentioned did. They made something very unique and very accessible.

“I immediately went out to buy this album, Room For Squares, and I listened to it over and over again. It was an album that was really formative for me. "3x5” is a really beautiful song that employs a lot of chord structures and melodies that blew my fucking mind at the time, and it made me wish that I could write songs like that.

“That album was a huge turning point in the way I played the guitar, because it was the first time in my life where I would look up tabs. Up until this point in my life, if I heard a song I could play it instantly. It was like a party trick, I would get how it worked if I heard it, because most of the songs I would hear on the radio - especially those that involved a guitar - were [centred around] power chords. And now I’m hearing all of these ninth chords and thirteenths, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ So I’d have to look up tabs.

“I think any young artist can attest to this - when you try and learn other people’s shit, it’s the best tool for educating yourself. Playing other people’s music really helps you lock in what your own style is. Trying to learn these songs - and sometimes pulling it off and sometimes not - really changed the way that my hands moved around the guitar and considered chords and voicings that I’d never really thought of.

“There’s another tie to musical theatre here, where I remember seeing Audra McDonald, who is a very venerated theatre actor, and she did a cabaret. If you’re familiar with cabaret culture, it’s more about performing the story of the songs – ‘Life is a cabaret’. She did a John Mayer song because she thought it was from a musical theatre show, and I was so tickled by this, because I was like ‘Yeah, if you really think about it, I don’t think he knows this and I don’t think his fan base even thinks about this, but there’s a number of his songs that feel very theatrical in the way that the lyrics play with each other and the way the chords move’.

"When I saw this I thought, ‘That is why I like John Mayer’, because yes, he’s an amazing guitar player, but he’s also a really strong songwriter.”

youtube

“Cabaret” by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

“Also, around this time growing up in San Francisco, as a guitar player playing music with your buddies, the number one thing that you play is punk rock. There are different parts of the spectrum of punk rock, there's the NOFX, Swingin’ Utters, like real punk, punk. And then there’s the pop-punk thing that was happening at the same time, which was also equally influential - blink-182 and Green Day.

“Fat Mike was the frontman of NOFX. I loved NOFX, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were a supergroup of different members from different punk bands, of which Fat Mike was one of the main architects. They would cover songs and turn them into punk rock songs. They have an album of hits from the ‘60s, and they also have an album called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes: Are a Drag, and that record is just a tonne of musical theatre covers that are done through punk rock.

“That was completely in line with everything I loved at this time of my life but didn’t really know how to articulate. I loved punk rock but I also really loved musical theatre. Not only the performative element of it, but there was a real musicality to musical theatre that wasn’t as present in some of the other shit that was popular at the time, just harmonically, or where chords would go. There was a sophistication I loved that seemed to not exist in punk rock.

“Then hearing Fat Mike at The Warped Tour going ‘Alright, which one of you Motherfuckers loves Julie Andrews?’ and hearing a mixed bag of reactions, because people were ‘What? I was not expecting that from you, sir?’ And then they start playing “My Favourite Things”, a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein song which is very accessible, but sophisticated nonetheless. And I am just living. I’m like, ‘This has got the attitude and simplicity of punk rock, but the sophistication of a beautiful song.’

“That was the first time in my life where I went, ‘It’s just all music. All these categories and boxes are completely arbitrary.’ So I thought, ‘I can do that.' I was playing power chords in punk bands but I realised that you can take chords and make them into other rhythms and voicings and have the same song. I could take a punk song and make it jazz. I could take a jazz song and make it country. So, quite providentially, I would end up on Glee, where they took popular songs and would sometimes do their own versions.

“By that point, I had been doing this my whole life. The first time this ever became a possibility for me was seeing Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and that way of thinking about music and genre. I’ve put that into Masquerade, and it’s all born from that moment of ‘Oh my God, nothing has to be one thing. It’s just about how you look at it.'

“Cabaret” is from a pretty famous musical that I would’ve probably heard about later in life, but I first heard that song as a punk song and then I went back and heard the original. It doesn’t matter how these things happen, the inspiration happens and then you can go from there. But Me First and The Gimme Gimmes were a huge gateway drug and I play “Cabaret” now every year at my festival. That’s why the festival is called Elsie Fest, because it covers the song.”

youtube

“Modern Nature” by Sondre Lerche

“One of the great joys of being a younger brother is that you get to inherit the music of your elders. My brother and I were both really proactive consumers of music, so we would share stuff with each other all the time. But then he would come home from college, which is like coming home from a music festival essentially, right? He was in a new time zone with new people, so he’d bring home these mix CDs that he’d made from people that he’d heard about, and he brings home this guy named Sondre Lerche.

“Hearing this guy blew my mind, because he also was using jazz chords and drawing on musical theatre. Musical theatre’s a massive category, so I can’t just say that musical theatre sounds like one thing, but when I say this, I’m referring to The American Songbook, the jazz standard songbook. “Modern Nature” was a duet that I would go on to play many times with one of my oldest musical collaborators, Charlene Kaye. When we got to college and we both found out that we loved this guy.

“There was a much more whimsical way to how he wrote these songs. And what’s crazy is that loving this guy meant that we also loved Rufus Wainwright, that we also loved these other artists. But Sondre was the first time I considered that I loved that type of music, but I didn’t know that you could be a singer/songwriter and put out music that sounded like it.

“I don’t know if ‘twee’ is the right word to use, but with “Modern Nature” there was a playfulness about it, and again, a musicality that I really gravitated towards. There is a through line - there was a sophistication that was accessible, and me trying to learn those songs did make me rethink the way that I was writing music. The structures were weird and different and I liked that.

“To this day, I find myself writing songs that I think might be difficult for people to ingest, because they’re a little too left of centre, and I realise that I’m trying to write like Sondre Lerche, or I’m unconsciously just copying him.”

youtube

“Everything Happens to Me” by Mr Hudson & The Library

“I was in an H&M in Stockholm when I was 21, and I heard this really cool groove and the lyric was “Why must I always play the clown?” It was sung with a really thick British accent, had an 808 feel on it, and lyrically it had an attitude. Who would say something that sounds so like you’re in a Gilbert & Sullivan musical, but it feels hard? It was cool.

“I went home and looked this up and it was off the record A Tale of Two Cities by Mr Hudson and the Library, which would really, really fuck me up. I bought the album immediately because I loved this song. I had to order it on the internet because I couldn’t find it. It was doing well in England and he was on the festival circuit in the early-mid 2000s, but the first song on the album was a musical theatre cover with 808s.

“It was a pared-down, sort of a hip-hop version of “On The Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, and I’m like ‘No fucking way, this guy gets where my head is.’ I’d thought about punk rock musical theatre, but I never thought about 808s and 909s scoring these beautiful songs. I go down the track list and he has “Everything Happens to Me”, which is another very famous standard, and he had this really cool, what we would now call chill-hop, ‘study beats’ version of this song. I was like, ‘This is it. This guy gets that good music is good music and you can reinterpret it to offer it as a new song.’

“I would later become great friends with Mr Hudson. I got to meet him years later when I was with Columbia Records, and they said to me ‘Who do you want to meet?’ He was at the top of my list. I went to London and we’ve been friends ever since and have created all kinds of music together.

“He told me a story where Tyler the Creator went up to him once at Coachella and said, ‘Oh man, “Everything Happens To Me”, that’s like my song.’ We both wondered if Tyler the Creator knew that it was a Chet Baker cover. And we were thinking how cool it is that you can offer these songs to a new audience through a different lens. Tyler’s a smart guy, he’s very cultured, and I’m sure he did know. But it’s more the idea that if someone experienced this song and didn’t know that it was a cover, and this is like the first time they ever get to experience it.

“Mr Hudson would go on to do his own thing with Kanye and was on 808s & Heartbreak and has had his own career. I think “Supernova” was a hit in the UK, it didn’t really cross over here to The States, but before that moment for him, that Mr Hudson and The Library album changed my life. People use that phrase willy-nilly, but this literally was a turning point in my life. It all had to do with the same thing that happened with these other songs, where I saw someone do what I always wanted to do but didn’t really know how to pull off. Where he had this fusing of old songs delivered through a contemporary lens, but also laced it with his own original material that also employed the things that made that old songwriting interesting.

“It’s like changing the font of a great essay but finding the font and figuring out that that font is its own art form. He really displayed that marvellously on this.”

The Masquerade EP is out now

#darren criss #the line of best fit #press #sept 2021

106 notes · View notes

brian-in-finance · 3 years

Text

‘Belfast is so joyous, you come out of that movie just feeling… full’: Catriona Balfe wears tuxedo jacket and shirt, both by louisvuitton.com and hoops by completedworks.com.

‘I got really lucky’: Caitríona Balfe, star of Belfast, on fame, family and fans

Caitríona Balfe is the luminous star of Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-tipped Belfast. She talks about how modelling almost broke her, bonding on set with Judi Dench and her childhood during the Troubles

Caitríona Balfe can remember the exact moment she realised she was done with being a model. It was the mid-2000s and Balfe was 27-ish, she thinks. It had been almost a decade since she’d been scouted in a Dublin supermarket while rattling a tin for a multiple sclerosis charity. She had done pretty well, walking in runway shows for Louis Vuitton and Chanel, flitting between Paris, Milan and New York. Balfe and her friends called themselves “the blue-collar models” – they weren’t the 0.1% of supermodels, the household names, but the next rung down.

Now, though, Balfe was in Dallas, doing a well-paid but soulless shoot for a catalogue. After each set-up, a producer would ping a little bell to indicate they needed to fast-change to the next outfit. At her age, in that youth-fixated business, Balfe knew the clock was ticking. She’d handled just about as much blunt rejection as she could take for one lifetime. “The shows were fun and exciting, but with catalogues, you’re just standing there like a clothes horse – literally,” says Balfe. “And you know, ‘This is not what I want to be doing with my life.’

“Modelling does two things,” Balfe continues, with a wry laugh. “It gives you a really, really tough exterior and then a really broken interior. Everyone’s experience is different, but I know my confidence and my self-esteem when I finished was in the toilet. Being in that for so long can leave you pretty messed up for a little bit.”

Tales of the city: Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe in a scene from Belfast. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

It’s only a mini-spoiler to mention at this point that things eventually worked out rather well for Balfe, who is now 42. That’s why we’re sitting this morning in early December in a very flash London hotel, sharing a bottle of mineral water that costs only fractionally less than a decent bottle of wine. She is wearing an oversized Lauren Manoogian midi-dress and is the first person I’ve seen make a face mask look glamorous. We now know that, after stopping being a model, Balfe would go on to star in five seasons and counting of Outlander, the wildly popular TV franchise. Later this afternoon she will find out that she has been nominated for a Golden Globe for her luminous performance in Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s new film. An Oscar nod is presumed (by critics and pretty much everyone else, except Balfe) to follow next month.

But back in Dallas, on the catalogue shoot, the transition didn’t seem so obvious. Before Balfe’s “detour” into fashion, she had studied acting at the Dublin Institute of Technology and after quitting modelling she took it up again, attending drop-in classes in New York. “Somebody should just put a camera in one of those rooms,” she says. “Absolute insanity!” She landed a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gig as an extra on the 2006 Meryl Streep film The Devil Wears Prada, in which she thinks her legs might be visible in the opening scene as a collection of well-heeled feet are walking into the offices of Runway magazine. Balfe couldn’t be too picky back then, but she learned that it was these kinds of roles that she shouldn’t be pursuing.

“So many actors used to work in bars or used to be this or that, but you come with a lot of stigma when you’ve been a model,” she says. “And that’s a hard thing to overcome, that being the first thing that people thought of me.”

‘What’s happening to me now is lovely’: Caitríona Balfe wears abstract printed jacket, belt and boots, all by alexandermcqueen.com. Photograph: Jason Hetherington/The Observer

There were plenty of rejections in acting, too – perhaps even more than in fashion – but Balfe found these somehow more palatable: at least she usually got to open her mouth before being passed over. “In an audition, if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t always because you didn’t do a good job, or you weren’t good,” she reasons. “It was other arbitrary things like your name’s not big enough. Which can also be soul-destroying, but I don’t know, it’s different.”

After a few years, Balfe went up for the pilot of a new series about a Second World War military nurse, Claire Randall, who finds herself transported back in time to the Scottish Highlands in 1743. “It was a total crapshoot,” says Balfe. “I had done a few jobs, nothing of note really. I was living in LA and I was really struggling, actually, it was about four or five months since I’d had a job.” She taped an audition, heard nothing. She got a new agent, sent in another tape, still nothing. She booked a holiday with friends to India. It was while her passport was at the Indian embassy that Balfe heard she needed to get to London, like now, for a final screen test.

Outlander has built up a devoted fanbase over five seasons on Amazon Prime in the UK and Starz in the US. But back in 2013, Balfe had no idea if the show would survive beyond its pilot. “So I signed on for six seasons at that point,” she says. “I mean, you’re broke, you’ve got nothing else going on. My lawyer was like, ‘You do realise this is shooting in Scotland? You’ll be there for a year for the first season?’ I was like, ‘A year’s great, a change of scenery, I’m not doing much in LA anyway.’ Yeah, I didn’t realise I’d still be there almost eight and a half years later.”

Outlandish talent: in a scene from Outlander in 2014, with Tobias Menzies. Photograph: Pictorial Press/Alamy

All of which is to note that, as the awards nominations roll in for Belfast, maybe even pitting her against Streep in the best supporting actress category, Balfe is no overnight success. “I feel like I’m at that place in life where, what’s happening now, I know it doesn’t happen all the time,” says Balfe. “It’s lovely, but it doesn’t mean you’re super-important.”

Balfe was born in 1979 and grew up in Tydavnet, a village in rural Ireland, not far from the border with Northern Ireland. Her father was a police sergeant, a tough, often unpopular job in the peak of the Troubles, and her mother mainly looked after their five children (Balfe was the fourth) and two foster children. She has been reflecting on this period a lot since reading the script for Belfast, which Branagh wrote about his own childhood in the city in the 1960s.

For Balfe, there was the time when she was in the car with her cousin and they were stopped at a checkpoint by a British soldier with a gun. This was a regular occurrence for Balfe, but her cousin, from Kildare, had no idea what was happening. “She started freaking out and was crying and screaming, ‘Don’t shoot my mum! Don’t shoot my mum!’” says Balfe. “It was just not her experience.” Another time, when she was 11 or 12, Balfe snuck up to the top floor of a café in nearby Monaghan with a friend to smoke cigarettes, and when she came down there had been a bomb scare and the town had been cleared.

“My sister was supposed to be looking after me and had obviously been looking for me for ages,” says Balfe. “So she was scared and when she found me, she slapped me. When I tell this story, my sister is always like, ‘I can’t believe you’re accusing me of child abuse!’”

Irish eyes: Caitríona Balfe wears grey organza top by christopherkane.com. Photograph: Jason Hetherington/The Observer

Branagh’s film centres on Buddy, an ebullient nine-year-old from a Protestant family, played by Jude Hill. His Pa (Jamie Dornan) works as a joiner in England, as Branagh’s own father did, while his Ma (Balfe) does everything else back home. It’s set in 1969, just as barricades are appearing on streets in Belfast, separating Catholics and Protestants who had previously lived cordially enough as neighbours. Pa wants the family to relocate to England or Canada or Australia, where the work and the money are, but Ma is more resistant, wanting to stick with their friends and Buddy’s grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds).

This might sound like a bleak premise, but Belfast is one of the warmest, most charming films you will see this year. Soundtracked by Van Morrison, there is nostalgia here, but also a recognition that, however grim the Troubles became, there was also warmth, generosity and even remorse about what was happening.

“It’s strange, because obviously some of the material is so heavy, but because it’s done through the eyes of a child it never feels that way,” Balfe says. “It’s so joyous, you come out of that movie just feeling… full.”

Branagh was keen to enlist actors who would bring a personal resonance to the film: Dornan and Hinds are from Belfast; Dench’s mother was from Dublin. The first time they came together, Branagh encouraged them to share tales of their own parents and upbringings. “So I’m not thinking of Judi Dench as Dame Judi Dench, the titan of acting, but I’m thinking of the little girl and her stories,” says Balfe. “It just levels everybody. And I think we all understand something of each other – all of us have left our home and not returned.”

‘It’s been incredible’: Balfe wears dress by roksanda.com, boots by alexandermcqueen.com and earrings by completedworks.com. Photograph: Jason Hetherington/The Observer

Balfe’s Ma is loving but fierce, with a wit and pragmatism that ensures the film doesn’t drift into schmaltz. “To Ma she brings a generosity of spirit that makes the character engage the audience without being ingratiating,” says Branagh. “The other quality she had that was certainly present in my mother – probably everyone’s mother? – was a ferocity of passion when protecting her young. You would not want to be in Caitríona’s way: she’s a very thoughtful, very considered person, but there’s a lioness an inch from the surface. I’d want her on my side in a fight. No question.”

Belfast lands at a busy time, perhaps even a chaotic one, professionally and personally, for Balfe. Last August she and her husband, music producer Tony McGill, had their first child, a son. Balfe is well aware of the awards chatter for the film, but life at home, changing nappies, grabbing sleep when she can, provides some perspective in case she becomes too carried away thinking about little gold statues.

“Luckily, I’m doing a lot of that [changing nappies], so I’m actually not thinking about the awards too much: it’s more ‘Stop peeing on me!’” she exclaims. “No, if it ever happened, I’d be bloody excited, but I don’t think you can chase that stuff, because that really does make you crazy.”

Feet on the ground: at a Bafta party in 2019 in LA with her partner Tony McGill. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Balfe and McGill live a “nomadic” existence, spending time in London and Los Angeles, but living most of the year in Glasgow while she shoots Outlander. The sixth series of that show will return on 6 March, ending a hiatus that diehard fans have called the “Droughtlander”. It was a testing season to film, back in the winter of 2021. There were Covid protocols and the bitter Scottish climate to contend with. The material was challenging as well: at the end of the fifth series, Balfe’s character Claire was brutally raped, and there was a deep, psychological and physical reckoning that came with that. All while Balfe herself was pregnant.

“Claire’s story was very heavy this season,” says Balfe. “And it’s very heavy material as well. So I was just like, ‘Does your body know if you’re pretending to be stressed and upset and angry?’ Because you’re going through all the motions to get yourself into a state where you’re crying or shouting or scared, and there were times where I must have been four or five months pregnant and I’m running around shooting guns. And I’m like, ‘What does this child think?’ It must be like, ‘Who the fuck is my mother? What am I being born into?’”

Belfast may be some people’s introduction to Balfe, but she already has a loyal following thanks to Outlander. Some have been there since the start, others found the very bingeable show during lockdown. One sign of its popularity comes each year on Balfe’s birthday: 4 October. In 2020, when she turned 41, a group of fans decided to plant 41 trees in her honour. (Why trees? Balfe’s not totally sure, but she does follow the charity One Tree Planted, which plants a native tree for each $1 pledged, on Instagram.) This quickly became 410 trees, and when Balfe and her Outlander co-star Sam Heughan lent their support, it all became a little crazy. That year more than 55,000 native trees were planted, everywhere from Uganda to the Andes. A similar number followed in 2021, creating a “Balforest” of more than 100,000 trees.

“That’s not nothing,” says Balfe. “Sometimes people look down on shows like this and fandoms like this, but they’re amazing. And it’s funny, I do say sometimes it feels like I have thousands of stage mums. In the most beautiful way. Anything I do, they’re right on it and like, ‘Go on!’”

As for what is next, Balfe has recently started shooting the seventh series of Outlander. Diana Gabaldon, the former Disney scriptwriter whose novels inspired the show, has suggested there will be 10 books in the series, but at the moment Balfe and Heughan have only committed to seven. Balfe would like to direct, and has optioned Sara Crossan’s novel Here is the Beehive to potentially produce and star in. But before that, she has a baby to look after and an awards season to contend with. Balfe is unlikely to be short of offers after that.

“For someone who started in the industry so late, it’s been incredible,” says Balfe, looking a little perplexed at the run she’s having. “I don’t know, I got really fucking lucky.”

Belfast is in cinemas now; Outlander resumes in March

See full photoshoot (separate BIF post). Fashion editor Jo Jones; makeup by Mary Wiles at One Represents Using Kat Burki Skincare; hair by Gareth Bromell at Premier Hair and Makeup using Sisley Haircare; nails by Robbie Tomkins at Premier Hair and Makeup using Dior Manicure Collection and Miss Dior Hand Cream; digital technician Andy Mayfield; photographer’s assistant Alfie Bungay; fashion Assistant Peter Bevan; shot a Big Sky studios

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/23/caitriona-balfe-star-of-belfast-on-family-late-fame-and-her-amazing-fan-club

Remember… so I’m not thinking of Judi Dench as Dame Judi Dench, the titan of acting, but I’m thinking of the little girl and her stories. It just levels everybody. — Caitríona Balfe

#Tait rhymes with hat #Good times #BelfastMovie #The Guardian #The Observer Magazine #23 January 2022 #Belfast #Worldwide 2022 #Thanks castlemaine123 #Thanks sunsetmagic85

15 notes · View notes

joshjacksons · 3 years

Text

Joshua Jackson interview with "Mr Porter" (2021)

Minutes before Mr Joshua Jackson joins me in a booth for a Friday afternoon drink at a vibey hotel bar in Santa Monica, he’s confronted by his past. Or rather, a woman in her early twenties who is binge-watching Dawson’s Creek, the teen show about a close-knit group of high-school friends coming of age in a sleepy American town, which made Jackson incredibly famous between 1998 and 2003. The series, which also made household names of Ms Michelle Williams and Ms Katie Holmes, went off air 18 years ago, but is now streaming on Netflix, to the bemusement of Jackson, who played lovable rogue Pacey Witter. “This girl was like, ‘Are you...?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, I am. He got old. I’m sorry to break it to you,’” he says, before ordering an iced tea and a charcuterie board to tide him over until dinner time. “It always surprises me when young people say they’ve just got into Dawson’s Creek. I’m like, ‘Is it a costume drama to you? Do you feel like you’re watching a historical documentary?’”

The idea of a Friends-style reunion episode or a Sex And The City revival feels equally far-fetched to Canadian-born Jackson, now 43 and wearing it well in a pale green linen shirt and tailored linen trousers by Oliver Spencer that complement his fading brown hair and Cali-tanned skin.

“I don’t know why you’d want to [bring it back],” he says. “Nobody needs to know what those characters are doing in middle age. We left them in a nice place. Nobody needs to see that Pacey’s back hurts. I don’t think we need that update.”

And Jackson doesn’t need Dawson’s Creek. From Mr JJ Abrams’ sci-fi series Fringe (2008-2013) to the Golden Globe award-winning The Affair (2014-2019), from Ms Ava DuVernay’s ground-breaking true-crime drama When They See Us (2019) to the recent Ms Reese Witherspoon and Ms Kerry Washington-produced Little Fires Everywhere (2020), he has commanded the small screen – with a collection of dynamic and diverse work – ever since.

His latest role as Mr Christopher Duntsch, the Texas surgeon convicted of gross malpractice when 33 of his patients were left seriously injured after he operated on them and two of them died, in chilling Peacock crime drama Dr Death, is only stepping his career up another gear.

“I’ve never played anyone irredeemable before,” says Jackson, who is joined in the eight-part series (based on the 2018 Wondery podcast of the same name) by Messrs Christian Slater and Alec Baldwin. “He is charming, gregarious and has a high-level intellect, but he’s also a misogynist, probably a sociopath, certainly a narcissist and a complete incompetent who is incapable of seeing himself.”

If Duntsch is terrifying, then Jackson’s portrayal is even more so. The artist formerly known as Pacey is virtually unrecognisable (thanks to prosthetics) in the opening scene, but the real challenge for Jackson was allowing himself to view someone who is so “spectacularly evil” as a human being in order to walk in his shoes. “It’s a more damning portrayal of the man to make him into a human being, rather than just make him the bad guy,” he says. “He really believes he’s the hero, he’s the genius and that he’s the victim, so once I got past my own judgment, all the other things fell into place.”

Jackson might have his pick of stellar roles – and challenges – now, but it has not happened by accident. Take it from someone who has been in the business since landing his first job aged 14 in Disney’s live-action movie series The Mighty Ducks, opposite Brat Pack alumnus Mr Emilio Estevez.

“You try to make it look like it happens accidentally,” he says, “but there is no way to do this and not be ambitious. I’d say I’m extremely ambitious because I’ve been doing this cutthroat job for nearly 30 years. I’m in the pay-off phase of my career now. One of the benefits of surviving for as long as I have is you get to learn from your own mistakes.”

Such as? “I wouldn’t say, ‘I wish I hadn’t done that,’ because it all becomes bricks in a path, but [after Dawson’s Creek] I was not choosy enough about the things I was doing. You get stuck. You start trying to perform the performance you think people are hoping to see you do. I was so used to working all the time that I just worked all the time. There was definitely a conscious moment in my mid-twenties when I realised I wasn’t really enjoying the work that I was doing. My manager at the time just said, ‘Take a breath. You’re burnt out.’”

The turning point came in 2005, when Jackson was offered a role in the two-hander Mr David Mamet play A Life In The Theatre, opposite Sir Patrick Stewart. “God bless him, Patrick could have made my life miserable because I had no idea what I was doing, ” he says. “I hadn’t been on stage since I was a kid and now I was in the West End in over my head. But it reminded me that I actually enjoyed being an actor, that it’s not about the red carpet or travelling around the world. What I really enjoy is working on good material with good people.”

It’s no surprise Jackson’s time on Dawson’s Creek led to a career crisis. From the ages of 19 to 24, he lived with his fellow cast mates in Wilmington, North Carolina, filming day in, day out, in an arrangement he likens to college. “You get to the end and they’re like, ‘Here’s your degree. Go live now. You’re an adult. Go out into the world,’” he says.

But most graduates don’t have to deal with global fame. “It’s transitory. You’re only ever cool for a moment and then you become much less cool. I was always pretty dubious about flatterers,” he says, recalling a time he was stung in London in the mid-2000s. “I went on a date in Hyde Park with a woman whose name I will not use – she was socialite-famous – and she was acting completely bizarre, looking over her shoulder the whole time. I came to find out that she had hired a photographer to follow us through the park and gave a whole story to the tabloids about how I was going to meet her family.”

It was his growing fortune, rather than fame, that caused Jackson the most anxiety. “Suddenly, at 19 years old, I was making more in a week than most of my friends’ parents would make in a year,” he says. “It was lovely to have the money, but it was that feeling of nobody is worth that kind of money. You feel like a fraud and it took me a long time to forgive myself for not being the thing that I was perceived as.”

Born in Vancouver, but raised in Topanga, California, until he was eight (before moving back to Vancouver following his parents’ divorce), Jackson bought his childhood home in 2001 and lives in it today with his wife, British Queen & Slim actor Ms Jodie Turner-Smith, and their 15-month-old daughter.

“My father unfortunately was not a good father or a husband and exited the scene, but that house in Topanga was where everything felt simple, so it was a very healing thing for me to do,” he says. Fast-forward to 2021 and his baby daughter now sleeps in her father’s childhood bedroom. “There was a mural of a dragon on the wall in that room that I couldn’t believe was still there, years later. The owner [who sold him the house] said, ‘I knew it meant a lot to somebody and that they were going to come back for it some day.’”

Becoming a first-time parent during a pandemic sounds stressful, but it afforded Jackson months at home with his wife and child that his normal work schedule wouldn’t have allowed.

“I now recognise how perverse the way that we have set up our society is,” he says. “There is not a father I know who works a regular job who didn’t go back to the office a week later. It’s robbing that man of the opportunity to bond with his child and spend time with his partner.”

Despite his obvious career ambitions, fatherhood has changed Jackson’s priorities in “every possible way”, he says. “It’s 100 per cent changed how I approach my work and my life. That has been made so clear to me in this past year. For me to feel good about what I’m doing day to day, my family has to be the central focus.

“There are plenty of things left for me to do, but now the thing that gets me excited is experiencing the world through my daughter’s eyes. I can’t wait to take her scuba diving. I can’t wait to take her skiing. I can’t wait to read a great book with her. I’m not worried at all she’ll be a wallflower. She’s been a character from the word go.”

Jackson met Turner-Smith, 34, two days after his 40th birthday. He had been single since his 10-year relationship with German actress Ms Diane Kruger ended in 2016. “I was not looking to fall in love again or meet the mother of my child, but life has other plans for you,” he says.

The couple met at a party. Turner-Smith was wearing the same The Future Is Female Ejaculation T-shirt Ms Tessa Thompson’s character, Detroit, wears in the 2018 film Sorry To Bother You. “That’s what I used to break the ice. I shouted, ‘Detroit!’ across the room. Not the smoothest thing I’ve ever done, but it worked. We were pretty much inseparable from the word go. It was a whirlwind romance and I can tell my daughter I literally saw her mother across a room and thought, ‘I have to be next to this woman.’”

A self-confessed “useless” shopper, Jackson gives his wife full credit for his current wardrobe. He is jewellery-free, apart from a wedding band and a gold signet “JJ” ring on his little finger (a present from his wife), and discovered tailored sweatsuits (by Stampd and Reigning Champ) in the pandemic.

“Jodie has influence in the way that a wonderful wife encourages you, through love, to dress well. She was like, ‘We’re going to throw away all the sweatpants from your past and I’m going to get you some that actually make you look like an adult male and you will still feel comfortable around the house,’ and I’m like, ‘What an amazing idea!’ Who knew you could get sweatsuits that actually look good on your body?”

Jackson’s style has evolved, he says, “from slovenly teen to it’s-nice-when-your-clothes-actually-fit-you”. The penny dropped after he auditioned for his former co-star Estevez, who was directing the 2006 Mr Robert Kennedy biopic Bobby. He said to me, ‘You only got this job because I know you. You came in here to play a very well-put together 1960s political operative and you’re wearing jeans and a hoodie.’

“I had to grow up a little bit. We are very much raised in Canada to never, ever show off, so it took me a while to recognise it’s OK to look good when you go out.”

Still, when you’ve grown up in front of the camera, “every pimple literally documented”, and lived (very successfully) to tell the tale, you can probably be forgiven for the odd fashion faux pas.

“I wore a silk Ascot to an event once in Paris and I still have nightmares about it,” he says. “I looked like Fred from Scooby Doo, but you live and learn.”

#joshua jackson #interviews #jodie turner smith #dawson's creek #dr death #fringe #emilio estevez #mr porter #patrick stewart #michelle williams #katie holmes

57 notes · View notes

evarcana · 3 years

Text

I See the Moon

Oh when you are looking at the sun

Ev wears some very impractical shoes and learns that she does not know the city quite as well as she thought.

characters: the usual cast of Ev and consul Valerius

words: 2,4k

warnings: none!

notes: I wanted to write something short and sweet to act as a placeholder between the previous part and what is coming next, but I think I got a bit too emotionally attached in the process. The title is from “Be the One” by Dua Lipa and I will leave it open for interpretations.

Darkness strikes Ev’s eyes as she steps out of the theatre doors and for a moment she is completely lost in time and space, staring at her surroundings as if seeing everything for the first time - the disorientation which comes with returning to reality after the magic of the theatre wears off.

A few myopic street lanterns glimmer faintly and the moon, pitched extraordinarily high, is covered by the ragged organza of thin clouds and barely available to light the streets below. Passing groups of people turn into clusters of dark silhouettes, and Ev watches the collars being lifted and scarfs wrapped tighter, as the theatregoers hide themselves from the wind moist with the cool evening dew and disappear into the shadows, leaving only trails of soft footsteps and animated chatter behind them. It is this time of the year when night falls suddenly and way quicker than anyone anticipates.

The impatient tug on Ev’s arm cuts through the hazy darkness. “Are you going to let me leave or what?!” Valerius sounds desperate in his exasperation.

“Just a moment and you are free.” Still watching the dark street, Ev reaches for her bag and throws a pair of flat pointy mules decorated with golden beads and tassels on the ground in front of her. Using Valerius’s arm for support, she lifts one leg to untie the ribbons on her ankle. Somebody behind them helpfully holds the theatre door open, letting the light out, and they both stare at Ev’s bright red toenails as she steps out of her shoes. Ev frowns to herself and curls her toes - it is hard to be an intimidating opponent when you wear a cute sparkly little ring on your fourth toe, when she feels another tug and catches her breath in surprise, losing her balance. The arm slips from under her hand causing her to immediately crash into Valerius. Well, no chance of looking like a menace now. At least Valerius can’t run away, she thinks, because her entire face is smashed into his chest. “So impatient,” Ev rolls her eyes and tucks her heels in the bag.

Valerius hurries to brush off something invisible from his coat and then looks down at Ev’s feet with cynical interest, “Going on a hike?”

She contemplates telling that it took her a very detoured walk from the palace and four nervous circles around the Town Square to finally burn all that destructive energy her body generated in their morning argument, and that right now she is dying to rub her sore ankles, but decides against it. After all, wounded animals are easy prey. “Looks like it,” Ev says, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She scans the road once again and clicks her tongue. There is a carriage pulling away, two people inside, and another one rolling on towards the theatre, the coachman already waving to somebody, but most of the theatre crowd chooses to walk. They all must be locals, or heading to the closest tavern, Ev realises.

“Don’t tell me, -” Valerius’s voice says and Ev looks up, surprised that he is still standing there, “you don’t have a carriage because you were hoping to find a date to continue the night. You shall forgive me for ruining this little plan of yours.” His words are dripping with distaste.

She realises that Valerius must have been following her eyeline. The nervous lough blasts out of her but she manages to catch it and it turns to sound like a cough. A lucky guess on his part? Or did he take inspiration from his own plans? Ev refuses to think about the whole theatre fiasco. The sinking feeling in her chest has started and she puts her hands on her hips in annoyance. “I thought there would be carriages waiting,” she manages to say.

Valerius arches his brow in response, “...how pathetic.” Ev gives him her best withering look and turns away.

The last carriage departs with the din of wheels hitting the worn edges of the stones. Valerius’s eyes are still set on Ev’s face and his brow begins to crease slowly. He is clearly deliberating something but Ev cannot see it. She is watching clouds moving slowly across the moon. “Where do you live?”, he finally asks.

“By the Town Square,” Ev responds automatically, squinting at the sky above her.

“Not in the Heart District?” It sounds like a genuine question at first but the edge of his mouth lifts in a wry grin. “Didn’t you say I wasn’t the only one with the money here?”

“Too close to you,” she smirks back, “the urge of leaving a dead fish by your gate at least weekly would be -,” she leans in closer, turning her voice into syrupy sweet hush, “- irresistible”. This is getting weird. “Anyway,” Ev hurriedly looks behind her shoulder at the theatre doors, “I think it is going to rain later. Have a good night,” the words come in a flat orderly row, she is already concerned with something else, “I will see whether the theatre director can fetch me a carriage.”

“My carriage is waiting down the road.”

“Mm good,” Ev mutters to herself but then the realisation hits and she turns to the consul, eyes wide. “Are you offering me a lift home?” A ‘thank you’ sign lights inside her head but she crashes it with a wave of suspicion. It’s Valerius out of all people. He has no reason to offer her a ride in his carriage besides plotting to murder her and then ditch the body somewhere in the forest. Ev gives him a hard stare.

Valerius breaks the staring game first - his eyes flash with the new unidentified emotion before he regains his usual dismissive look. “Not home,” he snorts, “to the Town Square,this should suffice for a favour.”

“No no, hold on,” Ev raises her hand in protest. “I haven’t asked you anything yet, and hospitality is not a favour.”

“What hospitality are you talking about?”

“You repeat that it is your city all the time! Technically, I am still a guest.” Inside her head Ev is thanking all the available gods for her ability to just keep talking, regardless of whether it makes sense or not, because she definitely has not processed what happened yet.

“Yes, well, just keep your mouth shut,” Valerius says and walks off without a backward glance, his back soon disappearing in the darkness of the narrow lane.

Ev’s eyes follow his path and then she throws another look at the theatre building. The light in one of its rounded windows goes down. She watches the emptying street and feels the goose bumps scatter her forearms. The air is beginning to chill. She looks down at her feet. Ev decides that the consul is the kind of man who would rather pay somebody if he wanted to get rid of her than being involved himself and for the second time this evening she rushes after Valerius. This is so weird.

She is about to call him out to slow down because the sound of duck feet that her ‘emergency’ shoes make is getting on her nerves when she hears a loud thud and a curse. In the darkness of the path Ev is not sure how close Valerius is to her but she knows that he stumbled and it makes her giggle in delight. She stretches her hand out glancing at the strips of warm candlelight coming from the gaps in the window shutters and the ivory glare of the moon. A small globe of light, the size of a plum, forms above her hand. Its light is delicate and warm, as if filtered through the frosted glass, but bright enough to fill the space between the two of them.

The consul straightens up quickly, “Why -”

“I don’t know about you but I like my toes all intact,” Ev walks over to him. “It’s only a small trick, here,” she raises her hand and the light gets brighter, “you can touch it, it’s not hot.”

Valerius takes a step back, looking at the ball of light suspiciously. “You are full of tricks, aren’t you?” he says.

“Don't even make me start on what you are full of.” She bunches her hand in a fist and the light sphere drops down but, before hitting the ground, it bounces back in the air like a small ball and splits into a dozen of smaller lights, startling Valerius. They hover in the air along the path similar to a garland of lanterns as they walk in silence until the lane ends, opening to the canal, and Ev asks, “Is it your carriage there?”

***

The servant opens the carriage door and much to Ev’s astonishment, Valerius waits for her to get in first. She gives him a confused look but complies. There is no evening chill inside and the cushioned seats are invitingly soft, so Ev’s immediately decides that regardless of what is going to happen it was a good idea not to walk home. Valerius takes a seat opposite her and reaches to unbutton his coat and pull his long loose braid from under the collar. His head rolls gently to the side and Ev sees a couple of inches of the neck, soft lines and the glowing skin. She feels her cheeks beginning to heat, suddenly remembering the warmth and the bitter almond fragrance she breathed in every time she got too close to the man, and gods did she get too close tonight.

This is about as far from the real world as Ev can imagine. The carriage is small and the little triangle of her beaded slipper somehow ended up between the consul’s leather boots. If she was to stretch her leg, the bareskin on the side her foot would brush along his shin. They have never sat this close together. Ev thinks about the old lady from the theatre. How would she feel if she knew that she was the only thin barrier stopping them from recognising each other and fully succumbing to the mutual hostility, claiming at least half of the theatre as casualties in the process. This could have been a disaster.

Ev looks at Valerius again and tries to understand how could she not recognise these features straight away. The signature crease between the dark brows and the sulky mouth. Valerius sits in silence, and his eyes are definitely not the ones she knows. They are so wistful and lonely, and so golden under the lamp light, Ev has to look away.

She puts a hand under her chin and leans to the window. A fine mist of rain has started to grit on the glass, and behind the sparks of its tiny drops - a bridge arches over the canal’s silver curve, both ends of which are clipped by infinity, which, in the dim light of the early night, is only ten feet away. The backdrop is all in flashes of the lit windows and the black outlines of pointed rooftops, round cupolas and slender towers, all together resembling a crown adorned by a single grand jewel of the moon, burning bright white. Then, the skyline and even the moon gets momentarily obscured by the huge wall, deprived of any lights, looking ghostly in the tempered gloom.

“That massive rounded building, what is it?” Ev is surprised with herself for striking a conversation.

“Have you not seen it before?”

“No, I have not really been to this part of the city,” she says, turning to Valerius, “What is it? A hippodrome?”

“It's the coliseum. The count’s favourite place,” he gives a chuckle which sounds bitter. “The man loved... performances.”

“What kind of performances?” Ev asks, watching his mouth twisting in distaste. Something about his look makes her frown.

“Gladiators. Bloodshed which lacked any order or purpose besides the count’s own entertainment,” Valerius rubs the bridge of his nose and glances to the window. Ev cannot tell whether he is looking at the moon or the looming coliseum, considering something. “But it’s not what this place was intended for,” he pauses. He turns back to Ev and the expression in his eyes is softer. “It was built before Lucio became a count, although it was slightly less grand back then. The rituals and ceremonies were conducted there during the festivities and the previous count used to reenact scenes of the famous battles there, using the actors. It brought the whole city together. Nobody wants to remember those days anymore.”

Ev feels a weird tremble inside and she is not sure what has caused it until she realises that it is a strange, unusual affection in his voice. She crosses her arms and seats back to contain the feeling. It’s so freaking strange to talk to him when his face is not a mask of boredom. “Did you use to come to watch?” she asks.

“Only when I had to. As if I would mix myself with the roaring crowd of plebeians. Besides, it was terribly distatestful and the smell inside was disgusting.” His mouth tightens, and a strange shadow clouds his expression this time. “Pointless waste of human life.”

“Oh,” is all Ev can manage. She cannot stop staring at Valerius. There is some kindness beneath this asshole facade, human decency, fairness even. It is not the perspective that she has been prepared for. “I meant before that,” she adds faintly.

“Yes I did, when I was much younger.”

“I cannot believe I have never heard of it.”

“Did you do any research before you came here?” The consul is back to his dismissive tone.

“Honestly? I had other things to worry about.” Ev turns back to the window, suddenly unable to look at him anymore.

She hears an irritated snort from Valerius but then, after a brief silence, he starts talking again, and it is not about Ev’s inadequacy. He talks about the canals named after constellations, traditions which Vesuvia used to have, and what you could find in the city before the plague. His voice is calm and steady, and has this velvet quality to it, which fits the night perfectly. Ev closes her eyes and thinks that maybe if she asked Valerius, as that favour she got from him, to continue his stories sitting by her bedside, she would finally be able to fall asleep before the sunrise.

#omg if there is such a thing as MY writing style it is writing things where nothing is happening #but I promise they will kiss..maybe…eventually #I wrote something chronological do I need like a master list now #the arcana #consul valerius #the arcana Valerius #evpanopolis #ev x valerius #the arcana fanfiction #writing #valerius x mc #the arcana fanfic #the arcana fic

32 notes · View notes