As an art advisor, Fanny Pereire has a very particular roster of clients: Logan Roy, Miranda Priestly, and Bobby Axelrod, to name a few. Instead of outfitting the Hamptons homes of the ultra-wealthy, Pereire spends her days filling the walls of film and TV characters. A large part of her job is to make the lives of the fictional elite look not just covetable, but believable. As stories about the upper crust of society (whether satirical like The Menu, sinister like Industry, or somewhere in between, like Succession) continue to dominate prestige TV and film, the art on a character’s walls can be as revealing about their personality and status as the quietly luxurious Loro Piana sweater wrapped around their shoulders.

The devil is in the details. In The Devil Wears Prada 2, on which Pereire served as a fine art coordinator, Miranda Priestly, the embodiment of impeccable and unrelenting taste, may have a preference (and the pocketbook) for the Pop Art-inflected confections of Wayne Thiebaud and Alex Katz. On the other hand, Lily (Tracie Thoms), a successful gallery director in Chelsea, might favor lesser-known contemporary figures rooted in diasporic traditions like Marco A. Castillo. Unlike your typical art advisor, Pereire almost always oversees the destruction of the art as soon as she’s finished filming (the pieces featured onscreen are almost always very good replicas).

On the heels of the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2, CULTURED called up Pereire to learn more about her process, her most difficult gig, and how she found herself advising for fictional characters.

How would you describe your job?

I curate the offices and homes of people who don’t exist. People pay attention to the wealthy ones, but I do art for people who have no money too. I do the 5-year-old art that’s on the fridge. I will never put a $1 million painting in a house that’s worth $100,000. I could put in something that’s worth a lot of money if the character was old enough to have bought it when they were really young. 

How did you get into this line of work?

In college, I studied architecture, custom design, and art history. Then I worked at Christie’s in the PR department. I was there the first time Barbra Streisand came in. She looked at the Tiffany lamps and then started collecting for decades. Then I got into art magazines, and then television production. But most of my friends were movie producers. And my position was created, basically, by Scott Rudin, who is himself a big art collector. I started doing it in 1999, and it’s a union position now.

Why did he create it?

It was around when they started enforcing copyrights for artworks. Scott’s idea was, if I’m gonna hire somebody to clear every artwork that’s gonna be on the walls, I want somebody who knows about art. Because everything that is one-of-a-kind and done by an artist has a copyright and has to be cleared—even a 5-year-old’s drawing, I have to have the parents clear it. And if the character has children that are 5 and 7, I will get drawings from a 5 and a 7-year-old.

But when it’s an expensive artwork, are you using the real thing?

I would say about 85 percent of the time we make official copies. So I get the copyright, we do a reproduction, and then I do the proof of destruction at the end of the film. With sculptures, I usually borrow or rent them. And if it’s something that’s inexpensive and it’s not worth the time to reproduce, we’ll just buy it.

Let’s talk about your work on The Devil Wears Prada 2. How did you go about sourcing the art for the movie? 

It has two layers, because it [takes place] 20 years later. So some of the artwork that was used 20 years ago came back. We reused an Alex Katz that was in Miranda Priestly’s home and moved it to her beach house. We also reused a Wayne Thiebaud. Anne Hathaway’s character is in one house at the beginning of the story and another at the end, but some of her art goes with her. The most interesting character [in terms of art] is Lily, Andy Sachs’s best friend, who works for a gallery. 

Yes, I remember her from the first movie. I’m glad she’s still in the mix. 

She used to be an assistant in an art gallery, and now she’s a director at a major art gallery in Chelsea and lives in a loft in Tribeca. She has two Amy Sherald portraits and some work by a Cuban artist called Marco Castillo. It’s very colorful. They also go to a hotel in Milan, which has very edgy art furniture, like marble chairs from Enrico [Marone] Cinzano. 

What are some other recent pieces you’ve reproduced?

I did a recent Law & Order episode where we created some antique Egyptian sculptures. They needed to be destroyed as part of the script. We shot in the Brooklyn Museum and we used some of the existing artwork, and then we substituted it with some of ours. It’s the magic of the scenic artists—I send them pictures, or videos. In Changing Lanes, the first movie I worked on, we reproduced an Antony Gormley sculpture. He was in London and I was shooting in Brooklyn and would call him for details. Then we sent him a video of the proof of destruction. Since it wasn’t destroyed during the filming, it had to be destroyed afterwards. 

It must be weird to constantly be destroying artwork. 

It’s hard because every piece of art that’s on a set, they’re like my children for the duration. And then you have to say goodbye. It’s like sending them off to college. I very often do it myself because it’s easier for me to do it than to watch somebody do it. I slash the canvas up and down. I cut them in pieces and I have a video taken of me doing it. Sometimes I send some of the pieces in an envelope. I’ve had some artists ask us to return them, and they like looking at their old work that has been sold or gone. Or they’ll just paint over it, since it’s a usable canvas. 

How many people do this job full-time?

Not that many. But there are a couple younger versions of me. That’s why it became a union position. I love the research part. Sometimes wealthy characters are easiest because you pull from a list of what everyone expects them to have. But, for example, Succession and Billions were completely different. The characters were not of the same age. They had different backgrounds. Axe in Billions was on top of his game, and he was buying [art] at the same time. In Succession, you had the father who had wealth for a long time and the children who grew up with that. Then there was the new wife, who wanted to make her mark and would have more contemporary things.

Are there actors or filmmakers who have been especially interested in understanding the story behind the art?

Nancy Meyers, for instance, bought one of the artworks that we had on The Intern. A portrait of the dog in the kitchen of Anne Hathaway’s character’s house. Donald Sutherland wanted to buy one of the real Nicolas de Staël [paintings we used in The Undoing on HBO]. I actually tried to track it down for him. It was in a private collection, and I think the people would’ve only sold it for way more money than he wanted to spend.

Is there any artwork you feel is really overused in film and TV?

At one point it was Basquiat. Everyone had a Basquiat. I had one in Axe’s office in Billions and in Chris Rock’s movie Top Five. But because the Basquiat copyrights went over the top—it was crazy what they asked for—you are not going to see many Basquiats for a long time.

Have you ever had an experience where you had to go to the end of the earth to get a specific artwork for a scene? 

Oh yeah. I remember we were doing Wall Street—my mistake was showing Oliver Stone Maurizio Cattelan’s ostrich with his head in the sand. He loved it. Marian Goodman [Cattelan’s gallerist] said they would do whatever they could. But Maurizio was in Sardinia or Sicily or something. It was the end of July—and there was no way he was going to make us one. He said, “We’ll ask the collector” [who owns the original]. I said, “No, I’m not borrowing this multimillion-dollar piece from someone, god forbid.” For the duration, Oliver would always look at me like, You didn’t get me that ostrich.

On the Devil Wears Prada 2, there’s a scene with a new character where we have a Thomas Struth [photograph]. I had to pick it up, and it weighed tons. We had to bring it in from a few hours away. I don’t even know if it’s in the edit. Very often, what you think is going to be your hero piece, you never see. 

That must be hard, when you’ve busted your ass to get something and then it never shows up in the movie. 

That’s the nature. On Ocean’s 8, we had a huge hero piece you never see. Warner Bros. wasn’t keen because [the work] had a cigarette butt in an ashtray. 

What sort of selections have you made to tease out certain aspects of the characters? 

I worked really closely with Donald Sutherland [on The Undoing]. He really believed it was important for him to know what was in there. So we had a very close dialogue about what was in his apartment. I got him a small Francis Bacon. And I don’t even know if we ever see it in the final cut. But that was not important. What was important is that he would see it when he was seated in his chair, in his living room, when he was having these conversations with his son-in-law and his daughter. We really had the same vision of who the character was.

I deal with [some] people who have no clue what’s on their walls; they don’t care. I just put it there and it’s fine. But for instance, Oliver Stone is very particular. He liked to have all the walls dressed [with art], even if there were walls that were never gonna be filmed. It’s just like the costume—when an actor puts on the costume, he gets his into a character. But what he looks at home or in his office tells you about who they are, too, if we do our work right.

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When the trailer for Michael dropped last fall, it broke the record for views on a musical biopic or concert film teaser, surpassing Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. That’s not a data point about the movie—it’s a data point about Michael Jackson, about the grip the mythic popstar still has on audiences the world over. Whether the film itself appropriately satisfies that appetite is a more complicated question. Ultimately, the answer will depend on where viewers stood with Jackson to begin with and how they engage with the perennial question: Can you separate the art from the artist?

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and partially financed (and likely heavily shaped) by the Jackson estate, Michael functions above all else as a lavish testament—let’s call it tribu-tainment—to Jackson’s singular gifts and outsized celebrity status, which had no precedent. Rather than excavating anything especially unique on the subject of Jackson’s talent, however, the film does the opposite. As its 130 minutes elapse, Fuqua layers on more gloss, more spectacle, and more familiar iconography until the man in the mirror recedes almost entirely. 

Nevertheless, the film is, occasionally, fun—thanks to the music and the actors tasked with embodying Michael. Jaafar Jackson—his nephew and the son of Jermaine—disappears competently into the role of adult Michael. Jaafar doesn’t sound or move like his uncle, but he emulates him preternaturally: the featherlight speaking voice and the cultivated fragility. (Jaafar’s vocals are blended with Michael’s for a handful of musical sequences.) Juliano Valdi is irrepressibly adorable as young Michael, while Colman Domingo lends a sense of menace to Joe Jackson, the family’s abusive patriarch.

Other supporting figures drift in and out: his mother (Nia Long); his agent, John Branca (Miles Teller); Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate); and Quincy Jones (Kendrick Sampson). The film doesn’t spend much time differentiating the Jackson brothers; this is, without ambiguity, Michael’s movie.

Michael spans Jackson’s early life in 1960s Gary, Indiana, gingerly charting his rise with the Jackson 5 and his Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad eras. Notably absent are any mentions of the early solo albums from his adolescence, which have been replaced by sugary scenes of eccentric arrested development in the Jackson family mansion: Michael retreats to his bedroom to play Twister with his pet chimpanzee or reread a Peter Pan picture book, while his brothers go on dates and move onto something like normal adolescence. This streamlines the narrative and significantly narrows the dramatic sweep of Jackson’s creative arc. Michael offers viewers the what (polished brilliance, childlike eccentricities) and leaves most of the how and why notably untapped—unlike the way, say, Love & Mercy did for Brian Wilson. That’s a profoundly squandered opportunity for a figure as impossible to pin down as Jackson.

It makes sense when you realize the film was produced by Graham King, who was behind the heavily awarded (and quite bland) Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. Like that film, Michael is mostly recreated performance footage that privileges spectacle over inquiry—an efficient excuse for a singalong. You get the hits, but what you don’t get are scenes that risk tarnishing the polished persona—there are no mentions, for example, of sexual abuse. The film offers less insight than you’d glean from reruns of early-aughts specials on VH1 or the E! Network. 

While the film reveals little that isn’t already part of the public record, there’s still plenty worth paying attention to, for fans and skeptics alike. Here’s what to know.

More than a third of the movie was axed.

Michael has been in development with Lionsgate since 2019, and delayed several times. It finally wrapped in 2024—then things really went sideways.

In 2024, after initial photography shoots for Michael were largely complete, attorneys discovered a clause buried in Jordan Chandler’s civil settlement with Jackson: a legally binding agreement that barred any film from depicting or even mentioning Chandler or the sexual abuse allegations he made against Jackson in 1993, when he was 13 years old. The original script not only depicted those events but reportedly opened with Jackson staring into a mirror as police car lights flashed behind him at Neverland Ranch—the raid that set the investigation in motion. All of it had to go. (The estate’s co-executor, John Branca, has been blamed for missing the clause—though notably, the 1994 agreement was negotiated by Johnnie Cochran and Howard Weitzman, both of whom are now deceased.)

So, the cast reconvened for three weeks of reshoots—what you see onscreen now ends not with scandal but with triumph: Jackson in 1988, defying his father on-stage by performing “Bad” at Wembley Stadium to what was then the largest solo audience in concert history. The final title card unceremoniously reads: “His story continues”—three words that do a lot of heavy lifting for a story that, in real life, did not end so cleanly. 

It’s possible that the leftover footage might be reconstructed into a sequel, as many involved in the production have suggested, but there’s no word from Lionsgate on this yet.

Joe Jackson fills the void.

The first words uttered in the film are Joe Jackson’s: “Mike, get back in line.” It’s an apt encapsulation of all that follows. The tension between Joe’s iron grip on his sons and Michael’s push toward a solo identity becomes, in the restructured film, the skeleton on which the rest of the story hangs.

This is worth sitting with for a moment. Joe-as-villain isn’t just a narrative choice—it’s also nearly all that was left after the legal complications eroded the original narrative. Domingo is compelling, so you may not mind, but it does raise a question the film isn’t prepared to answer: Does focusing on the domineering father as the explanation for everything Michael became a rather convenient form of exoneration?

Neither Janet Jackson nor Paris Jackson has anything nice to say about Michael.

The Jackson family’s relationship to the film is as complicated as the family itself. Janet, the youngest Jackson sibling, is entirely absent on-screen, and in real life has been cool on the project. She is said to have been enraged after a private screening for the family. Paris Jackson, Michael’s daughter, has also expressed distaste, calling the script dishonest and saying it appeals to a “very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy.” (Her brother, Prince, by contrast, is an executive producer on the project.)  

Janet and Paris’s rejection is worth noting, given that the film positions itself as an official account. The estate’s cooperation, it appears, doesn’t equate to the entire family’s blessing.

The film’s editing does the very thing MJ fought against.

One of the more interesting instances of Michael flashing his creative intuition in the film is when he insists to his director and crew that the “Thriller” music video focus on the feet, on the actual dancing. 

(MJ heads can debate whether this exchange actually happened; the film presents it as proof of his rigor.) Too bad that Antoine Fuqua chose not to follow his lead; the film rarely lingers long enough on any dance sequence to let the choreography unfold for longer than a moment.

That restlessness reflects the director’s instincts. Best known for kinetic, forward-driving films like Training Day and the Equalizer series, Fuqua approaches the material with momentum in mind. The result is often exhilarating—but it can also feel impatient, as if the magic is never given a real chance to unfurl.

There may also have been practical reasons for this: Jaafar Jackson is a remarkable physical performer, but maintaining a prolonged similarity to his uncle across long takes would be a feat. 

Yes, that’s Mike Meyers under there. 

Barely recognizable behind an elaborate makeup job, Mike Meyers plays Walter Yetnikoff, the CBS Records president who famously forced MTV to air “Billie Jean” in 1983. The stakes were real: MTV at the time was programming almost exclusively white artists, and Yetnikoff threatened to pull the label’s entire roster (artists like Cheap Trick and Billy Joel) if the network refused. Jackson got the airplay. 

The effects were substantial: In the months following the release of the trio of Thriller videos in 1983, MTV posted its first quarterly profit after years of losses. Michael didn’t just break a barrier—he kept a network afloat.

The armband that broke Twitter appears. 

At the Los Angeles premiere, Prince Jackson showed up in dark suit and red armband—a tribute to one of his father’s signature accessories. To those less versed in Michael’s wardrobe, the armband looked uncomfortably close to a Nazi one, and the comparisons spread before the context did. Jackson began wearing one in the 1980s, reportedly as a symbol of solidarity—he said on multiple occasions that he would continue to do so as long as there were children suffering in the world. By the time of his 2005 trial, the accessory took on an ironic and sinister implication. Michael wore it to court each day as a declaration of his innocence and his commitment to protecting children rather than harming them.

What to watch next, or instead: 

The Jacksons: An American Dream, 1992

Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story, 2004

Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland, 2017

Bad 25, 2012

Living with Michael, 2003

Love & Mercy, 2014

Any actual footage of Jackson’s live performances!

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It’s the morning after the Beef season two premiere, and Charles Melton has ordered five scrambled eggs for breakfast. (“Can I add three more?” he asks, when told the scramble traditionally includes a paltry two eggs.) 

He’s in oversized black pants, a black T-shirt with “AUTUMN DURALD ARKAPAW” printed on it, and a loose cardigan. The actor’s charm is immediately disarming—he’s circumspect and sensitive, but also inquisitive and solicitous (he greets our waiter at the Crosby Street Hotel with a buoyant “Your hair’s so cool!”).

Melton first hit the scene when he joined the cast of the CW’s Riverdale in its second season in 2017, but it was the release of Todd Haynes’s May December in 2023 that heralded his arrival as one of the top rising Hollywood talents (Melton garnered Golden Globe and Critics Choice noms for the film, which also starred Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman). To play the role of Joe, an earnest father of three, Melton put on about 40 pounds, shedding the image of the high-school jock heartthrob (and simultaneously transitioning from the realm of soapy teen drama to prestige cinema). 

Now the actor—a military brat and former college football player—is playing a country club trainer in the hit Netflix limited series Beef’s second season, alongside Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, Oscar Isaac, Youn Yuh-jung, and Song Kang-ho. Melton has received particular plaudits in the reviews, though he may not see them, as he says he tries to mostly avoid reading about his projects and has someone else posting for him on Instagram. In Beef, Melton brings an endearing innocence to the proceedings, as he strives—alongside Spaeny, who plays his girlfriend—to keep up (and then some) with the conniving Montecito club members he must cater to.   

Melton also just became a dad for the first time, with his partner Camille Summers-Valli, a director and photographer; the two split time now between LA and Paris. He giddily shows me a slew of pictures of his newborn daughter during our breakfast, and, if there’s anything making him anxious this April morning, it’s not a post-premiere hangover or anything of that nature—it’s that he is desperate to get back to LA to be with his family.

You bounced around a lot growing up, right?

I’m a military kid, and you just cope wherever you go. My parents were like, “Okay, we’re going to Germany. We’re going to Korea. We’re going to Texas.” I’m like, “Okay. Cool.”

I feel like that sets you up well. It means you’re adaptable.

Very.

Is working out and training fun for you, or is it annoying where you’re like, “Dammit, I have to get in shape for this now”?

I never feel like I have to get in shape for anything. I think it’s more… Every role is different, obviously. [When I start a project], it’s like, Okay, what am I eating? What is this person eating? What do I feel like eating? When I did May December and played Joe, that guy doesn’t have time to work out in the gym and also raise three kids and be the provider. And in [the 2025 Alex Garland film] Warfare, the idea of a Navy SEAL looking like a bodybuilder is not… That’s not their body type. They’re the most athletic, fluid-movement [types]. 

There’s something spiritual that happens when you’re channeling something from within you, or something from you, to embody a role. How you talk changes, how you eat and what you eat changes, the music you listen to changes… It’s extremely spiritual. I’m very spiritual.

Do you generally stay in touch with people that you’ve worked with in the past?

I remember a few years ago, I said this thing that i-D magazine, I think, picked up. I said Riverdale was my Juilliard. It does feel like [with the Riverdale cast] I’m keeping in touch with people I went to college with.

I imagine it’s probably really nice to have that camaraderie of “We all went through this together and now we can all text about whatever’s happening.” 

Yeah, anything we experience, things going on in the world, or when loss happens or someone passes away, or one of the friends in the group is going through a breakup, the camaraderie comes together.

We’re both the oldest of three siblings. I feel like I’m very protective of my younger brothers and other people in my life. Do you feel like the oldest?

I definitely do. But my sisters—even though I’m older than them—give me shit all the time. They guide me, they lead me, even though they’re younger than me.

I feel like we were such a little crew growing up, doing plays and stuff. Was that you guys, too?

As we were moving, adapting, [my sisters] were my homies. We didn’t do plays, but there was a time when I thought I was Indiana Jones, and we were throwing belts over the couch, and my mom was making us grilled cheese sandwiches.

What was exciting to you about doing Beef? How was it presented to you?

What was exciting to me was [Beef creator] Lee Sung Jin and being such a huge admirer of Steven [Yeun] and his work as an artist and his transcendence. I knew for a year that I was going to be in Beef before we started filming. There was a May December dinner thing that Gold House was putting together and Lee Sung Jin requested to sit next to me so he could pitch me all of season two of Beef. Dude, it was a moment. He jokes that I said yes around the second appetizer.

What generally makes you say yes to a project?

The filmmaker first, then the script. But dude, I don’t even know what I’m going to do [in the future]. I can’t even tell you. I have no idea.

If someone was asking what you’re going to be doing in five years, you’d be like, “I do not know.”

If you’re like, “What role do you want to do next?” I can give you a bullshit answer, but I just don’t know until I know. Something will hopefully present itself and then I’ll feel some sort of bubbling fragments of my shadows, of my soul, come up [where] I’m like, Okay... It’s a discovery. To have relentless drive with constant curiosity is amazing, because your North Star is not this one job or this next job or this role. Your North Star is curiosity and discovery.

Are you someone who’s scrolling a lot? TikTok? Instagram? 

I don’t have TikTok. And I don’t run my Instagram. On set, I usually have a flip phone or I’m only listening to music on my phone. The phone becomes… It’s not like a part of my identity anymore. [The flip phone] is kind of silly, but I love doing it, the act of doing it, the reverence of doing it. 

How did you and Cailee develop your dynamic and build up trust?

We spent a lot of time before we started filming and after, too, we became really close. We had a lot of conversations about, like, “How did they meet? What were our lives before?” We took our families to a Kansas City Chiefs game. We spent a lot of time with each other because we wanted to. It was just easy. 

Are you someone who looks at stuff and reads reviews? 

It’s cool to say that I don’t read anything or try not to read anything, but I know reviews are starting to come out today, because the show came out. Am I tempted? Yeah, I’m fucking human. But also… I’m not. You know what brings me back? As we were having dinner [last night], I was thinking about the work that I did with Lee Sung Jin, Oscar, Carey, Song Kang-ho, Youn Yuh-jung, Cailee, our costume designer, Olga, Lori, our hair [person] Jackie, our makeup person, our cinematographer, James. How we went to Korea… I’m thinking about all these fucking people. I’m like, I don’t care what anyone says. We did this.

When you look back at the May December experience now, what are your takeaways or how do you view it? 

I mean, I talk to Todd all the time. He’s in Mexico filming right now. We’re like a whole family. I talk to Julie and Natalie all the time. It was magic, man.

Is there anything in the world or in the culture right now that’s making you anxious or stressing you out? You feel like a really positive person to me.

Thank you. I want to get back home to my partner and my daughter.

How have things been going? Is being a parent different than you expected? 

She’s such a happy baby. They’re the best things in my world.

Do you feel equally at home in Paris and LA?

Just wherever my family is.

Is there any similarity to being on a sports team and a film set?

Absolutely. The director’s the coach, and you have your offensive coordinator, your defensive coordinator, your position coaches, you have the general manager. The owner’s the studio. And when you think about sports, because I have a sports background, preparation is key. The off-season is key. You’re like, What am I doing when I’m not working? I’m enjoying my off-season. I’m enjoying my baby girl.

And I’m sure that helps make it so the next time you go on a set, you’re refreshed and ready.

Refreshed, because my life is lived, and I’m not trying to live my life with each role that I’m doing next. My life is lived. My life is full. My life is boring. My life is mundane. My life is perfect to me. Then when I go to work, that’s a different thing. My life is not my life because of my work.

Do you like being on a schedule? 

Yeah. But that’s the difference between doing a role and being on set and then my life outside. [My work] is only supported by the life that I’m bringing outside of that role. What soul am I bringing if I can’t be soulful and full in my own life? I don’t want to go from this thing to the next thing to be like, “I’m fucking busy.” Nah… It’s a life lived, a life channeled, a life experienced. I feel like that comes from my favorite actors—or the greatest athletes—where they have a reverence for the game, but they still know it’s a game.

You still need to have something outside of it to make it meaningful.

You know, communion’s a beautiful thing. I’ve participated in communion in the church in my early childhood. It’s a very cinematic thing to witness, because all these people are coming on this specific day. There’s this process of drinking Christ and eating the body of Christ, and it’s beautiful and sacred. Like, you can hear a needle drop on the ground. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of. But at the end of the day, it’s just grape juice and a cracker.

What’s coming up? You’re going to Cannes for Her Private Hell, right? Are you excited about the fashion of it all?

Oh yeah. I love the fashion… But it’s [also] grape juice and a cracker.

Last but not least, are you a morning person?

My partner would tell you I’m a morning person. I don’t stay in bed. I don’t ever stay in bed. Seven o’clock is sleeping in for me. Even if I’m grumpy or tired. The normal thing to do is to stay in bed, but I just can’t.

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If there’s a new pipeline—influencer comedian to celebrity interviewer—Jake Shane is its construction superintendent. His podcast, Therapuss, is a staple of the modern press tour, and this spring saw him slide into the talent chair himself with back-to-back Broadway and film debuts. Oh, and he’s set to play a version of himself in a still-cooking Hulu show. He’s keeping busy.

What keeps you up at night?

The idea that everything could go away tomorrow.

What are you looking forward to this year?

I’m really looking forward to putting myself out there creatively more this year. I want to push myself to try new things, explore different formats, and flex creative muscles that I haven’t fully tapped into before. I’m excited to experiment, take a few risks, and see where that can take me. I’m also looking forward to gaining more confidence in myself and intentionally working through my OCD. 

What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?

More of me. Less of the word “bestie.”

When’s the last time you laughed hysterically?

My latest Meg Stalter interview. She has such a unique point of view and is completely herself in everything she does, which is inspiring and endlessly entertaining. She’s genuinely one of the funniest people I know and the future of comedy. If you get it, you get it, and when you get it, it’s the hardest you will ever laugh in your life. 

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?

Reading negative things about myself.

What would you be doing if you weren’t working in your field?

I’d probably still be working in music. That’s what I was doing before all of this and I just remember finally feeling a sense of purpose I hadn’t felt in a while. Going to work every day and feeding off the energy of my coworkers was always so much fun. I’m grateful that I’m still close with many of them today. Music has always been a huge passion of mine, so in a way it feels full circle that my current work is still connected to the music industry, just in a different capacity. It’s such a universal language. 

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?

“The Archer” by Taylor Swift and “Sable Fable” by Bon Iver.

What question do you ask yourself most when making work?

Is this going to make my friends laugh?

What is your biggest vice? Your greatest virtue?

 Weed is my biggest vice and my self awareness is my greatest virtue. Or self deprecation. 

What grounds you, and what invigorates you?

I have Confession OCD, which I learned today, which is when you feel like you have to tell everyone everything. Having my friends around me, the ones who’ve been there since the beginning, has always been really grounding because I know they love me for me. They’ve seen all sides of me, and knowing they have my back keeps me centered and reminds me why I do what I do. Being told “no” pushes me to work harder and not get too comfortable.

What is life after Stranger Things? Natalia Dyer, who spent her 20s playing Nancy Wheeler in the supernatural megahit, is in the midst of finding that out. This year, she’s headed back to the silver screen in the forthcoming Goodbye Girl alongside fellow TV alums Kiernan Shipka and Cole Sprouse.

What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of? 

I’d personally love to see more original tales, more adventures, more pirate movies, and less algorithms. 

What are you looking forward to this year? 

Seeing new places, doing things that scare me a bit, and finally learning how to meditate. 

What’s something people get wrong about you? 

The most common would probably be my name. It’s not Natalie! But you’re close!

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life? 

This is more than one but Miyazaki films like Nausicaä, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle were seminal to me and my imagination growing up. There’s also an illustrated book that was a childhood favorite of mine called Hope for the Flowers that circled back into my life in a lovely way. It’s cute and profound.

What keeps you up at night? 

Oh, the many, many texts I haven’t responded to.  

What’s your biggest vice? Your greatest virtue? 

I’d like to think my greatest virtue is curiosity. I used to think it was my ability to ruminate for hours but have since found out that might not be a good thing, so maybe that’s my biggest vice. 

Where do you feel most at home? 

Home is usually where my very anxiously attached dog Penny is. 

What would you wear to meet your greatest enemy? 

It would involve an incredible pair of boots. 

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far? 

Zooms have been both a blessing of convenience and sometimes the bane of my existence. They might be my greatest enemy. 

What grounds you, and what invigorates you? 

I am lucky to feel very grounded by my friends and very invigorated by disco music.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.

Where would teen TV be without Sam Levinson? Love him or hate him, the Euphoria and The Idol creator isn’t ready to go away yet. The former returned earlier this month with its third season after not only giving an early platform to some of our most bankable young stars (Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, and Sydney Sweeney, to name a few) but also setting the tone for any Gen Z fare to come.

What’s something people get wrong about you?

That I take any of it for granted.

Name an influence of yours that might surprise people.

The Old Testament.

What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?

More pathos, less politics.

Where do you feel most at home?

Movie night, surrounded by the people I love, especially my wife and kids.

When’s the last time you laughed hysterically?

Yesterday, on the phone with Warren Beatty. He told a very funny joke about Alexander Graham Bell.

What’s your biggest vice? Your greatest virtue?

My work ethic and my work ethic.

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?

It’s a Wonderful Life.

What question do you ask yourself most often while you’re making work?

What am I missing? Could it be better?

What do you think is your biggest contribution to culture?

Hopefully, a little more empathy towards addicts.

What keeps you up at night? 

Very little.

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far? 

Focusing on the work instead of the noise.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.

One of Hollywood’s staunchest defenders of the unadulterated comedy, Judd Apatow has become synonymous with the onscreen antics of loveable losers in shows and movies including Freaks and Geeks, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Trainwreck. His latest capers? A documentary paying homage to one of modern stand-up’s most criminally under-sung heroes, Maria Bamford, and another on the quasi-centenarian Mel Brooks.

What keeps you up at night?

Wondering why no one seems to be that concerned about how our country is about to be filled with data centers and concentration camps. Seems like a troubling combo. Hello???!!!! Anyone????!!!!

What grounds you, and what invigorates you?

If a family member tossed all of my Apple products into a river, that would ground me. I am invigorated at the prospect of having nothing to do or think about.

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?

Schitt’s Creek got me through Covid lockdown. Now I need it to get me to the midterms.

Name an influence of yours that might surprise people.

John Cassavetes. You can see it, right? Right? 

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?

Remembering people’s names. My brain is offloading them at an alarming rate. And I’ve met too many people. It’s given me a social phobia.

What would you be doing if you weren’t working in your field?

Trying to learn the banjo so I could join Mumford & Sons.

What would you wear to meet your greatest enemy?

That hidden gun that is on a spring, which suddenly flies up your arm into your hand.

What do you want to see more of in your industry? Less of?

I would like people to take more risks. We need more originality. I’d like streamers to make more projects where they think, I don’t care how many people watch it. I like it!

When’s the last time you laughed hysterically?

When [my daughter] Maude surprised me by doing a perfect impression of an old-timey bicycle horn. For some reason it broke me. I didn’t see it coming.

What question do you ask yourself most often while you’re making work?

Do I have any idea what I am doing? And the answer is no, but maybe that’s good. 

What’s something people get wrong about you?

I’m not as pleasant as I thought I was.

Who do you call the most?

Pete Holmes. We try to figure out how the universe works. It takes time.

What is your biggest vice? Your greatest virtue?

My biggest vice is sugar. Usually in Häagen-Dazs or KitKats. No amount of Zepbound can prevent this. My greatest virtue is I care deeply about other people. Or am I just co-dependent? 

What would you like the headline of your obituary to be?

“Judd Apatow: He Did the Best He Could.”

What are you looking forward to this year?

My daughter Maude directed a film called Poetic License. I’m excited for people to see it. 

What do you think is your biggest contribution to culture?

Hopefully something I have done has been someone’s Schitt’s Creek.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.

If you have access to the Internet, you’ll probably comedian and So True podcast host Caleb Hearon’s voice. Watch out for his forthcoming appearances on the silver screen in The Devil Wears Prada 2, Little Brother, and Trash Mountain, which he co-wrote with Ruby Caster.

What keeps you up at night?

The size of the oceans and outer space. I have to lie to myself when it comes up. I think about black holes and I get scared and then I go, “That’s a myth, buddy. Go to sleep.” And that helps. 

What are you looking forward to this year?

Eating a grilled hotdog by a lake with just a tiny little sunburn this summer. Kevin Morby’s new album, Little Wide Open. Making out in front of a dive bar. The Devil Wears Prada 2. And going on long walks.

Name an influence of yours that might surprise people. 

Mo’Nique! Growing up, my dad showed me a lot of stand-up by straight guys and I liked it. When I saw Mo’Nique’s Queens of Comedy set, she was outrageous and quick and fat and sexy and confident. I just couldn’t look away. And then she does Precious? Legend in every sense of the word.

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life? 

Blonde by Frank Ocean single-handedly got me through my infamous college depression. It also made it worse. Shout-out to Frank.

Where do you feel most at home?

Loose Park in Kansas City on a gorgeous day. There’s nothing like it.

What would you like the headline of your obituary to be? 

“He Tried Hard and Had a Lot of Fun.”

What would you wear to meet your greatest enemy?  

Suit of armor. For protection and status.

What would you be doing if you weren’t working in your field? 

I think I would run the campus activities office at a college like the goddamn Navy.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.

It’s hard to overstate how much of an impact Letterboxd has had on film-watching culture. The app, created by Kiwis Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow in 2011, rocketed in popularity during the pandemic and sent its users running back into theaters once they reopened. Log the films you watch with a star rating and quippy review; movie magic handles the rest.

What’s one work of art that got you through an important moment in your life?

Karl von Randow: It was weird that I didn’t like to touch warm or oily food with my hands, but then I watched As Good As It Gets and saw that things would be okay, or at least, could be worse.

Matthew Buchanan: The Cure’s Disintegration got me through at least two decades.

What would you like the headline of your obituary to be?

Von Randow: “Inbox Zero.”

When you were little, what were you known for?

Buchanan: A shock of blond hair, being pretty quick over 100 meters, and teaching my mother to use a word processor when I was 7.

What’s been the hardest part of your career so far?

Buchanan: The hardest part has been building something that’s never existed before—there’s no playbook for what Letterboxd is. But the most rewarding part has been the people. Everyone on our team has a story to tell and wants to do great work. We’ve had the good fortune to build a world-class group of people, and that makes the hard stuff a lot easier.

What do you think is your biggest contribution to culture?

Von Randow: People have always shared their thoughts and feelings about art. Letterboxd leverages technology to create a community of people who like to share their thoughts and feelings about art. So in that sense, the community is our biggest contribution to culture.

What keeps you up at night?

Von Randow: Right now it’s Avatar: The Way of Water. I have just returned from Italy and have a jet lag state-of-mind, so I’m waking up pretty early and using that time to rewatch before I dive into Fire and Ash. In Italy I saw doppelgängers for nearly everyone I know. But not Jim Cameron.

What question do you ask yourself most often while you’re making work?

Von Randow: We’re incredibly lucky to be building a product about something that people love: film. So our product decisions are about how we support things that people already want to do. We’re creating algorithms to help people find what they love, rather than to suck them in.

When’s the last time you laughed hysterically?

Buchanan: At a packed local premiere of Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie. I came in cold to these characters and their perennial quest to play a gig at the Rivoli. On its surface the film is hilarious, and only funnier if you’re a Toronto native, I expect. Discovering later on how they pulled off the time travel scenes really tickled that part of me that loves learning how this stuff gets made.

To read more from the 2026 CULT100 honorees, see the full list here.