Dua Lipa behind the scenes with Julia Michaels, Jon Batiste, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and Cynthia Erivo for their The Hollywood Reporter photoshoot
The Weather Report, Cynthia Alexander // Forever Rain, RM of BTS // Spring Day, BTS // Gloomily The Clouds, Anne Brontë // The Art of Storm-riding, Yahia Lababidi // Today's Mood, Cheeze // Lemon Tree, Fool's Garden // Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell // Visitors, Chalky Wong // Ode on Melancholy, John Keats
I love One Step Ahead for all the obvious reasons (gay angst), but also because it is so packed with little storytelling moments. Also it just seems exhausting. So much happens in that song:
1. Motorcycle chase (with office chairs)
2. Boat chase
3. Staff fight
4. Sword fight
5. Vigorous musket loading
6. Run up the staircase
7. Hang glider chase
8. Fistfight
9. Run halfway down the stairs again
And the entire time they are doing all of this, they're belting out a vocally demanding song. I mean, no wonder Curt Mega had to take a breath during that final note. That's a feat of endurance. I simply would've passed out and died.
One Step Ahead is one of my favorite setpieces of all time. In anything. Ever. It is so impressive, and it is even more impressive when you realize this was done by a tiny little independent company with the theatre budget equivalent of $1.50. Unreal. It should not be possible.
And the thing is, One Step Ahead is the perfect narrative counterweight to A1P1 (Spies Are Forever). The amount of thought they put into this is just stunning. Because here's the thing: A1P1 is also incredibly physical. For most of the song Curt and Owen are on the move, they're going up the ladder, they're fighting goons, they're going down the staircase, they're running.
But more importantly, Curt and Owen are touching a lot in A1P1. And yeah, that's fun in a swoony curtwen vibes way, but its also incredibly important to the narrative. They are touching a lot, and when they aren't touching they are standing just a little bit too close together. Its subtle enough that you initially dismiss it as a stylistic choice, but once you have the full context it is remarkably intimate.
Those are important details- like the way Owen has his arm around Curt and is literally holding his hand when they're talking to Cynthia. Its meant to tell us that they are together. In the romantic way, yes, but also they're just aligned, working together, on the same page. They are partners here. They literally have each other's backs.
And that's down to Curt Mega and Joey Richter selling the absolute shit out of these roles, and genius choreography by Lauren Lopez, and Corey Lubowich being the director of all time.
The digital download BTS has a part with Joey and Curt rehearsing the bit where they do the hug, and right after that they're trying to figure out what cool action poses to move into and Corey says that he wants to see something with them "connected," which is just... yeah, that's the perfect word to describe what is going on in A1P1. These two are connected.
So then we get to One Step Ahead. At the very beginning, Curt does the arm clasp with Tatiana. The first time they did this, Curt had a flashback of Owen. Owen was still his partner in his heart. But this time that bond is severed. Curt thinks of Tatiana as his partner now.
We get into the action of the song, and Curt and Owen do not touch. Even when they are very physically close together, there are weapons between them. In A1P1 they had lots of moments with their backs turned to each other, trusting each other, working perfectly in sync. In One Step Ahead they are facing each other head on. They are literally and figuratively fighting. They are breaking up.
The only moment during this sequence where they are actually touching each other is when Owen slaps Curt, Curt punches Owen twice, and they do that lock up move. They're only touching to hurt each other now.
And its so subtle and well executed that you don't really think about the parallels between these two scenes the first time you watch them. But you feel it on an emotional level. They had about ten minutes to establish the relationship between these two, and they used that ten minutes so effectively that the staircase scene ends up hitting like a ton of bricks.
Just. I love this show. I love how much TCB and Curt Mega and the rest of the cast care about this show. I'm so grateful they keep coming back to it. I cannot wait to see what they do with these scenes for Spy Another Day.
I saw someone who wrote down what they would like to see in it and I was all like: I wanna do that too!🤩
So here it is, feel free to comment your own ideas if you want to! 😇
Finally having decent canon ships: Like TMNT 2012 tried and failed so hard. I swear Ramona was the only non disastrous one. Honestly I loved Leorai until someone decided to blow up the sweet home Alabama bomb right in the fans face. 🤯The rest of the ships were scandalous. And ROTTMNT didn’t even dare to try and give us ships.😑 Like if I really want, then I might pressure my imagination to see some Kendratello or April+Raph, but nothing is canon. I think this time we deserve some shipper food people! ( So far it goes well, I kinda like the awkward crush Leo has on April. It feels real. Also I am looking forward to some Rasey.😏)
Canon LGBTQ+ turtles (or at least one): Come on people, this is the 21th century it’s good d*mn time for some queer turtles.🏳️🌈 I mean ROTTMNT kinda gave us some gay Leo hints ( I swear if that guy is not gay then gay people are not even real😂), but nothing confirmed. Also what do you think which turtle should be queer? I personally vote for Raph or Donnie.😏
Cynthia Ultron being really evil: Like please let her be an actual threat!😈
Serious villains: Please, no more goofy villains like in Rise! 🥺There can be some, but I firmly believe that the mainly unserious bad guys caused ROTTMNT’s downfall. 😭No way it wouldn’t get a season 3, if the series would start off with something like the Shredder fight or the movie. (And truth to be told, I nearly dropped the show at the beginning, because it felt like it was aimed for a way younger audience with all that goofiness.)
Mutant Racism: This is the first time the turtles are out in public, they go to school and stuff. But even though they are accepted everything can’t be peachy, right? I want the tasty conflict of not all humans accepting them. Like, it would be illogical that there not a single rick b*tch in school that is disgusted by reptiles, or a bully that just found a too good reason now, to bully . Or are some kids straight up afraid of them? There must be people that are still unsure if this is not the ““ alien’s” master plan to take over the world.” ( Although that won’t go peachy, cause you try and pick a fight with ninja turtles.)
Donnie being the biggest weeb of cartoon history: That’s self explanatory, also I wanna see him on a BTS concert. ( Boy deserves it!😇)
Purple Dragons are a High School Tech club: I just fell in love with the concept in ROTTMNT and because it would fit nicely into the new series in my opinion. ( since I guess we're gonna be in school a lot.)
Loads and loads of fighting in school: The boys deserve an audience.😂 Also I wanna see how the principal is gonna react to turtles destroying the school.😱
New human friends: They are bound to have some since they are going to school, right?
I didn't know until now that Deadline is hosting those exciting behind the scenes episodes where the actors, writers, directors and others members of the artistic team explain how they create the show.
If you loved like me episode 5 Partings, you will really enjoy this bonus.
This time the special guests are for the actors: Morfydd Clark (Galadriel),Charlie Vickers (Halbrand), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Queen Regent Miriel), Trystan Gravelle (Pharazon), Ema Horvath (Earien), and Leon Wadham (Kemen)
The episode director Wayne Che Yip, writer Justin Doble, and composer Bear McCreary gave too some interviews.
My favorite parts:
When Charlie Vickers and Wayne Yip confirmed that Morfydd Clark and all the actors that played with her in the swords fight scene had done so much stunt rehearsal, when came the day of filming it, they did the entire scene without the help of the stunt actors, which allowed the director to make full shots of Morfydd instead of doing only close ups of her face to hide the fact it's not her.
Leon Wadham is so excited about playing Kemen, his relationship with Eärien and his father Pharazön! He gave a lot of insights about what Kemen thinks and what he wants, that changed my view on the character and his intentions."His" Kemen is more eager initially to follow his father's path and more selfish than i perceived him to be, thus Isildur's decision to save his life instead of running away shocked him: he saw it as something incredibly selfless and heroic.
Ema Horvath brings so many good insights about Eärien's attachment to Nùmenor, how her love for Isildur is linked to the fact that she already lost her mother and can't see her other brother.
Which brings the question: what about her father? Why isn't her relationship with Elendir more developed? They had one scene together long ago (episode 3), in which' their relationship didn't seem good. While he showed a strong support to Isildur's career to the point to force him to enroll in the Sea Guard, he was shocked that she submitted a new application to the Builder's Guild (she hide it from him probably because she feared he would discourage her, he was already convinced the Guild wouldn't reconsider its decision), and shouted at her when she tried to defend her brother. When they left for war, the crowd stopped her from reaching Isildur, which broke her heart, but nothing was showed or said about her feelings about Elendil'sdeparture (unless it was cut).
Everything that Bear McCreary said about the role of music in Tolkien's work and what it meant to him is like poetry (especially the part where he said he was already creating music for the LOTR universe in the back of his mind decades before being hired for the series). He's so attuned to Tolkien's work, so immersed in Howard Shore's soundtracks for the films and in Peter Jackson's adaptations, that contributing to the series is really a dream coming true for him, which explains why he reacts in such powerful and vibrant way to it.
I discovered his work on Battlestar Galactica (2005), the best Sci-Fi show ever made, and to say he fell deeply in love with this show and felt it in his bones wouldn't convey even enough how composing for BSG was intense for him. BSG soundtracks were his greatest work ever. I feel the same level of dedication here and it's moving.
The actors, writer and director are talking a lot also about Galadriel and Halbrand's relationship, so it's a good BTS episode for their fans too.