Watch: Mark Cuban’s deep thoughts from final ‘Shark Tank’TV
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Ralph Fiennes to play President Snow in ‘Hunger Games’ film: See cast
‘The Return’: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche star in ‘Odyssey’ tale
Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) returns home to reunite with wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche) in “The Return,” based on Homer’s “The Odyssey.”
Oscar-nominated actor Ralph Fiennes is joining the next “Hunger Games” movie as the dystopian franchise’s most infamous dictator.
The “Conclave” star has been cast as President Coriolanus Snow in the upcoming prequel, “Sunrise on the Reaping,” the official “Hunger Games” X account revealed Friday, May 16.
Set to premiere next year, the film adapts Suzanne Collins’ prequel book that published in March. Both the novel and movie chronicle the infamous 50th Hunger Games tournament that took place decades before the events of the original trilogy that starred Jennifer Lawrence as victor turned revolutionist Katniss Everdeen.
Fiennes joins a line of talented actors to play the villainous authoritarian ruler of Panem, including the late Donald Sutherland from the first four films and Tom Blyth in 2023’s “Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” Sutherland died last June at the age of 88.
The new addition follows a slate of casting announcements including “The Haunting” star Lili Taylor, “Stranger Things” actor Maya Hawke and “Waves” actor Kelvin Harrison, who are all playing tributes from various districts. Last month, the “Hunger Games” social media pages confirmed that young Australian actor Joseph Zada will play protagonist Haymitch Abernathy, whom fans have long associated with Woody Harrelson.
The ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ cast, so far
The cast of “Sunrise on the Reaping,” so far, according to the official “Hunger Games” social media pages, includes the following:
- Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy
- Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow
- Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird
- Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner
- Maya Hawke as Wiress
- Lili Taylor as Mags
- Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier
- Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow
What is the new ‘Hunger Games’ movie about?
The incoming prequel film titled “Sunrise on the Reaping” will depict the 50th Hunger Games, known as the second quarter Quell, in the dystopian nation of Panem.
Based on the book released in March, the film will follow a 16-year-old Haymitch’s journey to winning the battle to the death, showing exactly how he won.
When will ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ film come out?
The new “Hunger Games” prequel film titled “Sunrise on the Reaping” will hit theaters nationwide on Nov. 20, 2026.
Francis Lawrence is returning to direct the movie after helming all of the prior ones in the series, except the 2012 original, which Gary Ross directed.
Contributing: Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY
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Mark Cuban leaves ‘Shark Tank’: Reveals worst TV investment
Mark Cuban’s final ‘Shark Tank’: Watch his past advice, best quote
Mark Cuban’s final episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank” is May 16. Here are some of the maverick’s most colorful moments and advice from the episode.
Mark Cuban is exiting the “Shark Tank.”
After 14 years on the hit ABC reality show, Cuban, 66, appears in his final “Shark Tank” episode May 16 (8 EDT/PDT), which is also the Season 16 finale. As the former Dallas Mavericks majority owner said simply on a May 15 X social media post, “It was time to move on.”
Cuban started as a guest shark in Season 2, and then officially joined the Emmy-winning show in Season 3 with Daymond John, Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec, and Kevin O’Leary. Lori Greiner joined as a main shark in Season 4, and KIND Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky joined full-time this season.
In Cuban’s final episode, he battles fellow sharks one last time for unique entrepreneurial investment opportunities and a special farewell.
Cuban tells USA TODAY via email that he respects all his fellow sharks despite the occasional feeding frenzy. “They all worked their butts off to get where they are. They aren’t there by accident,” he says. But he gives special kudos to Corcoran, who has “an advanced understanding of people.
“I respect Barb’s talents the most,” says Cuban. “She is the best judge of character and commitment of entrepreneurs that I’ve ever seen.”
Those “Shark Tank” disagreements between founder-friendly Cuban and the aggressive negotiator O’Leary (aka “Mr. Wonderful”) were real. “We had our battles,” says Cuban. “Kevin always looks for ways to use royalties. Which is rarely, if ever, good for the company.”
Still, the two bid farewell respectfully in the finale, and Cuban offers kind parting words. “Kevin may be confused about business often, but he has a big heart and does care about his entrepreneurs,” he says.
What was Mark Cuban’s worst ‘Shark Tank’ investment?
Cuban has no problem revealing his worst investment on the show. In 2013, entrepreneur Charles Michael Yim pitched his Breathometer as the world’s first smartphone breathalyzer. Yim even brought champagne to test it. Blame the bubbles, but the pitch worked, pulling all five sharks into a joint investment for the first time. Cuban, O’Leary, John, Greiner and Herjavec pooled a $1 million investment for a 30% company stake.
The party started to end in January 2017, when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against Yim and Breathometer, alleging the company misled customers about the product’s ability to accurately measure blood alcohol content.
Breathometer settled with FTC over that complaint, but was compelled to fully refund every customer who had purchased the device (typically retailing for $49.99), according to an FTC statement.
“It was a lot of money, and I did a poor job of due diligence,” says Cuban. “It really didn’t turn out anywhere near what I expected.”
Why is Cuban really leaving ‘Shark Tank’?
Cuban cited family as his official reason for leaving the show. Cuban and wife Tiffany Stewart share three children: daughters Alexis and Alyssa and son Jake.
“My kids are teenagers, and I want to spend more time with them,” Cuban told People magazine in October. He pointed to the family-conflicting two-week shooting schedule in June and September as the deal-breaker. “When they were young, it was like, ‘Okay, we’re going to wait for Dad.’ Now that they’re teenagers, they aren’t waiting for Dad at all, and in September, they’ve just gotten back to school. I want to be there for that.”
Cuban retained a minority ownership position with the Mavericks, where he remains involved with the team’s operations. After the pro basketball team earned the first pick in the 2025 NBA draft, Cuban wrote “unreal” and “Let’s Go Mavs” on X.
The billionaire co-founded the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company in 2022, which is focused on providing lower-cost pharmaceuticals to consumers by bypassing middlemen and markups.
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Stanley Tucci is in Italy for new Nat Geo food travel series
Stanley Tucci dispels myth about traveling to and eating in Italy
Stanley Tucci chats with USA TODAY’s Ralphie Aversa about his National Geographic series, “Tucci in Italy” and and the country’s cuisine.
FLORENCE, Italy – Dinner with Stanley Tucci is how a great meal should be: delicious, leisurely, and memorable.
Tucci hosted journalists last June at a restaurant on a cobblestone street. Dapper, elegant, and sophisticated without being a dandy, precious, or condescending, he’s spreading the joy of Italian food. He highlights dishes and chefs in his new five-part series, Nat Geo’s “Tucci in Italy,” premiering May 18 (8 ET/PT), and streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
Besides being an Oscar-nominated actor and an author of books about food, Tucci is an accomplished home cook. He stresses he’s not a chef, just an amateur cook. Still, Tucci cares deeply about food, and half of his six Emmy Awards were for his similar 2021-22 CNN show, “Searching for Italy.”
“We’re elevating it visually,” Tucci says, differentiating the culinary travelogue series. “And we’re taking more time with the stories. There’s more history, more culture. It’s National Geographic, but you’re not going to find me climbing up anything. You find me climbing into bed at night.”
The key to the show is Italy itself. As Tucci traverses the country, viewers learn why food varies even from town to town. In Trentino-Alto Adige, nestled in the Alps, Austria influences the dishes. In Calvisano, Tucci tucks into caviar from farm-raised sturgeon; this may be the happiest he’s ever been on screen.
Few people have a better time eating than Tucci. And where better to experience this than Italy, as he introduces food beyond spaghetti and meatballs?
“A lot of what’s interesting about Italian cuisine is that it’s very quick,” he says. “There are some recipes where things are sort of slowly cooked, but for the most part, when you’re making an Italian meal, the majority of it is going to be over an open fire or on the stove. And I think that might have to do with needing to do things quickly before somebody else came in and invaded.”
Food, naturally, reveals countries’ histories and geography. “It’s a way of connecting not only to your family, but it’s a way of connecting to other cultures,” Tucci says. “But it also is a way of defining your identity.”
As delicious and varied as Italy’s food is, Tucci notes most dishes are relatively simple, cooked with just a few fresh, exquisite ingredients. As he visits different locales, Tucci explains how cuisines evolved. “We think of Florence as a very sort of wealthy city now, which it is, but if you look at the cuisine of Florence, it’s really poor food,” he says.
There, Tucci tries a local specialty, lampredotto, the fourth stomach of a cow, sold as street food. A fan of offal, he likes it. It’s a far cry from the street food where he grew up, just north of Manhattan. Now, Tucci lives in London with his wife, Felicity Blunt, and their children.
He credits his mom with being a fantastic cook. When he was a kid, his family spent a year in Florence, where his appreciation of Italy grew.
Tucci’s credits include starring in and directing on Broadway, co-writing and starring in “The Big Night,” and many films “(The Devil Wears Prada,” “Conclave”); he’s also voiced characters on TV (“BoJack Horseman” and “Central Park”). But hosting a series and being an executive producer is daunting.
“I was very uncomfortable when I first started doing this series five years ago, because I didn’t want to be myself,” he says. “That’s sort of the whole point of being an actor.”
Tucci insisted that the show’s focus remains on food and the people creating it ‒ not on him. The CNN series, welcomed during the pandemic, sparked a fan base.
“I wanted to do it because it made it made so many people happy,” Tucci says. “And it made people love food, and it made people want to come to Italy. It made people bring their kids to Italy and made people eat, have their kids try different foods, and that’s just cool.”
Tucci reflects on the finished series in a separate interview. “The hardest part is making sure that you’ve gotten the story truthfully, that you’re not making that person tell their story in a way that suits you or your show,” he says.
Let’s face it, it’s not as if Italian food needs an ambassador. Still, most folks don’t realize the depth of the cuisine. Tucci hopes that viewers will “see how complex and diverse Italy is and that it isn’t just pasta, pizza, and red sauce,” he says. “And that they see how the food has been so distinctly influenced by so many different factors, by invasion, religion, topography, climate, politics, all of it, and that when they go to Italy, they revel in that.”
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Cast, episode list, where to watch
The gut-wrenching drama”The Chi” is back for Season 7 and is airing this weekend.
Grab your popcorn for the show that continues to follow the trials and tribulations of the main characters. The story revolves around Chi-town residents” who become linked by coincidence but bonded by the need for connection and redemption,” Paramount+ says.
During an appearance on CBS Boston, actor Jacob Latimore, who plays Emmett, said this season is “action-packed” with “a lot of surprises, a lot of shock value.”
“A lot of our OG fans will just be really excited about this season,” he added.
Here’s how to watch Season 7 of “The Chi”:
When and where can you watch ‘The Chi’ Season 7?
The show will be available for streaming on May 16 for those with the Paramount+ Showtime plan. It will premiere on television on May 18 at 9 p.m. ET.
Season 7 Episode List
- Episode One: “Black Friday”
- Episode Two: “The Fall Out”
- Episode Three: “More Life”
- Episode Four: “Mother’s Day”
- Episode Five: “Safe Harbor”
- Episode Six: “Do The Chi Thing”
- Episode Seven: “Unfinished Business”
- Episode Eight: “A Bet Is A Bet”
- Episode Nine: “Last Respects”
- Episode Ten: “Tha Block Is Hot”
- Episode Eleven: “Ready or Not”
‘The Chi’ Season 7 Trailer
‘The Chi’ Main Cast
- Jacob Latimore: Emmett Washington
- Lynn Whitfield: Alicia
- Yolonda Ross: Jada Washington
- Shamon Brown Jr.: “Papa” Jackson
- Michael V. Epps: Jake Taylor
- Birgundi Baker : Kiesha Williams
- Luke James: Trig Taylor
Taylor Ardrey is a news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at [email protected].
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Trump calls Bruce Springsteen ‘obnoxious jerk’ after singer speaks out
President Trump leaves Middle East with plans to meet Putin
President Trump departed the Middle East as talks between Ukraine and Russia began. He said he plans to meet with President Vladimir Putin soon.
President Donald Trump wants Bruce Springsteen to know who’s the boss.
On May 16, the president fired back at criticism from the 75-year-old rocker, known as “The Boss” by fans, insisting he “never liked” the New Jersey native or his music, despite having used Springsteen songs at his campaign rallies.
Trump’s Truth Social rant came after Springsteen took aim at the president while on his European tour, calling the administration “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” during a May 14 concert in Manchester, England.
Springsteen told the British crowd before the night’s first song “The Land of Hope and Dreams,” that “the mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ‘n’ roll in dangerous times.”
“In my home, the America I love — the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years — is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,” Springsteen said according to videos from the show.
“Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American spirit to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring. This is ‘Land of Hope and Dreams,'” he added.
Trump responds to Springsteen: ‘Highly overrated’
In response, Trump slammed Springsteen on Truth Social, calling the legendary “Born in the U.S.A.” rocker “overrated” and suggesting there could be consequences when the musician returns stateside.
“I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States,” he wrote. “Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy – Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country.”
Trump also called Springsteen “dumb as a rock,” and took aim at his physical appearance, calling The Boss a “dried out prune of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!)”
Last year, during a May 11 rally in Springsteen’s home state, Trump compared crowd sizes with the rock legend while campaigning for a second term in office.
“I love these Saturday evenings. Is there anything better than a Trump rally?” Trump said from the stage. “If some of these wackos came along, you know, these liberal singers, they’d actually vote for me. You know they’d all vote for me. You know, like Bruce Springsteen. We have a much bigger crowd than Bruce Springsteen. Right?”
Bruce Springsteen boasts ties with Barack Obama, Kamala Harris
Springsteen is a close friend and collaborator of Barack Obama, a political foe and first presidential predecessor of Trump. The A-list duo formed a friendship during Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008.
Later, after leaving the White House, Obama coauthored a 2021 book, “Renegades: Born in the USA” with the 20-time Grammy winner produced by his company Higher Ground. They also cohosted a companion podcast series “Renegades” on Spotify.
In October, Obama and Springsteen both participated in a Philadelphia campaign rally for Trump’s 2024 general election opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Contributing: Chris Jordan; Asbury Park Press
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Who is MJ Lenderman? Inside rising singer’s sold-out show
MJ Lenderman took the indie music scene by storm last September with his album “Manning Fireworks,” capturing the hearts of listeners and critics alike. It’s not just Gen Z under the 26-year-old’s spell – at his May 15 sold-out show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, there didn’t seem to be any demographic immune to his nonsensical yet vivid lyricism and unsuspecting charm.
Lenderman’s poignant storytelling is delivered via stripped-back guitar riffs and gritty folk rock anthems, hiding behind absurd imagery. On “Wristwatch,” he sings, “I’ve got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome / And a wristwatch that’s a pocket knife and a megaphone / And a wristwatch that tells me I’m on my own.” It’s hard to tell whether to laugh or cry to his music, to feel empathetic for the narrator or judge him for his stagnancy.
But the Asheville, North Carolina musician, who is also a member of the beloved indie rock band Wednesday, is doing something right. Seemingly simple experiences become profound through the Lenderman’s pen, such as sitting under a “half-mast McDonald’s flag,” and fans flocked to the 9:30 Club to witness his magic with their own eyes. The nightclub, where iconic acts like Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers and R.E.M. once played, was filled Thursday night.
MJ Lenderman gets lost in his live performance, but fans stay in on ‘the bit’
In his live performance, Lenderman seems oblivious to the doting audience latching onto his every word. He looks down for the majority of his set, his face scrunched, focused on the lyrics as if he were writing them in the moment. His nonchalant demeanor gives a sense of passion and impulsiveness necessary for both the ridiculousness and heaviness of his lyrics, driven by gut instincts rather than regard for rhyme or reason.
In a July 2024 interview with “The Guardian,” he revealed his desire to evade the spotlight: “Visibility and stuff, that’s not really something I’ve been after.”
So when he sings the song, “You Are Every Girl to Me,” it’s hard to imagine he’s serenading any particular audience member, unlike at shows from heartthrobs like Harry Styles, where fangirls (harmlessly) imagine he’s there to swoon only them. But even without locking eyes, his band plays in perfect synchrony; and, all the couples in the audience pulled their loved ones a little closer, whether it be friends, lovers, or the father-daughter duo standing next to my sister and me.
The few moments of eye contact during “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In” were almost jarring. It felt like being woken up from a trance, lending an intimacy to the lyrics, “All you had to do was be nice… Be nice to me.”
On “Bark at the Moon,” the 10-minute finale to “Manning Fireworks,” he pleads, “You’re in on my bit / You’re sick of shtick? / Well what did you expect?” The second half of the song – both on the recording and during the live performance – includes nothing but distortion, swirling minutes of feedback into a rowdy crescendo, eventually bleeding into the short track “I Ate Too Much at the Fair” during his live set.
So were we, as an audience, also sick of Lenderman’s gimmick? At 9:30 Club, the opposite was true. When he asked if anyone planned to come again the next night, the better half of the crowd cheered.
“It’s gonna be a late night,” he joked, referencing that the doors for the May 16 show don’t open (fittingly) until 9:30 p.m.
When he interacted with the audience, glimmers of his whimsical personality shone.
“Thank you all so much, it’s awesome to be with you,” he told the crowd towards the end of his set. “What’s the thing when you ask the crowd what you want to hear? A request.”
Fans began shouting out deep cuts, but the fiddler shut them down: “The request lines are closed. We still love you.”
“I think you guys are really going to like these songs, I hope,” Lenderman promised. “You’ve been a great crowd, and you still are,” he added, chuckling at his own sentiment.
The ‘Turkey Brothers’ steal the encore with a boisterous jam
As fans begged for an encore to an empty stage, an unlikely guest took center stage.
The fiddler, Landon George, freestyled a rhythmic jam, introducing himself and a few of Lenderman’s bandmates as the “Turkey Brothers” from Hall Creek, taking us on a journey through DC’s history and a story of a band of brothers on a remote farm, dependent on dial-up internet.
At his sold-out show in New York City on April 25, Lenderman brought out state Assemblyman Zohran, a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, and a mayoral candidate.
During the Turkey Brothers’ performance on May 15, George sang, “You gotta have hope if you’re gonna keep it going forward. You gotta have hope if you’re gonna do anything about fascism,” before descending into a fiddle jam.
“Have you ever heard a grease fire on the fiddle?” he teased. “It sounds kind of like this.”
George’s solo culminated in a symphony of squeaks before MJ Lenderman returned to the stage for a two-song encore. “Give it up for the Turkey Brothers,” he cheered.
Ending the night with “Dancing in the Club,” a song written by and performed with Nate Amos of This if Lorelei, the energy in the room stayed high. It seemed as if it would be trapped there until the next night’s performance, bouncing off the walls until the crowd could sing lyrics like, “Once a perfect little baby / Who’s now a jerk / Standing close to the pyre manning fireworks,” again.
MJ Lenderman: 2025 tour setlist
Lenderman and his band have been changing the setlist order for each show, but the general list of songs has remained the same.
- Rudolph
- Inappropriate
- Toontown
- SUV
- Joker Lips
- On My Knees
- Wristwatch
- Rip Torn
- Manning Fireworks
- You Have Bought Yourself a Boat
- TLC Cage Match
- She’s Leaving You
- Uncle Disney (Patterson Hood cover)
- Bark at the Moon
- I Ate Too Much at the Fair
- You Are Every Girl to Me
- You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In
- Live Jack
- Someone Get the Grill Out of the Rain
- Hangover Game
- Knockin’Encore:
- Turkey Brothers Jam
- Something There Is About You (Bob Dylan cover)
- Dancing in the Club (with This is Lorelei)
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Stanley Tucci is back in Italy for new seriesEntertain This!
Stanley Tucci is back in Italy for new seriesEntertain This!
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‘Overcompensating’ taught comedian Benito Skinner to ‘forgive’ himself
Benito Skinner knows a thing or two about trying to play it straight.
For his fourth-grade birthday party, he invited the boys in his class to go see Disney’s 2004 camp masterpiece “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.” (“I was like, ‘It’s because Lindsay Lohan’s hot,’” he recalls wryly.) And on the high-school football team, the comedian remembers trying to pass off his pop-star obsessions as pure, red-blooded machismo.
“I was like, ‘Lady Gaga is sexy!’ But the guys in the locker room were like, the one from the ‘Alejandro’ video? She’s terrifying to us,” says Skinner, who has now funneled his real-life closeted chaos into Amazon Prime Video comedy “Overcompensating” (all eight episodes now streaming). “To be clear, Gaga is a goddess. But for straight guys, nothing could be scarier than a woman with a bob and red lipstick who’s actually expressing herself.”
Created, written by and starring Skinner, “Overcompensating” is a barbed, pop culture-savvy series about a college freshman named Benny (Skinner), who’s struggling to find himself as a young and confused gay man. He becomes fast pals with Carmen (Wally Baram), who after realizing they’re not sexually compatible, is content to just bond with him over ”Glee” and Nicki Minaj.
But not even Carmen is safe from Benny’s messy crosshairs, as he tells people that they’re hooking up in order to maintain his frat-boy appearance. Meanwhile, Benny is crushing on Miles (Rish Shah), his chiseled British classmate, and hiding his sexuality from his older sister, Grace (Mary Beth Barone), who goes to the same university.
The show is guaranteed to be stress-inducing for queer viewers, many of whom can understand the crushing anxiety of lying to your best friends and bedfellows about who you really are.
“I want the sick stuff,” says Skinner, 31, who like his character came out during college. At that age, “you’re selfish at times, and maybe doing something really (messed) up to a friend, just out of safety and protecting yourself. It feels so true to me: I could be out in one room, but in another room, I would code-switch and do a deeper voice and find myself still hating this part of me. You’re performing so much.”
Barone remembers dating one of her best friends before he came out, and loves how Skinner captures the bluntness and vulnerability that Benny and Carmen share.
“I got to have that relationship, and I knew how special it was,” Barone says. “It starts off where you have that wall between you before the person comes out. But as you really get to know each other, you can be so honest and say anything and not feel judged.”
“Overcompensating” began as a standup show, which Skinner performed across the country in 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he frequently went viral with his online persona Benny Drama, donning makeup and wigs as he impersonated celebrities ranging from Kim Kardashian to Billie Eilish. Those sketches ultimately helped him to hone his hyper-specific voice on “Overcompensating,” which references many of Skinner’s favorite touchstones as a kid growing up in Boise, Idaho. (The series opens, for instance, with a young Benny watching “George of the Jungle,” whose nearly naked star Brendan Fraser left a lasting impression.)
“The more specific, the funnier,” Skinner says. “Even if ‘George of the Jungle’ wasn’t your queer awakening, you can immediately slot in the thing you know. But also, coming up on the internet helped me realize that an attention to specificity is what people really responded to. If I did this tiny little thing where I put a Pepsi can in the back of a Kendall Jenner (video), that’s what all the comments were about.”
Baram admired Skinner’s strong vision: “He brought everything with every hat that he wore: as a boss, as a friend, as an actor,” she says. “I’ve never met anyone with more poised energy. My brain is exhausted looking at him.”
The acid-tongued comedy features myriad guest stars including Charli XCX, Bowen Yang and James Van Der Beek. Kyle MacLachlan and Connie Britton also pop in as Benny’s well-meaning parents.
Most memorably, Megan Fox appears as a poster on Benny’s dorm room wall, which springs to life during irreverent confessionals. The image is modeled after Fox’s lingerie-clad 2008 GQ magazine spread, which Skinner often feigned attraction to among his friends but really just found “so iconic.”
During college frat parties, “I remember being in these bathrooms and seeing these posters of Sports Illustrated models, being like, ‘Girls, what are we doing here? This sucks. I’m so sorry, darlings, I love you all,’” Skinner says. When it came time to write similar scenes for the series, he wanted Fox to be the fantastical embodiment of Benny’s heteronormative angst: “She is my idol. She’s brilliant, and people haven’t really allowed her to be as funny as I think she is in the show.”
For Skinner, who has been dating photographer Terrence O’Connor since 2016, “Overcompensating” was a chance to revisit a very tumultuous period of his life, but with newfound humor and understanding.
“It was so cathartic,” Skinner says. “I was able to forgive myself for not coming out sooner or feeling like I couldn’t. I always judged myself for that throughout my 20s, but then being able to perform this and feel like I had some power over it, I finally gave myself a little bit of grace. For so long, I was like, ‘Man, I wasted so much of my life,’ but I don’t think I did. I had my reasons and I’m proud of my experience as a queer person. Hopefully, other queer people see themselves in the show.”