“I’ve done a lot of just regular model casting, I’ve done street scouting, I’ve done actors. “With everything I do, it’s really about realizing that vision of who the best person is for the project,” says Venditti. But in the process of putting it together, Venditti began to figure out just what it is that compels her to keep hunting for breakout talent in the most unexpected of places, three decades after she started. In Venditti’s first book, Can I Ask You a Question?, published today by A24, she’s finally taking stock of her long and meandering career as a casting director. The elfin features of Hunter Schafer, unmistakable even with her 2018 bleached brows, when she was an up-and-coming model auditioning for a then-mysterious new HBO show called Euphoria. A fresh-faced Julia Fox in a simple black tank top, back in her days as an artist and Lower East Side girl about town, earmarked for a role in Uncut Gems. The supporting cast of American Honey, perhaps, shot as wayward teens against graffitied walls and discovered everywhere from Florida beaches to Oklahoma strip clubs. Until, that is, you stumble upon some faces that look familiar. It is thrilling, daring, disquieting and compelling – a triumph at a time when truly unique storytelling remains unsettlingly rare.Leafing through Jennifer Venditti’s first book-filled with hundreds of Polaroids, snapshots from modeling go-sees, actors’ headshots-what strikes you first is the simplest thing of all: the endless varieties of the human face. That Euphoria somehow manages to make you keep caring about often-unlikeable folks on such brutal and dark journeys, is a testament to the uniquely creative voice distilled in each episode. But Levinson's work in this second season makes the case that viewers are watching the lives of a coterie of very specific people mired in their own dysfunction and damage, each self-medicating in different ways, toward an almost universally tragic and emotional result. And scolds like the Parents Television and Media Council warn about the show's explicit content without noting it's a series aimed at adults about youthful characters behaving terribly, showing the often-debilitating consequences they pay for the awful decisions they make. It's tempting to turn these stories and characters into parables about the issues bedeviling Generation Z. In the second season, they are trying to build a romantic relationship, but Rue's barely-hidden addictions are an unspoken impediment. Chief among those she's lying to is young, transgender girl Jules Vaughn (played by Hunter Schafer) the two had planned to run away together at the end of last season until Rue balked. Rue is trying desperately to convince most of her family and friends that she is sober, though she most certainly isn't. The characters bring a tangle of storylines to the second season. But as the ginger-haired drug dealer's story reaches the modern day - and we see Fezco negotiating a tense drug deal with suppliers who demand he and his friends strip naked to prove they aren't informants - Levinson's ability to make audiences feel what the characters are experiencing is masterful and discomfiting, all at once. Much of this episode feels inspired by director Martin Scorsese's style in crime epics like Goodfellas – perhaps because of the liberal use of classic rock hits, sweeping camera angles, quick cuts, gangster activities or the appearance of Sopranos co-star Kathrine Narducci as Fezco's hardcore, gun-toting grandmother. Movies Director Levinson, Actress Zendaya Discuss Netflix's 'Malcom & Marie' (Yes, the guy's, um, excited private parts were shown another way Euphoria shakes up expectations is by showing male nudity in ways even other explicit series do not.) An explosive series of flashbacks announces the start of the second season, depicting how Fezco's grandmother, a ruthless drug dealer herself, took over raising him after shooting his father in the hips at the back of a seedy strip club. Though star Zendaya gets most of the attention playing Rue Bennett, a teen struggling with substance use disorder, the second season's episodes are truly an ensemble affair – opening with the harrowing backstory of Rue's drug dealing friend, Fezco, played by a laconic Angus Cloud. That daring, creative vision only deepens now, as the show's long-delayed second season takes flight on HBO – a pause only slightly alleviated by two special episodes dropped since the first season debuted in mid-2019. Pop Culture Happy Hour The best movies and TV of 2021, picked by NPR critics An ensemble story focused on pain
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