ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY AND AWARD NEWS BY NICOLE SPERLING

Will Hollywood Forgive Felicity Huffman (and Lori Loughlin)? It’s Friday, and I’m wondering if I’ve ever written anything that needs to be redacted. Greetings from Los Angeles, where we are pulling ourselves away from the Mueller report to understand Netflix’s thinking on all things Felicity Huffman,examining the W.G.A. battle from a different angle, celebrating the demons of Bob Fosse, and processing the unique perspective of Egyptian-American comedian Ramy Youssef. Whither Felicity? After Felicity Huffman became enmeshed in the college-admissions cheating scandal, Netflix could have easily picked up her upcoming movie Otherhood, originally due out next Friday, and buried it somewhere deep in its catalogue (maybe somewhere between Yu-Gi-Oh! and Roger Corman’s Death Race 2050). Instead, last week, the company simply pushed back the film to later this summer, and gave it a firm release date—August 2. The maneuvering around the film, helmed by Sex and the Cityexecutive producer Cindy Chupack, has provided an interesting glimpse into how Hollywood deals with the business ramifications of scandal. According to a source, Netflix’s decision to firm up a new date for the comedy, which co-stars Angela Bassett and Patricia Arquette, was made before Huffman’s recent statement that she intends to plead guilty to charges that she paid $15,000 for a proctor to correct her daughter’s SAT. Huffman’s decision to show contrition only bolsters her chances for a good, old-fashioned Hollywood redemption story. And, according to the crisis P.R. exec I spoke to, she’s taking a page out of the playbook of one of the best: Martha Stewart. Meanwhile, Lori Loughlin is maintaining her innocence, and may be hurting her career as a result. “Felicity is setting herself up to be rehabilitated,” said the crisis vet. “Lori is digging in, claiming innocence and ruining her value down the road.” After all, in the Trump era, who’s going to remember the college cheating scandal at all come August 2—or the Mueller report for that matter? (I kid, I think.) Click here for my full report. Born out of Broadway Stars Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams joined the creative team behind Fosse/Verdon, FX’s springtime dose of razzle-dazzle, to reveal many of the show’s secrets Thursday evening in a conversation led by Vanity Faireditor in chief Radhika Jones. Many a backstage gem came of the talk, but here’s our favorite: the show’s genesis came when co-executive producer Lin-Manuel Miranda picked up Fosse, the biography written by his former Wesleyan classmate Sam Wasson, and tossed it to Hamilton director Tommy Kail. Rockwell also divulged how hard it is to play a character from history: “It is like having a second job when you do a real person. You have a dialect coach for the accent. It’s almost like you had to compartmentalize.” Read Paul Chi’s full story here. Netflix and Chill Worried about all the family time you’re about to embark upon this weekend? Have no fear: Netflix is once again here to save you, with a slew of new content dropping on the service just in time for your Passover Seder. And what goes better with matzo-ball soup than Beyoncé, a buddy comedy featuring Gina Rodriguez, and a doc from Fab 5 Freddy on weed? According to our critics, the surest thing to tune in to is Homecoming, Beyoncé’s documentary about her 2018 appearance at Coachella, and what it took to get there. Beyoncé is credited with writing, directing, and executive-producing the movie, which delves into the struggles she went through to get back in shape after a difficult pregnancy and a C-section. But as critic K. Austin Collins writes, even with all that access, Beyoncé remains somewhat unknowable: “Even as the artist brings us close—even as she deploys aesthetics of intimacy, with grainy images like something out of an 8-mm family archive and confessions that sound delivered to us personally, as if over a late-night call with a dear friend—we can only get so close.” Read his full review here. Someone Great, from Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, is also a fun distraction, with Rodriguez and co-stars Brittany Snow and DeWanda Wise serving up enough chemistry and female friendship to make up for a minimalist plot. Says critic Sonia Saraiya: “Someone Great isn’t really a rom-com; it’s a last-day-of-summer movie, but one that will end with its characters forced to become grown-ups.” Read her full review here. Nestled between the first night of Passover and Easter Sunday is 4/20: the annual celebration of all things weed. Netflix is commemorating the day with the release of Grass Is Greener, a new documentary film from hip-hop legend Fab 5 Freddy. As Dan Adler reports, the doc explores the ways people of color have been disproportionately targeted by the criminalization of the drug while simultaneously being cut out of the legal marijuana business. Says the former host of Yo! MTV Raps: “A lot of people of color have been targeted by the police across the country for decades for cannabis prosecution. People who have been convicted can’t participate in the business most of the time, which are the people that pioneered it as a business.” For more, click here. New Obsession Egyptian-American comedian Ramy Youssef is a conundrum of sorts: a modern-day twentysomething trying to make it in comedy as a practicing Muslim. He’s captured the experience in a new 10-part series from Hulu, called Ramy, which bows today on the streaming service. The series stars Youssef as a heightened version of himself, tackling the issues of love, sex, and friendship while trying to remain pious. Saraiya calls the show “an earnest exploration of Muslim identity that at times runs toward saccharine; one gets the impression that the show, mindful that the mere act of being Muslim in America is provocative, has carefully neutered itself of anger. But Ramy makes up for this with an unflinching, transgressive portrait of American Islam, one that holds both its traditions and its deviations from tradition in the same embrace.”