Erin Elair Moriarty

“Everyone is going through their own battles. Let’s not add to that.”

by Simi Kaur Baidwan

“Playing it safe, has never really been very attractive to me”, actress Lily Rabe shares when reflecting on her dance, theater and acting background. “I love pushing myself. I love being just scared of something or not knowing how it’s possible to do something in the beginning. I don’t love to stay comfortable. I don’t think I’m my best when I am. That probably has a bit to do also with just my spirit as a person, and my motor as a person.” She recently co-directed, produced and starred in Downtown Owl with a star-studded ensemble including Ed Harris, Vanessa Hudgens, Henry Golding, and Finn Wittrock. Based on the novel by Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl is set in the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota where the story follows the lives of three residents leading up to a whiteout blizzard. “I have always been attracted to intensity,” she says. “It’s so ingrained in me both, I think, physically, but also psychologically, and sort of in the way that I approach things.” However, Lily isn’t new to displaying powerful characters on camera and is known to bring her natural talent and that intensity to each role with sweet ease – whether it’s Ryan Murphy’s series American Horror Story, in David E. Kelley’s crime drama miniseries Love and Death on HBO MAX starring opposite Elizabeth Olsen, Bill Lawrence’s Shrinking for Apple TV+, HBO MAX’s psychological thriller The Undoing alongside Nicole Kidman, or George Clooney’s adaptation of the J.R. Moehringer memoir The Tender Bar played alongside Ben Affleck. In addition to the role of new director for her upcoming movie, Lily also seamlessly juggled being a mother on set once again. Lily and her partner, co-director and co-writer of Downtown Owl, Hamish Linklater, also welcomed their baby boy a few weeks before shooting the movie in Minnesota. Read on as AMAZING Magazine’s global correspondent chat with Lily about her dedication to motherhood and her career —two things she flawlessly maneuvers without breaking character.

SKB: Do you mind walking me through your early years of growing up in New York and Connecticut? And maybe a little bit about your childhood?

LR: I was born in Manhattan on the Upper West Side. The first thing I did in terms of performing or sort of the arts was at around 3 years old. As my mother tells the story, we were walking by the broth and it was the Broadway Dance Center, and you know, they had those big, open, beautiful studio windows. You can see the dancers. I said, “I want to do that.” I think we marched up the stairs and asked if I could in enroll in a class. I was really in love with ballet. My mom and I would go; we had regular season tickets or subscriber tickets to New York City Ballet. Those memories of being at the ballet with her are so formative. I loved dance and I was really devoted to dance for so much of my youth. Then we moved out of the city; we moved to Westchester. Then we moved to really like kind of horse country, Connecticut. In the northwest corner of Connecticut, near the Berkshires. Anyways, I kept dancing and I loved it so much. I think looking back, it was a way for me to be on stage, to perform. I love the discipline of ballet. I loved the self-expression. I loved the artistry of it. It was like really my way in. I think you know both of my parents were artists and so art was around me all the time and creative people were around me all the time. Watching two people who loved what they did very ferociously. They [Lily’s parents] really made the choice to shelter my brothers and I from the business as much as they could. I mean, there’s no way to entirely shelter your kid from what you do. They wanted us to feel like we could do anything we wanted and pursue anything we wanted. So with dance when I was in high school and was teaching ballet at this summer art school and one of the teachers said, “Would you be interested? Do you want to do a monologue in the performance that we do?” At first, I didn’t but then I ended up doing it. I remember that it was a monologue from Crimes of the Heart. It was a Babe Monologue, and I ended up actually later playing Babe in New York years later. But I think that was that was a big shift for me, sort of acknowledging how much I was interested in acting. Then I started to audition for plays in high school. By the time I was applying to colleges, I was applying as a potential Theater and English double major.

by Ashley Paintsil

“Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a [purely] human point of view [in terms of natural standards of value]. This passage from 2 Corinthians 5:16 could be considered a summation of how Erin Moriarty, star of Amazon series The Boys and Annie January aka Starlight, the burgeoning superwoman she plays in the show, would want to be viewed in the world—Annie for her presumably paradoxical choices made for survival and acceptance and Erin for her mere existence. Despite their differences, Erin says she finds parallels between herself and Annie, especially in the character’s struggle to do the right thing in a complex world and their desire not to be scrutinized at face value. “I think it’s so funny that she’s a superhero in a world with insane circumstances that are so specific and yet I still relate to what she’s going through in a way that feels almost creepy,” she says. “Yet I’m still immensely challenged by the role, which is key because you don’t [want to] just go in and show up and not feel like you’re being challenged because you’re playing yourself.” Erin and her character face the pressure to conform to expectations, but both have taken these presumptions in stride and embrace the growth that comes from navigating these terrains. “You have to play the game and no one is the exception to the rules, and I completely understand that, but the thing is something happens later on as I’ve gotten older, which is that I’ve had people say to me, why don’t you speak up for yourself more?” she says. “I have to say it’s a muscle that I’m working on.” Aside from staring in The Boys upcoming fourth season, her television credits include Netflix’s Jessica Jones, HBO’s award winning drama True Detective and Melissa Rosenberg’s Red Widow. Her film credits include Captain Fantastic, The Haunting In Wicker Park, Catching Dust, The Watch, The Kings of Summer, Driven, After the Dark, Blood Father, Within, The Miracle Season, and The Extraordinary Journey of The Fakir. She will be adding to her film lineup when she soon begins production on Brantley Gutierrez’s film Lips Like Sugar, which revolves around the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The cast also includes Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, Juliette Lewis, Sasha Calle and Kathryn Newton. Erin’s sterling career isn’t without a bit of controversy, though. When broadcast journalist Megyn Kelly accused her of getting plastic surgery and being a poor influence for younger generations, a pack of online bullies attacked her for a myriad of reasons. Erin took to social media to share her feelings about it all. She says writing the post was heartbreaking, but she was not heartbroken, rather “galvanized,” as she put it, by the scores of women that reached out to her in support. “Heartbroken implies I’m hopeless, which I’m not, at all,” she says. Despite being hurt by other people and going through the vicissitudes of life, she says the silver lining is that she does not feel bitterness towards others who hurt her, but an ability to empathize with them. Read on as the actress waxes poetic with AMAZING Magazine’s managing editor, Ashley Paintsil, about empathy, influence, and being seen for who she truly is.

Ashley Paintsil: If I’m not mistaken, you were born and raised in New York. Could you tell me what it was like growing up there?

Erin Moriarty: I feel like I can and I can’t, because it was so normal to me that that the concept of suburbia is foreign and alien to me. Which is so funny because, I didn’t realize that I had grown up in any sort of unconventional way until I left home, and I started to work. I met people from all sorts of eclectic backgrounds. I would say that I grew up in Manhattan and then they would say, ‘Manhattan, like the city the city?’ 5 times. And I was like, ‘I don’t understand this reaction,’ but I’ve gotten used to it now. The point is, that at the time I didn’t appreciate it like all of us, but in retrospect it was the greatest gift I could have been given. I feel like I’ve won the lottery by being born there. It’s funny because a lot of people find the energy there to be abrasive and overwhelming and I completely understand that. There’s something about growing up in a city where every single interest you might have can be indulged in via a class or via a museum. There are so many little pockets of that city, and it’s so eclectic—it’s a melting pot. I grew up amongst, honestly, a much more diverse crowd in New York, and I think that, combined with the inherent just overwhelm almost, but in the best way possible. I would say the abundant amount of culture that is present there— the combination of it all just raised me to feel ultimately grateful for it. But at the time, I wanted the white picket fence. I just wanted to be normal. I was the child of a divorce and I felt very much like a weird child because all the kids that I watched on the cartoon shows were in the white picket fence houses. I wanted to be that with my parents together, but now I’m so happy in retrospect.

Lily Rabe

Mastering the Stage, Screen and Everything in Between
The actress gets candid on her self-discipline, love life, motherhood, and directorial debut.

Leslie Bibb

“It felt like Oz, and something deep in me was like, ‘ Yes, yes, yes.’”

by J.L Sirisuk

The candy-hued world of Palm Beach. Sun-soaked bodies lounging elegantly by the pool. A convergence of women in colorful designer silhouettes, dripping in jewels. Beehives and bronzed skin. Welcome to the world of Palm Royale, which recently debuted on Apple TV+. The series stars Kristin Wiig, Alison Janney, Laura Dern, and the mesmerizing Leslie Bibb. “I just fell in love with Dinah. There was such a vulnerability there, and a deep sorrow,” Bibb shares of portraying Dinah Donahue, a tantalizing but vulnerable member of Palm Beach’s 1960s high society. She inhabits the character with her signature charm while evoking the nuanced dimensions of a woman pushing through life in a society where appearance, status, and marriage are the main ingredients of female social currency. Throughout her career, Bibb has been fascinated by the evolution of building a character through its multiple layers. From her role as Brooke McQueen, a popular high school cheerleader in Ryan Murphy’s 90s series Popular, to her scene stealing role as Carley Bobby in Talladega Nights, and performances in Iron Man, and About My Father alongside Robert DeNiro, Bibb has applied a fearless approach to her work. We recently spoke to Bibb in New York, catching her before traveling to Thailand to commence production on the third season of The White Lotus. Bibb is warm, thoughtful, and sincere - we talked about initial political aspirations, watching The Tracey Ullman Show, and what the role of Dinah means to her.

J.L. SIRISUK: Thank you so much for taking this time. I know you’re super busy.

LESLIE BIBB: It’s my last day in New York.

SIRISUK: You’re flying out tomorrow?

BIBB: Yeah.

SIRISUK: I used to watch you on Popular when it first came out. I feel like I’ve witnessed your whole career evolve.

BIBB: I guess every career would feel like an evolution. There’s something about Palm Royale - just starting with Brook McQueen and landing here with Dinah Donahue - it’s kind of fun.

SIRISUK: Did you grow up in Virginia, and did you have your sights set on a creative path?

Carl Craig

“They changed the face of how young black America was listening to music.”

by Andres Fabris

Craig unravels the geniusness behind many of his favorite collaborations, the art of remixing, and even childhood Jackson 5 records ahead of his documentary, Desire: The CarlCraig Story, set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Read the entire article here.

WATCH Desire: The Carl Craig story- Teaser below.

Arden Cho

“I think I’m coming into a very nice season of my life, learning to love myself.”

by Anne Kim

Arden Cho is fresh faced and full of vitality, no evident signs of jetlag despite just returning to her LA residence from Japan. As we settle in for a chat, our mutual Korean American backgrounds immediately bob to the surface revealing commonalities both winsome of pride and grappling with identity.

Recent years have seen an explosion of hallyu- a veritable South Korean “wave” of culture. Globally, the mainstream is eagerly embracing all things kimchi and K-Pop. At the same time, stateside pandemic statistics alarmingly revealed a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. In 2021, when the numbers spiked a staggering 339 percent from the year prior, I note that Cho bravely stepped forward on Twitter [now X]. “All I have is my platform” the actress opened, then beseeched her followers to raise awareness to the injustices that severely lacked media coverage.