04/07/2026

LYFE SATURDAY | JULY 4, 2026

22

Hollywood dangles discounts

Spanish star Javier Bardem honoured for lifetime of filmwork S PA N I S H star Javier Bardem made his mark in Hollywood recently, leaving his hand- and footprints in the cement outside the Chinese Theatre, alongside movie legends such as Marilyn Monroe and Jack Nicholson. “It feels very special to be given a space like this to immortalise your name,” Bardem told AFP. The Oscar-winning actor said getting his hands and feet into the Chinese Theatre’s forecourt was “a humbling experience”. “When I think about the names that have stood on this very spot, it’s hard for me to believe that it’s real,” he said during a ceremony thronged by fans on sunbaked Hollywood Boulevard. The tradition, which began accidentally during the construction of the theatre, has preserved the imprints of more than 200 stars spanning nearly a century of cinema. Directors Denis Villeneuve and Michael Mann introduced Bardem. Villeneuve – whose Dune: Part Three , featuring the Spanish actor, premieres in December – praised Bardem’s chameleon-like ability to bring diverse characters to life over his more than three decade career. “Bardem can confidently change his person now to become somebody else, driven by a new logic, driven by new feelings and new perspective on reality. He seems to do that without effort, with grace and tremendous generosity. His metamorphoses are spectacular,” the Canadian filmmaker said. Bardem began his career in Spain and burst onto the international scene in Julian Schnabel’s drama Before Night Falls . He won over the Academy with his portrayal of the sinister Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men , earning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. His latest film The Beloved , recently debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, while Bardem is also making his mark on television in Apple TV’s adaptation of Cape Fear , in which he plays the feared Max Cady.

A S guests milled around a cavernous sound stage that houses one of the sets from the Amazon Prime Video series Fallout , writer and producer Jonathan Nolan hailed the role tax incentives played in bringing the production to California. The first season of the series, which is a big-budget adaptation of a video game set in a post-nuclear wasteland, was shot in New York. California was able to lure the production west in its second season, with US$25 million (RM102 million) in tax rebates. “If the tax credit wasn’t here, it would be a non-starter and we wouldn’t be able to be here,” said Nolan, seated in a folding lawn chair placed on the set of a “Vault”, a subterranean fallout shelter decorated with the show’s retro-futuristic look. Nolan played a prominent role in lobbying for California to approve US$750 million in tax rebates to bring more film and television production to the state. He even went so far as to invite state legislators on set last year, to showcase how actors and craftspeople would benefit from the incentives. Fallout remained in California for its third season, thanks to US$42 million in tax credits on a budget of US$166.3 million which allowed the production to hire nearly 600 o Fallout producer lauds substantial tax breaks for luring show to California

100-year cultural institution that is maybe one of the most important parts of American culture and our ability to broadcast our culture around the world. So, I think the rebate was essential in bringing us back,” Nolan said. Actor Walton Goggins, who plays a dual role as Cooper Howard, a pre-war Hollywood actor known for starring in Western films, and a bounty hunter known as The Ghoul, told Reuters he feels grateful for the opportunity to work in Los Angeles. “This job permeates every aspect of this city and so to be back here filming this show that employs this many people – artisans that are the best in the world at what they do, given the opportunity to operate at their highest level – I’m in awe. I only hope that this tax

accustomed to boarding a plane to shoot in London, Budapest or Sydney, without worrying about the possible toll on Hollywood. “People sort of laughed at the idea that Hollywood would ever stop being Hollywood – but I think the last five years, it really has,” Nolan said. Entertainment industry employment has been declining since its peak in late-2022, presenting fewer opportunities for actors, writers and the scores of craftspeople – from carpenters to costumers to camera operators to caterers – who support film and television production. California has been especially hard hit, shedding 17,234 jobs from 2019 through 2023,

according to the Milken Institute. A combination of factors, including declining television advertising revenue and stagnating streaming growth, caused studios to seek less expensive places to make movies and series, it found. T h e occupancy rate in Hollywood’s sound stages has fallen to 62% in the first half of 2025 from nearly full occupancy in 2016, according to Film LA, the non profit organisation that coordinates filming in greater Los Angeles. “That threatens to hollow out and destroy a

credit expands so that more production can come back here,” said Goggins.

crew members and 30 actors, according to the California Film Commission. Nolan said he and others in the industry had become

Goggins plays The Ghoul in Fallout . – IMDBPIC

US funnyman finds comedy complicated in age of absurdity

S KEWE R I N G the oddities of president Donald Trump’s administration and his devoted American supporters has made comedian Jordan Klepper a household name in the US, as a host of late-night satire The Daily Show . He just wishes the president and his followers would not make it so easy. “There’s never a shortage of things to talk about, or characters in the orbit of Trump to find humour within, but sometimes the absurdity lies more with him than it should. “I wish it relied a little bit more on us bringing comedy to the table. He doesn’t need to work as hard,” Klepper told AFP in an interview in Los Angeles. Klepper is part of a revolving cast on The Daily Show who take a sideways glance at the day’s events. He frequently goes to Trump rallies or other events in the Make America Great Again sphere, speaking to the faithful whose belief in the president seems

impervious to facts. Referring to hostilities with Iran, he said: “Trump is a peacetime president and has never been wrong about anything, and yet we are in a war that we were promised not to be in. “The Epstein files were supposed to be released, they are not, and yet you still have people who are trumpeting this idea of Trump: ‘Promises made, promises kept’.” America’s balkanised media landscape is a major problem for the nation, Klepper thinks. “People live in very different realities all across this country and their realities are reflected by the news sources that they get, the friend circles they have, the social media that they interpret. “My job is: Let’s point out that hypocrisy, have fun with it, hopefully do it from a place of empathy, but also a place of true curiosity about how people can hold certain truths that defy logic or reality,” he said.

Klepper is a host of The Daily Show . – IMDBPIC

Bardem is a Spanish Oscar-winner. – AFPPIC