Table of contents for January 17, 2025 in The Hollywood Reporter

It’s an old axiom of journalism that reporters shouldn’t make themselves part of the story. But this past week, everybody in Los Angeles, reporters included, couldn’t help but be part of one of the biggest tragedies ever to unfold in this city. Like tens of thousands of our fellow Angelenos, many THR staffers were forced to evacuate — one, sadly, even lost his home (see page 28) — fleeing from the wildfires that began ripping through Los Angeles on Jan. 7, laying waste to entire neighborhoods, from Malibu to Pasadena. There’s a bitter irony here. Just two days before the first sparks ignited, THR, like the rest of the town, was celebrating at the Golden Globes. It seemed like a rare turning point for the industry, which had just started…

Surfacing from the ashes of Los Angeles’ raging wildfires is a plea from local entertainment industry folk gutted by the blazes: Bring production back to the region. “One of the biggest things you can do to help our city is to shoot here,” wrote prominent cinematographer and director Rachel Morrison (The Morning Show, The Mandalorian) in an Instagram post making the rounds among behind-the-scenes film and TV workers. “We have some of the best crews in the world who need work now more than ever.” Morrison’s message speaks to an unprecedented slump in local production. The pandemic came first. Then the strikes. And when it appeared as if filming in Los Angeles had bottomed out and would soon be on the upswing amid an escalating tit-for-tat battle among filming hotspots vying…

Chateau Marmont is no stranger to Hollywood luminaries — just days ago, the place was hopping with A-listers partying before the Golden Globes — but now the iconic Sunset Boulevard hotspot is welcoming some truly awe-inspiring superstars: L.A. firefighters. On Jan. 11, the hotel announced on Instagram that it would offer LAFD and LACFD first responders two free nights at the Chateau’s private cottages, 600-to 700-square-feet poolside suites that usually start at $1,165 a night. The complimentary stays also were extended to grips, camera operators and other below-the-line guild workers who’ve been displaced by the fires (a display, perhaps, of the Chateau’s new union friendliness after its protracted labor struggles in 2022). “Given what’s been going on, I felt it was the right thing to do,” owner André Balazs tells…

I’ve been on the phone nonstop, all day and night long,” says real estate broker Carl Gambino of the Gambino Group. Across Los Angeles, top real estate agents — many of whom were themselves evacuated — have been working nonstop to house clients, friends and strangers since the fires began laying waste to the Pacific Palisades, Altadena and Malibu. “I’m a public servant at this point,” Juliette Hohnen of Douglas Elliman says. “I have to help whoever I can.” With $250 billion in estimated economic loss and about 75 percent of properties in the Pacific Palisades destroyed, the task can seem overwhelming. Ghost listings now haunt Zillow, selling dreamy interiors that have since turned to ash. Realtors know these lost homes better than anyone but their owners. “All of the…

Our Recovery Haven W. PETER ILIFF on the Palisades’ 12-step community My love affair with Pacific Palisades started when I was 8 and lived in Philadelphia. My father died, and every summer, Mom sent me to the Palisades to spend a month with Uncle Bob. He lived on Grenola Street with a front porch that overlooked the ocean; he’d sit and listen to a young Vin Scully calling Los Angeles Dodgers games. This was back when a common working man could afford the Palisades. I cherish a photo Uncle Bob took of 9-year-old me climbing the street sign on Iliff Street (coincidentally my family name), where every house but one has burned down. After I sold Point Break and the Hollywood money started coming in, my wife, Ruthanne, and I built…

I have memories of being there from 30 years ago, so many memories. It had the freshest fish, the best vibe. Inside, it didn’t matter if you were a fancy person who just wanted a delicious meal or a surfer who had just run across the street barefoot to grab a fish taco. Everyone felt great there. You just knew you’d be getting a good meal from sweet people. You knew you’d be taken care of at a place that had been there almost 40 years. You don’t drive down PCH without wanting to read the silly puns written on the board. Every time I drove by, I would think, “Wow, that was a clever one.’” I would try to think of what my silly pun would be, and I…

The fire department used the polo field at the park as a staging area for their helicopters. We felt comfortable early on, knowing they were there. Eventually we went up to Inspiration Point, this lookout there, and saw flames. We could tell things were bad. So we started moving our horses — it was a bit of a Noah’s Ark situation. They were stressed, wondering what was happening, because the winds were so strong: 80 miles an hour. There were 17 of them, which we relocated as a herd down to the entrance of the park. The last horse was out by 4:30 that afternoon, and by 6 o’clock the entire park was in flames. Later, we evacuated them to Sullivan Canyon [in Brentwood], but that soon became unsafe, too, so…

The fire was shocking. Three hundred houses were 100 percent demolished — including all 15 on our street in Malibu — because the big fire equipment could not navigate our skinny little road. I’ve driven past that road for many years now; they’ve built it back up the same way, which is insane because the area, Rambla Pacifico, burns so frequently. Back in the ‘70s when I was married to Steve McQueen and we lived in Trancas, I remember thinking, “My God, what if something happens? How do you get out of here with only one road?” If the fire started on the hill, you’d really be trapped, along with all that incredible greenery.  When it happened to me, I lost everything. The sleazy little outfit I had on for…

She has been acting since 1987, and over a nearly four-decade career, Juliette Lewis is known for playing a crazed murderer (Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers), a pastor’s daughter on the run from vampires (Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn) and a teen fending off a violent rapist (Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear). She’s also been a rock star in real life as the lead singer of Juliette Lewis and the Licks. Now the 51-year-old actress is heading back to Park City to support two Sundance Film Festival selections that, even for her, are bold, head-turning roles: In art house auteur Amanda Kramer’s By Design she plays a chair — yes, a chair — and in Mark Anthony Green’s Opus she stars as a spicy journalist who joins a group to…

Like so many Angelenos, Cheyenne Shannon’s routine came to a halt in the hours after the devastating Palisades Fire broke out on the morning of Jan. 7, followed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena. She lives in Culver City and has never come close to being evacuated but, like everyone, knows many who are temporarily — or permanently — displaced. The unfolding disaster reopened wounds of the pandemic and the fear of being forced to stay inside once again. And for the thousands of those working in the entertainment industry like Shannon, a talent agent repping music video directors, it also reignited fears that more production will leave L.A. for good. Her method of coping? Escape to the movies as much as possible. She saw three the week of the…

We’re not usually in the business of peddling Maps of the Stars’ Homes, but recent events have obviously rewritten the cartography of the town. Here, for now, is where Hollywood has decamped to as wildfires continue to tear through Los Angeles. Palm Springs seems to be one of the more popular destinations — there have been reports of movie stars roaming the local Target, which reliable sources report was sold out of underwear — though some celebrities are sticking closer to home, filling up every four- and five-star hotel in Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, Long Beach and other local environs. 1. BEVERLY HILLS Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson took up residence at the Peninsula (where Ari Emanuel was spotted in the hotel café). Demi Moore and daughters Rumer and Scout (and…

The movie had barely started, and my back pocket was buzzing. I typically don’t condone the hum of a phone in theaters, but much of Los Angeles was engulfed in flames as the Tuesday evening showing of Better Man began. It felt prudent to maintain some tether to the outside world while I attempted to watch Robbie Williams’ life re-enacted by a computer-generated chimpanzee. Full disclosure: I’d have never found myself alone at the Century City AMC on a school night had I not moved from Venice Beach to the sleepy foothill community of Altadena in 2021. An “unincorporated area” — yes, that is an official designation — just past the northeastern edge of known L.A., Altadena is nestled between Pasadena and the Angeles National Forest. Selling points include spacious…

I’d always wanted a Steinway. I just love the way they sound. I love the richness of them. Since getting my Steinway in 1993, I have played it on virtually every film score I’ve written. I always heard music in my head when I sat at the keys — whenever I put my hands down, ideas always came to mind. Every piano has a distinct personality. I felt the livingness of the wood that my Steinway was made with, and the vibes that emanated from it through the people who had played it before on the MGM Scoring Stage, including Harold Arlen, George Gershwin or Irving Berlin. On all those great musicals culminating with The Wizard of Oz. I could imagine Judy Garland singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” along with…

Sometimes, words fail. Photos, too. The following collection of extraordinary images capture moments of peril and loss during the Los Angeles wildfires yet nonetheless represent the barest fragments of a tragedy that as of this hour is still unfolding. Numbers lend some perspective: At least 24 dead. More than 12,000 homes, businesses, schools and other structures gone. An estimated 130,000 people forced to flee their homes. The financial toll: $250 billion. By the time you read this, these figures are certain to be higher. The four blazes that have engulfed more than 40,000 acres are estimated to be the most destructive fires in U.S. history. That this tragedy took place on Hollywood’s doorstep adds a woozy, surreal element. Thanks to countless disaster epics, the world is accustomed to seeing our…

There’s a feeling that this year’s Sundance Film Fest will be business as usual, whatever “usual” may mean in this post-pandemic, post-strikes and post-M&A moment — and now the L.A. wildfires. Insiders say the industry at large is starting to stabilize following the past two years of labor unrest and then contraction and reorganization. The tech giants, which long have pared back their festival buying sprees, are starting to differentiate themselves among sellers as either being theatrically friendly (Amazon) and not-so-much (Apple, Netflix). As for what’s on sale heading into this year’s Sundance, there are decidedly fewer commercial offerings compared to last year’s action comedy Thelma, the ghost story Presence and the coming-of-age title My Old Ass. Nonetheless, there are a few splashy titles at this year’s market, including the…

It’s probably premature to say Netflix has started finding its groove with popcorn features, but after Rebel Ridge and Carry-On delivered muscular B-movie entertainment, Back in Action provides similar throwback pleasures. Seth Gordon is more of a journeyman than either Jeremy Saulnier or Jaume Collet-Serra, the genre-savvy directors of those recent stablemates. But he gets the job done, partly by peppering the action with enough chases and clashes to fuel three movies. A bigger factor, however, is the reunion of Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz. The two first worked together in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday (1999) and again in 2014’s regrettable movie-musical remake, Annie. Diaz had since retired from acting until Foxx lured her back to work on this project, her first feature in 11 years. Their fizzy chemistry…

I started out writing this column intending to explain how awards shows can channel our collective emotions. How amid the unfathomable tragedies of the L.A. wildfires, they could heal our soul like Barbra Streisand at the post-Sept. 11 Emmys, or unify our disparateness like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s posthumous win at the 1971 Grammys, or even channel our rage like Michael Moore at the 2003 Iraq War Oscars. How a well-designed Academy Awards on March 2, with some tasteful tributes from victims and a powerful acceptance speech or two, would be exactly what Los Angeles and this country needed — the national Thanksgiving dinner that awards shows can be at their best. Forget all that. I now think the Oscars should completely overhaul their formula and do something more…

It’s awful to watch the community that you were born and raised in literally burned to the ground,” says NBC News correspondent — and Pacific Palisades native — Jacob Soboroff, who has spent virtually every waking hour since the wildfires broke out on Jan. 7 covering the tragedy from the front lines, otherwise known as his hometown. “It’s just endless misery,” he says. “And to be from here, it’s a weird kind of cognitive dissonance, where I’m both in it as a reporter and devastated emotionally like everybody else. But I’m also very proud to be from the Palisades and in a way, to be one of the voices that’s able to represent this community, to understand what it is.” At a moment when the TV business is in a…

What is fire? What is it that we are seeing in the flames and smoke consuming Los Angeles at the moment? Since the enlightenment, it’s been defined as a chemical reaction shaped by its physical surroundings. Fire as physics has given us torches and forges, and put into machines, it has made possible the burning of fossil biomass. It means we define landscapes in terms of fuels, that we try to check the physical power of fire on landscapes with physical countermeasures like water, retardants and engines. It has allowed humanity’s firepower to remake the Earth. But it has not showed us how to live with fire. Another perspective is possible: fire as biology. Life supplies the oxygen and the fuels that fire requires. The chemistry of fire is a…

For those of us who grew up on the Westside, an apocalypse was always on our minds. We couldn’t help it. We lived in the shadow of Mike Davis and Joan Didion, who loomed in the air like a pair of sour, secular saints. “The city burning is Los Angeles’s deepest image of itself,” Didion wrote, and we believed it, not without reason. The city has burned, after all, at various historical flash points — the Watts Riots, the 1992 Uprising, the sundry Malibu fires over the years — and the image has reinscribed itself upon us over and over, as in Ed Ruscha’s legendary 1968 painting The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire. It’s almost like this city expected to burn, or as if — before it actually happened…

The Other Rebuild Getting Altadena and the Palisades functioning again is hard. Reconstructing shattered selves is herculean Amanda Kloots knows better than most what it’s like to absorb the impact of a large-scale tragedy. Kloots stood at the bedside of her husband, Nick Cordero, in 2020 as the actor waged a brutal battle with, and eventually died from, the devastating effects of a new virus, COVID-19. She has a few pieces of guidance for those suffering a different crucible five years later. “Don’t be afraid of sitting in it — sitting in your sadness and fear,” the talk show host tells a group of L.A. fire survivors and their allies on Zoom. “You have to give in to, ‘I need help.’ ” The destruction wrought by the Los Angeles fires…

Amazon The tech giant donated $10 million from its Culver City entertainment division to American Red Cross of Southern California, FireAid, MusiCares Fire Relief Effort, World Central Kitchen, Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and more. The company has donated 145,000 essential items to 17 L.A. organizations, according to a statement released Jan. 13. Amazon also offered “in-kind advertising opportunities” on its streaming service Prime Video for nonprofits supporting fire relief. CAA, CORE & LAUSD CAA’s philanthropic arm, the CAA Foundation, Sean Penn and Ann Lee’s aid organization CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) and the Los Angeles Unified School District Education Foundation came together to create the SoCal Fire Fund. The relief fund was started to support recovery initiatives that aid students, school employees and families impacted by the wildfires. The…

Before making their feature directorial debut with Sundance entry Sorry, Baby — in which they also star and wrote the script — the longest film Eva Victor had ever directed came in with a running time of approximately 60 seconds. Victor, who uses they/she pronouns, found success in the late 2010s via viral videos on Twitter, often lampooning trending news stories like the creation of a Straight Pride parade in Boston. They regularly racked up millions of views while simultaneously writing stories on the female-focused satire website The Reductress with headlines like, “ ‘I Want Children Someday,’ Says Man Who Will at Best Stand There Saying, ‘Push Babe.’ ” At the time, the Bay Area native was living in Brooklyn and looking to break into comedy, ideally with a staffed…

Southern California has long endured devastating fires, with the Palisades and Eaton fires counting as two of the most destructive blazes in its history. More than a century ago, a series of fires in what is now the Palisades laid claim to Inceville, one of the first film studios. The studio was founded in 1912 by Thomas Ince, a producer-director and mogul during the silent film era, built where Sunset Boulevard now intersects the Pacific Coast Highway. The grounds, spanning 18,000 acres and housing 700 people, were used to shoot numerous Westerns, with Ince helping to popularize the genre. Inceville played a part in establishing the star system and formalizing the roles of director, screenwriter and editor as separate positions. In a 1961 essay for THR, writer Allan Hersholt recalled…