She / Her /Journalist/ Book Writer / Co-author of Ed Catmull's NYT best-seller CREATIVITY, INC. & Jeff Immelt’s HOT SEAT / Co-host of the new podcast RIVETED
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Articles by Amy Wallace
Why Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is one of the 10 most innovative people of the last 10 years
Ted Sarandos stepped off an electric golf cart in the Albuquerque summer heat, ducked into a state-of-the-art soundstage, and entered another world. “Looks just like a hospital,” he said as a production assistant guided him past wheelchairs and a mannequin strapped to a gurney.
With WandaVision and Hamilton, Disney+ Could Transform the Emmys
In State of the Streamers, Vanity Fair’s Awards Insider goes inside the campaigns of some of this Emmy season’s biggest players—from front-runners to underdogs, on streaming networks both well established and brand new to the game. This entry focuses on Disney+, competing with a small but potent slate of major contenders. Disney+ has rapidly established itself as the blockbuster player making its way into Emmy season—and not just through its I.P.-driven, expensively produced series.
Kathryn Hahn All Along: What’s So Enchanting About WandaVision’s Secret Weapon
Kathryn Hahn was 24 when she appeared at the Williamstown Theatre Festival for the first time. It was 1998, and the ensemble she was part of tried a warm-up exercise that involved running as fast as you could toward a wall, then stopping short, as close to the wall as possible. Other actors nailed it, decelerating to stick the landing. When it was Hahn’s turn, she hit the wall full force, and broke the big toe on her left foot. “I was a sobbing mess,” she tells me.
Healthy Tahoe: Occupational therapy’s effect on osteoarthritis
Amy Wallace, BS, OTR/L, CHT Often affecting middle age and older adults, osteoarthritis causes pain, stiffness and loss of muscular strength and reaction time, especially in the thumb, hip and knee joints. Many Americans live with pain and decreased range of motion in the hands, which can limit a person’s enjoyment and participation in daily activities.
Jeff Immelt Knows He Let You Down (Ep. 452) - Freakonomics
Not so long ago, G.E. was the most valuable company in the world, a conglomerate that included everything from light bulbs and jet engines to financial services and The Apprentice. Now it’s selling off body parts to survive. What does the C.E.O. who presided over the decline have to say for himself? Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability.
"I Heard the Shots and Ran Toward the Sound"
Daniel Hernandez Jr. (21, junior at the University of Arizona, intern for Representative Giffords): I had thought I wanted to be a physician. Then I volunteered for Hillary Clinton's campaign. I've always been drawn to strong women. They face a double standard, and it's always been a lot harder for them to get half as far, even though they're working twice as hard. The day after Hillary lost the primary, I met Gabby. She had been the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona state senate.
Whispering to Rottweilers, and to C.E.O.’s (Published 2009)
Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, built a multimillion-dollar company on his skill with pets and their owners. God was my lawyer, he says, and his pack chose his producers. Oct. 10, 2009 LOS ANGELES IT’S a miracle. That’s what the humans believe, more often than not, after watching this compact, 40-year-old C.E.O. do his work. He enters a room purposefully, his chest thrust forward and a smile on his face.
Q&a:kris Kristofferson
We strive to present a reader-friendly digital text version of each story. While errors in automatic conversion are inevitable, we are devoted to editing every article to make it error-free. We haven’t gotten to this one yet but we’re on the case! "I was about to get fired for not letting 24 hours go between the throttle and the bottle. It looked like I'd trashed my act." Q&A:KRIS KRISTOFFERSON MAN AT HIS BEST Music THERE’S NO BETTER dinner companion than Kris Kristofferson.
The Curious Comforts of a YouTube Show About Group Therapy
The bite-size series Group is the latest entry in a genre that has found particular resonance in recent months. Amy Wallace June 11, 2020 YouTube / The Atlantic Eight patients sit in a circle in a sunlit room. “You seem to carry so much weight around—the weight of women,” Frank, a 50-ish newspaper reporter, tells Pam, a mid-30s comparative-lit professor, as their psychoanalyst looks on approvingly.
The Journalist Who Predicted a Pandemic Eerily Similar to Our Own
An interview with the author of a 2007 bestseller that imagined nature’s triumph in the aftermath of human extinction Thirteen years ago, Alan Weisman wrote The World Without Us, an international bestseller that described in painstaking detail how our planet would repair itself were humankind suddenly absent.
Peloton's Robin Arzón Is Powering Me Through the Coronavirus Pandemic
Robin Arzón. Photo: Josh Filauri/Peloton I’m dripping with sweat, but it’s not a fever. I try not to think about the global pandemic as a woman’s voice rings in my ears. “The thing I hear most from people is that they’re scared,” she says. “I know strength because I’ve known fear. Deep fear. Fear usually comes from the unknown. So let’s break it down.” That sounds pretty good right now. “Let that shit go,” she commands. “We’ve done harder shit than this.” Have we? I’m not sure.
Every Hallmark Christmas Movie Trope Is in a Five Minute SNL Sketch
When so much about the holiday season can be chaotic and frustrating (family, travel, avoiding politics or not) there's something oddly comforting about Hallmark Christmas movies. They are emphatically not good, but despite that the channel has helped to start a new tradition of watching saccharine, melodramatic, low-stakes romantic comedies in December. And part of why Hallmark has managed to churn out so many is, well, they're formulaic as hell.
Aidy Bryant's Perfect Man Is Harry Styles in a Dog Collar
Unsurprisingly, Aidy Bryant has been having a good season on SNL, still riding the success of her Hulu show, Shrill. This week she got to shine without the benefit of an on-camera wardrobe disaster, and she did it with host and musical guest Harry Styles. In last night's first filmed sketch, Bryant starred as Joan, an extremely upbeat woman living alone with the love of her life, an elderly Chihuahua named Doug.
Laura Dern Los Angeles Magazine
My familyâs biggest pet peeve about me is that whenever we get in the car, I tell them that wherever weâre going is 15 minutes away. Because I remember that it used to be 15 minutes away. Iâm shocked that it doesnât take 15 minutes to get from Santa Monica to West Hollywood. Shocked! If I have an appointment in West Hollywood and Iâm at Ocean Avenue and Arizona, I leave 15 minutes to get thereâknowing full well that crossing the 405 alone is going to take me an hour.
Dr. Lucy Jones on How to Prepare for a Catastrophic Earthquake
Lucy Jones is often the first person you see on TV after an earthquake, explaining why your bookshelf just waltzed across the living room. The seismologist and CalTech professor is the founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Seismology, and author of The Big Ones. In 2011, Los Angeles spoke with her about how to prepare for quakes to come. You’re famous for going on television after the 1992 Joshua Tree earthquake with a sleeping baby in your arms.
Sam Smith: The New Face of Soul
Taylor Swift is amazing. I sang with her in London once but didn’t get to properly chill with her. Then, at the American Music Awards, I got to sit down with her and chat. She’s a role model. I really respect her. And she manages to sell a lot of records and make a lot of people happy financially, but also to keep that soulfulness, that honesty. Anyone else? When I met Mary J. Blige and Chaka Khan, they advised me and helped me. Mary still texts me to this day, making sure everything is okay.
Katy Perry's GQ Cover Story - February 2014
It smells like weed in here. Weed and doughnuts. We’re in the basement of the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, backstage at the American Music Awards, in a dressing-room suite that would be spacious if not for all the frenzied humanity crammed inside. Katy Perry sits atop a tall director’s chair surrounded by the many, many members of her team: voice coach, two hairstylists, one makeup artist, a costumer, and several others who hover and hand Perry things without her asking: Breath mints.
The Reason Behind Will Ferrell's Agency Defection and Hollywood's Major Comedy Shakeup
will-ferrell-agent-switch-comedy.jpg There was an earthquake yesterday in the world of Hollywood talent agents, and Will Ferrell was at the center of it all. Just like he was 10 years ago. Back in the 2000s, most of the deals made on behalf of most of the town’s funny men and women were engineered by an agency called United Talent. In addition to Ferrell, that shop repped Dave Chappelle, Drew Carey and Jason Alexander (still huge from Seinfeld at the time).
Bluedot Festival news: Day splits revealed - day tickets on sale Friday 10AM….
Latest update from Bluedot: Day splits revealed – day tickets on sale Friday 10AM. We're thrilled to announce our new music and comedy additions including *Jarvis Cocker*, John Robins , Sons Of Kemet, Derrick Carter, Knightmare Live, Josey Rebelle plus many more. To win 4 x day tickets, let us know which day you're most excited for and the 3 cosmic explorers you'd bring with you.
The Survivor
The New Yorker, February 2, 2004 P. 42 ANNALS OF ENTERTAINMENT about B-movie screenwriter, producer, and director Larry Cohen. In 1998, a script titled “Phone Booth” started making the rounds in Hollywood. The plot details a New York City publicist who picks up a ringing pay phone and learns that a sniper will kill him if he hangs up.
The Un-Agent Agent Los Angeles Magazine
Robert Newman knows every movie theater in Los Angeles—where it is, what kind of seating it has, how many trailers it shows. Six of those theaters are on his speed dial. The numbers link him not to a recording but to a person who can tell him how big the screens are, which shows are most crowded. He loves crowds. He has never understood private screening rooms. He won’t watch a movie with just ten people if he can help it. He tries to see everything, preferably on opening weekend.
'Atlanta' Director Hiro Murai Has the Vision
When Donald Glover set out to make "This Is America," he knew it would be easy to fail. "There was a lot of room for it to be bad," Glover told me when I got him on the phone recently. "Like: really, really bad. Like preachy bad. Over-reaching bad. Pretentious, racist-in-a-different-way bad." When the four-minute music video/mini-polemic that featured his alter ego, Childish Gambino, hit the Internet back in May, it wasn't any of those things.
The Hunt for the Watch Thieves of Southern California
On a quiet Monday around noon, two men dressed in black stepped onto an ascending escalator in the underground parking lot of an open-air mall in Century City in Los Angeles. By the time they had reached the top, they'd pulled on ski masks and they were sprinting. “They're coming, they're coming!” yelled Damian Dupre, a security guard at a Gearys luxury-watch boutique, when he saw the men running toward the store.
Denise McCluggage: Life of female race car driver, journalist
This article was published in partnership with Epic Magazine. March 20, 1961 Sebring, Fla. Five days before the race, the automobiles began to appear in this small backwater town. They came on trailers, on huge haul-aways, on tow-bars behind passenger cars and some under their own power, all accompanied by crews of eager, purposeful men and a few purposeful women. Their goal: to compete in (or at least witness) the Twelve Hours at Sebring, one the premier sports car events in the world.
Laurie Marie Sherwood Shipley, 24
Laurie was born in Oswego, daughter of Robert William Gomon, and Donna Marie Sherwood-Gomon. She enjoyed swimming, camping, and listening to music. She was predeceased by her grandmother, Bonnie Sherwood.
Discover Wisconsin tastes eight unique Wisconsin cheeseburgers
Hamburger toppings are important when one is attempting to build the perfect burger. Some of the most popular burger fixings include ketchup, mustard and of course, cheese.And yeah, cheese opens up a whole new world of burger combo possibilities. From cheddar to American to provolone and pepper jack, cheese adds a whole new layer of flavor to an already outstanding burger.
The 10 Commandments of Writing About L.A.
THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER CITY BEFORE LOS ANGELES » This city attracts romantics. It stimulates our dreams—the vividness of weather, light, scent, and texture. You observe what you love, and you observe it very closely: If you’re in love with someone, you talk about their eyelashes and their pores and the way they breathe. Loving a place comes out on the page. How much you’re engaged is reflected in how detailed your observation is.
Kate McKinnon Is Comedy's Not-So-Secret Weapon
Flash forward ten months. McKinnon was on foot, walking and listening, when she heard Clinton narrate her own description of that moment: “[McKinnon] sat at a grand piano and played ‘Hallelujah,’ the hauntingly beautiful song by Leonard Cohen, who had died a few days before. As she sang, it seemed like she was fighting back tears. Listening, so was I.” McKinnon stopped on the sidewalk, overcome.
Walton Goggins's L.A. Home Is an Always-Changing Collage of Stuff
Conners's study, with a photograph that Goggins found in Paris. The kitchen has wood and marble open shelving. Over the years, on breaks from playing a variety of scoundrels on TV (Justified, Vice Principals) and in films (Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, this month's Tomb Raider), Goggins has traveled the world, often alone, usually to destinations that lure few tourists.
And The Oscar Does Not Go to . . .
WHEN Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep make their appearances at the 75th Academy Awards, Kari Wuhrer will not be watching, and her decision has nothing to do with the chance that news from Iraq could lead to the ceremony's postponement. Ms. Wuhrer, a 35-year-old actress, rarely tunes into the telecast in any year -- after appearing in more than 60 B-movies with titles like ''The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting'' and ''G-Men From Hell,'' she knows that an Oscar is probably beyond her reach.
My Two Days With Jerry Lewis
On the occasion of Jerry Lewis' death, Amy Wallace reflects on an 11-hour interview that spanned egomania, validation, and Marilyn Monroe's supposed affair with JFK. It was May 2011. Lewis was a spry 85 then, a survivor of so many maladies (prostate cancer, two heart attacks, viral meningitis) who'd already outlived so many of his peers: Dean. Frank. Sammy.
Jerry Lewis, the Essence of Comedy
He's the original lord of lowbrow, the king of the pratfall, the last surviving link to the bedrock of American comedy—vaudeville, burlesque, slapstick. Sure, he's ancient, but he's juggling half a dozen new projects and still found time to sit down with Amy Wallace for an eleven-hour interview.
Dave Chappelle at the Comedy Cellar: The Funniest Night on Earth
Thompson: I lied to my date and said I'd been called into the studio. I can always blame it on D'Angelo, because he's like the musical booty call. He'll call and say, "Hey, what are you doing? I want to lay a track down. Come on over." So once I call my date a car service, I get myself a cab. I tell my driver to "do 100! We've got fifteen minutes to get to the Comedy Cellar!" And I was not the only one pulling up to the curb and running inside like their life depended on it.
This Is Spinal Tap’s Multi-Million-Dollar Legal Battle
For years, Harry Shearer, one of the creators of the comedy classic This Is Spinal Tap, received royalty checks for the movie that could barely cover a day's supply of foil-wrapped zucchini. Now he's got the band back together (in court) to find out what happened to the rest of the money and, they hope, change the way Hollywood does business. Call it a double-decker-axe blow for artists’ rights. “Look, we put the number 11 on the map,” Shearer says, enjoying how silly it sounds to say that.
How Louie Anderson Saved His Career by Channeling His Mother
Backstage at a Chicago comedy club, Louie Anderson sits down on a tired black vinyl couch and begins to sink. Inch by inch, the sofa envelops him, like a python trying to swallow him whole. Purely from a getting-back-up standpoint, Anderson knows this is not good. “My knees are terrible,” he confides in the unmistakably flat midwestern voice for which he is famous. Anderson, who is 64, has been touring regularly for more than three decades.
Steve Jobs’ Doctor Wants to Teach You the Formula for Long Life
Not everyone is a fan of Agus’ approach. He has at times been accused of making things a little too straightforward, a little too simple. Should more of us really be taking statins? And we shouldn’t take vitamins? To those critics, A Short Guide is guaranteed to rankle. Because despite its various disclaimers—“The rules in this book are not meant to be blanket recommendations”—the little volume contains Agus’ starkest, most clear-cut prescriptions yet.
So Jonah Lehrer Has Apologized-for Money
Yesterday Jonah Lehrer—the disgraced fabulist and plagiarist who used to pen best-selling books and write big-think pieces for The New Yorker—got paid to apologize. If he thought that was going to even begin to fix things, he thought wrong. At the request of the Knight Foundation, which among other things supports ideas that promote quality journalism, Lehrer delivered a speech in Miami Tuesday on bad decision-making.
The Hollywood Exec and the Hand Transplant That Changed His Life Los Angeles Magazine
It is a beautiful hand: strong, with long, slender fingers and smooth skin, its nails ridgeless and pink. If you didnât know Jonathan Kochâif you first met him, say, on the courts at the Calabasas Tennis & Swim Clubâyou might not suspect that his hand previously belonged to someone else. The straight line of a scar on his outer left forearm offers no tip-off. There is a bulge where Jonathanâs and the donorâs tendons are woven together, but the mark itself doesnât catch the eye.
The Hollywood Exec and the Hand Transplant That Changed His Life
It seemed too much to hope for: a top-flight hand transplant expert in L.A.? A week after they returned home from Minnesota, Jonathan, Jennifer, and her dad, Tom, were sitting across from Azari in an examining room at UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Francis Cyran, an orthopedic surgeon, was there as well. Jonathan, bleary from pain meds and his feet unable to bear any weight, sat in a wheelchair. Azari set about the sensitive task of examining his patient, both body and mind.
A Short History of Vaccine Panic
Rebecca Estepp, a spokeswoman for Talk About Curing Autism, a national organization that offers support and information to families, likens learning about the autism and vaccines issue to becoming an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Maybe the Middle East is more complicated. But maybe not,” she says. In his 2008 book, Autism’s False Prophets, Dr. Paul Offit needed 298 pages to summarize the topic, which has sparked hundreds of studies and reports. Have a day job?
The Long, Strange Purgatory of Casey Kasem
When Casey Kasem’s wife got angry, it didn’t matter that the old man couldn’t walk and could barely talk. When Jean Kasem felt possessive, it just didn’t matter that her ailing husband—the legendary deejay whose warm, husky voice had once reached a reported 8 million listeners in seventeen countries—couldn’t swallow and was at risk for aspiration. Jean was upset that Casey’s two daughters from his first marriage had dared to visit their father without her permission. Her will would be done.
The Art of Being a Person on an Airplane
During the last days of 2016, like so many holiday travelers, I spent hours up in the air. Normally I experience air travel as a kind of in-between state – a lull, neither here nor there, midway between where I was and where I’m going. But this season I found myself more conscious than ever of my mid-flight surroundings. I’m not talking about the lack of leg room (though, yikes: where did it all go?), but about the human pathos that occurs inside the metal cylinders we call jumbo jets.
How Jon Bernthal Became the Punisher
The Punisher star tells us about growing up with big ears, getting a gun pulled on him in Russia, and why Shia LaBeouf has the most beautiful soul in the world. I was born with these ginormous fucking earlobes, and the doctor suggested to my parents that we get elective plastic surgery. Like, who does that to a baby? Obviously my parents were like, “Fuck off.” But they were definitely very worried that I was going to be plauged. So yes, my looks have always been a source of embarrassment.
Joseph Hall's Murder Trial
A son kills a father and the question is why. In the case of 10-year-old Joseph Hall, the answer seemed simple: The boy had been raised around hate. Just hours before Joseph palmed a loaded Rossi .357 magnum and fired it into his father’s skull, the boy had sat in his suburban tract house in Riverside, California, under a huge red, white, and blue flag that was tacked near the ceiling next to a heating vent.
Moving Forward with Kindness
Get out of the house. Go outside. Walk around. Inhale. Hug someone who hugs back. Stop reading Twitter. Forgive yourself for reading Twitter. Set up a recurring, once-a-month donation to the L.A. Regional Food Bank. It doesn’t matter how much you give. Kindness begets kindness, and we need kindness right now. Think about the importance of being kind, and then vote with your wallet. That’s what a lot of Americans did yesterday. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Ava DuVernay Is on a Mission to Make the Kind of Movies You've Never Seen
At last year’s Academy Awards, Ava DuVernay was the first black female director to have a film—Selma—nominated for Best Picture. That she was not nominated for Best Director helped spark the #OscarsSoWhite movement. Ask DuVernay and she’ll tell you being omitted was no surprise. She hasn’t let it slow her down, and this month is proof of that. First, a new TV series she created, a family drama called Queen Sugar, debuts September 6 on OWN, Oprah Winfrey’s network.
Frank Ocean: On Channel Orange, Meeting Odd Future, and His Tumblr Let
If Frank Ocean wanted to play you a song, you'd drive across town in the pouring rain, right? That's how we've ended up at Jungle City, a sound studio in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. When we walk in, Ocean leading the way, Pharrell Williams turns down the music and greets him warmly. "Here you are," the prolific rapper and producer tells him.
The Show Must Go On: An Elephant-Free Circus Comes to Town
Do you remember the first time you saw a real, live elephant? I was nine years old when a convoy of trucks rolled into the teeny town of Yellow Springs, Ohio (population 6,000) and parked in the empty field next to the high school. It was 1972, so we had no cell phones, but as the Hoxie Bros. Big Three-Ring Circus began to construct a temporary wonderland, word ricocheted among the city’s under-12 residents.
"Why's This So Good?" No. 106: Michael Brick and Ministers in Busted Boomtowns
This is the seventh of ten stories Storyboard will post from a new collection honoring Michael Brick [see our 5 Questions on the project], each featuring an introduction by a writer who loved his work. Today’s entry is introduced by Amy Wallace. He wore a hat. It was 95 degrees and swampy in South Georgia that October—T-shirt weather—but Michael Brick was wearing a black fedora, not to mention a white long-sleeve button-down and a vest.
Kim Kardashian 2013 Cosmopolitan Cover Girl Interview
Four tiny bottles, each with a secret code name, sit on a shiny white table in front of Kim Kardashian, awaiting inspection. Inside the vials are versions of her latest fragrance, Glam, which is being tweaked to appeal to Japanese consumers. Whatever the 32-year-old beauty chooses today will be sold overseas under her name, so she is taking this smell-off seriously. She waves each test strip in front of her perfect, pert nose. Opulence is too heavy for Asian tastes, she proclaims. Sequins? Too soft.
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