Category: News

It was a little surprising when it was announced Justin Simien – best known for directing Dear White people, Bad Hair, and being announced as the showrunner for the still not produced Lando series (we’ll get to that) – would be directing a reboot of Haunted Mansion, which is also a staple ride at the Disney theme parks. This came as a surprise to Simien, too, who assumed he’d read the script and politely pass. But he wound up being impressed with Katie Dippold’s script and, well, here we are with Justin Simien’s Haunted Mansion premiering this weekend in theaters.

As you may expect with Simien’s involvement, this version has little resemblance to the 2003 film starring Eddie Murphy. LaKeith Stanfield plays Ben, a widower and former scientist who has kind of given up on life and when he’s not day drinking, he gives city tours of New Orleans. Rosario Dawson plays Gabbie, a widow and mother of a young son who gets a really good deal on an old house, but immediately discovers it’s haunted. The problem is, once you enter the house, the ghosts will haunt you wherever you go. Through a local priest (Owen Wilson), they hire the services of Ben to document the ghosts because he once built a camera that can photograph the paranormal. Thinking this is all nonsense, Ben accepts the job for the quick money but gets more than he bargained for and is now also trapped in the haunted mansion with the aforementioned characters, along with Tiffany Haddish as a psychic and Danny DeVito as a local historian.

Ahead, Simien explains why he decided to make a Haunted Mansion movie and if the people who know him best were surprised. Also, there hasn’t been an update on the Lando series for quite some time and the way Simien explains it, it’s probably not happening anytime soon, if at all.

How does this happen? Do you get wind they are making this and express interest? Did they come to you?

This one came to me. I mean, you know, you do all of the above. I write, too. I develop. All that stuff. I was in the halls of Disney, already, working on a little something with Lucasfilm, and also just trying to figure out what my next feature was. And the screenplay came in by Katie Dippold, who I adored and whose work I love. But Haunted Mansion? I knew they made a movie before. But I get this script and I think, okay, well, this will be a pretty quick read and probably, “No thanks.” And it just got me, man. I legitimately stayed up and laughed and cried. And it had been a really long time since a screenplay did that to me.

I also felt this weird connection, because I had worked at Disneyland. I was already extremely obsessed with the Haunted Mansion as a ride. And my family is from Louisiana. So I have all of this connection to the culture of New Orleans, and that mixture of voodoo and Catholicism that some of the New Orleans’ vibes come from. It was as if I made a list or something, and we went and found the perfect project for me. But it was quite organic.

It almost sounds like you had the same reaction to hearing about this that most people had the reaction when we heard you were doing it. Like, “Wait, what?”

Exactly.

But then you see the movie and it’s like, “Okay, this makes sense.”

Also, it’s kind of the fun of it, for me. I love the unexpected. I love doing things that people aren’t sure I should do. That was a surprise.

I’m curious, from your friends, did you get any like, “Wait, that’s what you’re doing next?”

I wouldn’t say anybody was as overt as that, but I certainly clocked it. I think that the general assumption – and this assumption isn’t untrue, by the way – is that especially if you are an artist, filmmaker, and you write and you have things you want to say in your work and stuff, this is sort of like a necessary evil, to go and do a big studio movie…

But it’s also kind of the dream, right?

Yeah, it’s also the dream. And it’s also kind of a miracle to get a script that is both based on existing IP, but is also totally original. It’s the first of something. It isn’t a remake. It isn’t the sequel to the other Haunted Mansion film. It’s just a totally different way about it. I think those are really, actually, really hard to find. Especially as well executed as Katie Dippold had it on the page when I encountered it.

I haven’t seen the Eddie version in a really long time. But I don’t remember it having as much gravitas as this one does.

Yeah, it’s a very different film. Different goals for that film. Different reasons to see. And that was also really refreshing about the script, too. It didn’t spend any time, whatsoever, even addressing the other film. This is just a new movie. And that gave me permission to be untethered by that film, for better and worse.

And LaKeith, he is really going for it in this movie…

He’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. I knew I needed somebody who could make audiences, particularly audiences showing up for a quadrant kind of movie, to care intimately and as fast as possible about somebody who was grieving. Somebody who kind of hates people. Somebody who is hard to get into. I mean, I talk a lot about Up with the studio and that lead character. And this is an old man that really hates everybody. And yet you just love him and you root for him. Who can do that for us? Who can bring somebody in? And I had just seen Judas and the Black Messiah. Obviously, I’ve been a fan of LaKeith for a while. But he always is doing that. He is making you so empathically connected to people that are just bizarre and hard to love.

He does that in Knives Out, as well.

He does that in Knives Out. He does that in Get Out. He does that in Atlanta. And the other thing is, I just felt like it’d be really great to surprise people. If that sort of emotional punch doesn’t work, I don’t know how interesting the rest of the story is. And I don’t know. I felt like he had some of that Johnny Depp magic, too. Like from Pirates, when we suddenly saw this weird, eccentric character actor in a leading man role. And the just cognitive dissonance of that was really fun and exciting to me.

Were there antics on this set? Because you have a lot of personalities here.

There weren’t a lot of antics. I mean, the truth is, that we’re making this movie during COVID.

Oh, right…

And it wasn’t easy. “Fun” is not the word I would ever use to describe making a movie. It certainly has fun moments. But everyone came ready to work and knew the assignment and put it on the screen. And part of that is luck. You never know what you’re going to get when you’re dealing with an ensemble of really big movie stars. But these were all really warm people who just love the craft of acting and ensemble work and finding things together. And it was really lucky. They really took to the creative environment that I wanted to create for everybody.

How are you feeling with this coming out? Because it’s like, your other movies did really well. But there are going to be a lot more eyeballs on this.

I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready. I’ve been ready. But I look at other people in my class of Sundance, and there are differences in our careers. There are differences in the kind of movies that they got offered and the movies that I got offered. And I have been dying to play in a sandbox this big and with resources this deep, for a while. These are the kind of movies I grew up on. And all of my stories are personal. All of my films come from a really deep, personal place and a need to put a specific thing out there in the world. But, at the same time, I’m a nerd.

But I think you bring that to this one, too.

Yeah, I would include this one. Yeah, I’ve been dying to work at this level and for people to know that I can do that. You get typecast a lot in this business. And whether or not people saw me as an indie comedy director, or as a social satirist, or as a TV creator, or whatever … to me, I’m just a storyteller. And I will make a story that is appropriate for the venue that I’m given. And this was a huge, huge venue to showcase what I can do.

I haven’t heard about Lando in a while. You mentioned Lucasfilm earlier. I know nothing’s going on right now with the strikes, but is Lando still on the table?

I don’t know. To be honest with you, I haven’t heard anything, either. The last thing I heard was the last thing the world heard.

Well, that’s not a good sign.

So, I wish I could speak on it, but I literally don’t know anything. That was something that I put a lot of time and energy into until I couldn’t anymore. It was not possible to.

I’m curious if you feel like you spent a couple of years on something, or however long it was, and nothing came out of it and you could have been doing something else?

Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard. And what I’ve learned is that it’s par for the course. I mean, for everything you see from any filmmaker, and I can certainly say this for myself, there are so many things that were worked on that you didn’t see, that didn’t make it, that didn’t get announced. So it’s something you just got to acclimate to. I haven’t, yet, reached a level in my career where I have the privilege to say, “I just want to make this. Everything else has to stop.” I’ve got to put a lot of buns in the oven before one starts to bake. That’s the way my career’s always been. So, it is hard to invest a lot of time and creative energy into something that doesn’t go. But, at the same time, you’ve got to learn that, as an artist: you get better, the work gets better, and a lot of things are learned on a project that get pulled into another project. And there are projects that have been dead for a long time that suddenly come back to life. And there are projects that feel like a slam dunk, sure deal, that die suddenly. It’s a very volatile industry, that way.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Last year, Soccer Mommy ventured into a haunted, shoegazy direction with her album Sometimes, Forever. Around that time, she told The New York Times about her appreciation for Sheryl Crow. “She has so many songs that are these massive hits that, at least for someone my age, you can’t have grown up and not heard those songs,” she said. “She has a knack for saying something hard, but making it feel like she’s ready to acknowledge it and be cool with this hard acceptance.”

Now, she’s fittingly back with a Crow cover. She took on the country star’s hit “Soak Up The Sun” and made it her own with a lighthearted instrumentation and her soaring vocals. It’s brighter and closer to her earlier material.

In our 2022 interview with the indie artist, she discussed the music industry. “When it comes to artistry, there’s a strive for perfection and for success and all of these things, but all of that comes with playing the game,” she said. “You can’t just make this perfect album and pop it on the internet and have this amazing rollout. Like, it doesn’t happen if you’re not already hugely successful.”

Listen to her cover of “Soak Up The Sun” above.

The Jonas Brothers served as Uproxx cover stars in June, just after the successful May release of The Album. Joe, Kevin, and Nick expressed how excited they were to kickstart their headlining The Tour with back-to-back sold-out shows at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York on August 12 and 13.

“We all grew up watching Derek Jeter and the golden era of the Yankees teams that won a bunch of championships. He’s certainly an icon here in New York and New Jersey, so the invite is there if The Captain wants to come back to Yankee Stadium for the show,” Nick said.

Everybody, Jeter included, will have more opportunities to catch The Tour. On Thursday, July 27, the Jonas Brothers revealed 54 new dates, including 27 additional stops in North America.

While the Jonas Brothers were already excited about checking Yankee Stadium off the bucket list, the colossal stadium trek will also find them performing in the following places for the first time in their nearly 20-year career, per press release: Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, Hamburg, Lyon, Munich, and Norway.

Tickets for the newly announced North American shows will be sold via Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan. Registration is open now until Monday, July 31, at 10 p.m. ET before the presale begins on Thursday, August 3. The general public sale will offer “a limited number of tickets” on Friday, August 4, at 10 a.m. local time.

Local presales for European dates are slated to begin on Wednesday, August 2, before a general public sale on Friday, August 4, at 10 a.m. local time. The Australian and New Zealand leg will go on sale via local presales beginning on Friday, August 4, leading up to a general public sale on Tuesday, August 8, at 1 p.m. local time. All information can be found here.

See all of The Tour dates below, with new shows listed in bold.

08/12/2023 — Bronx, NY @ Yankee Stadium
08/13/2023 — Bronx, NY @ Yankee Stadium
08/15/2023 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
08/16/2023 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
08/17/2023 — Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena
08/19/2023 — Toronto, ON @ Rogers Centre
08/22/2023 — Indianapolis, IN @ Gainbridge Fieldhouse
08/24/2023 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
08/25/2023 — Chicago, IL @ Wrigley Field
08/27/2023 — St Louis, MO @ Enterprise Center
08/30/2023 — Arlington, TX @ Globe Life Field
09/01/2023 — Saint Paul, MN @ Minnesota State Fair
09/03/2023 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
09/06/2023 — Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
09/08/2023 — Las Vegas, NV @ MGM Grand Garden Arena
09/09/2023 — Los Angeles, CA @ Dodger Stadium
09/11/2023 — Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
09/14/2023 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
09/16/2023 — Omaha, NE @ CHI Health Center
09/18/2023 — Cleveland, OH @ Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
09/21/2023 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
09/22/2023 — Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena
09/23/2023 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
09/25/2023 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
09/26/2023 — Lexington, KY @ Rupp Arena
09/28/2023 — Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
09/30/2023 — Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
10/01/2023 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
10/03/2023 — Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center
10/05/2023 — San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center
10/07/2023 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
10/09/2023 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
10/10/2023 — Columbia, SC @ Colonial Life Arena
10/12/2023 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
10/13/2023 — Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
10/14/2023 — Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
10/16/2023 — Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
10/18/2023 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
10/20/2023 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
10/22/2023 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
10/23/2023 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
10/27/2023 — Las Vegas, NV @ MGM Grand Garden Arena
10/28/2023 — San Diego, CA @ Viejas Arena
10/29/2023 — Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
11/02/2023 — Fresno, CA @ Save Mart Center
11/04/2023 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Maverik Center
11/05/2023 — Nampa, ID @ Ford Idaho Center Arena
11/07/2023 — Spokane, WA @ Spokane Arena
11/09/2023 — Portland, OR @ Moda Center
11/10/2023 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
11/11/2023 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
11/14/2023 — Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place
11/16/2023 — Winnipeg, MB @ Canada Life Centre
11/17/2023 — Grand Forks, ND @ Alerus Center
11/19/2023 — St Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
11/20/2023 — Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
11/21/2023 — Grand Rapids, MI @ Van Andel Arena
11/27/2023 — Buffalo, NY @ KeyBank Center
11/29/2023 — Ottawa, ON @ Canadian Tire Centre
12/01/2023 — Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
12/02/2023 — Albany, NY @ MVP Arena
12/03/2023 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
12/06/2023 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
12/09/2023 — Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
02/27/2024 – Auckland, New Zealand @ Spark Arena
03/01/2024 — Sydney, Australia @ Qudos Bank Arena
03/02/2024 — Sydney, Australia @ Qudos Bank Arena
03/05/2024 — Brisbane, Australia @ Brisbane Entertainment Centre
03/08/2024 — Melbourne, Australia @ Rod Laver Arena
03/09/2024 — Melbourne, Australia @ Rod Laver Arena
05/18/2024 — Oslo, Norway @ Spektrum
05/20/2024 — Copenhagen, Denmark @ Royal Arena
05/21/2024 — Hamburg, Germany @ Barclays Arena
05/22/2024 — Cologne, Germany @ Lanxess Arena
05/25/2024 — Barcelona, Spain @ Palau Sant Jordi
05/27/2024 — Lyon, France @ LDLC Arena
05/28/2024 — Milan, Italy @ Mediolanum Forum
05/30/2024 — Krakow, Poland @ TAURON Arena
06/01/2024 — Vienna, Austria @ Stadthalle
06/02/2024 — Prague, Czech Republic @ O2 Arena
06/03/2024 — Munich, Germany @ Olympiahalle
06/04/2024 — Zurich, Switzerland @ Hallenstadion
06/07/2024 — Paris, France @ Accor Arena
06/08/2024 — Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis
06/10/2024 — Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Ziggo Dome
06/12/2024 — London, United Kingdom @ The O2
06/15/2024 — Birmingham, United Kingdom @ Utilita Arena
06/16/2024 — Glasgow, United Kingdom @ OVO Hydro
06/17/2024 — Manchester, United Kingdom @ Co-op Live Arena
06/19/2024 — Dublin, Ireland @ 3Arena
06/20/2024 — Belfast, Northern Ireland @ SSE Arena

Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.

20. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount Plus)

What we have here is a spinoff of one show (Star Trek: Discovery) that was itself a prequel to another show (the original Star Trek), now in its second season. We are deep into the lore here. But that’s okay. It’s a fun little ride, good for both diehard fans of the franchise and newbies trying to dip their toes in a little. You could use a little galactic escape sometimes. We all can.

Watch it on Paramount Plus

19. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX/Hulu)

It’s the 16th season of It’s Always Sunny and if you’re not already endlessly in love with this gang of moronic miscreants and their low-rent misadventures I don’t know that you can be saved. For those who have fallen off a little over the years, though, please allow us to reassure you that the show is as good, chaotic, vile, silly, and subtly smart as ever, trading international hijinks in Ireland during part of last season for a back to basics approach. In just the first two episodes we’ve seen Mac, Charlie, Dee, Dennis, and Frank giving us a cliffs notes understanding of inflation and crypto (as only Always Sunny can), revelations about Charlie and Frank’s cramped apartment, a crazy family road trip, and a whole lot of casual gunplay. And that’s just the first two episodes. We can’t wait to see the rest.

Watch it on Hulu

18. Warrior (Max)

Warrior is back for a third season, still starring Andrew Koji as Ah Sahm and still set in 19th century San Francisco and still based on the writings of Bruce Lee, but now it’s on Max, which was previously known as HBO Max, after originally debuting on Cinemax back in 2019. There’s a lot going on here, most of it involving some usage of the letters m-a-x, but the bottom line remains the same: it’s a good show that’s full of action and cool fights scenes and sometimes that’s exactly what you need when it starts getting hot outside.

Watch it on HBO Max

17. Survival of the Thickest (Netflix)

Michelle Buteau delivers a heartfelt take on sudden singleness and chosen families with this Netflix comedy that was partly inspired by her book of the same name. Centered around an aspiring stylist whose life gets extremely complicated very quickly when she catches her live-in boyfriend hooking up with someone else, Buteau’s character gets lifted by her friends (fully developed friend characters!) and her indefatigable spirit. Still, none of this feels fairytale perfect, breaking the notion of a cliched story through charm, nuance, and realness to create something that’s as funny as it is empowering.

Watch it on Netflix

16. Foundation (Apple TV Plus)

In case the clip of Lee Pace battling a group of relentless assassins dressed only in his birthday suit wasn’t a big enough clue, this season of Foundation f*cks. And fights. What we’re trying to say is there’s a ton more action involved in the latest batch of episodes as the struggle to save a small swath of humanity from a predicted galactic war grows more perilous. We’ve hurtled 100 years forward as Dr. Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and his group of revolutionaries encounter a new threat to his psychohistory equation while navigating the unintended consequences of time travel. Meanwhile, the Emperor clones (Pace among them) are scrambling to hold onto power as rebellions and political upheaval threaten their DNA-replicating dynasty. Man, no one is doing sci-fi like Apple TV+ right now.

Watch it on Apple TV Plus

15. Black Mirror (Netflix)

Can the bleak freaky award-winning anthology series and buzz machine from a few years ago still scare the piss out of audiences now that the world has been brought closer to some of its popular themes about metaverses, AI everywhere, neural implants, evaporating privacy protections, and the malignancy of loneliness and hollowness of digital interactions? We’re about to find out with five new star-studded episodes that beg for our attention while it’s still ours to control.

Watch it on Netflix

14. Praise Petey (Hulu)

What if Schitt’s Creek, but with ritual killings and space cults? That’s the basic idea driving Praise Petey, a new Hulu-streaming cartoon from Mike Judge, Greg Daniels, and SNL head writer Anna Drezen. Starring the voice of Schitt’s alum Annie Murphy, the show tells the story of a big city influencer who inherits a town from her father… and the weird cult at its core. Naturally, cultures clash when she decides to put her fancy shoed foot down and stop all the human sacrifices, but besides the ritual killings, everyone seems more quirky than nut-retractingly terrifying, so we’re sure these divergent sides can work out their differences before a comet comes to wipe us all out/save us.

Watch it on Hulu

13. The Witcher (Netflix)

How will Henry Cavill be written off the show? Find out in volume two of season three.

Watch it on Netflix

12. The Bear (FX/Hulu)

The first season of The Bear was often chaotic and intense in the very best of ways. But while season two doesn’t move fully away from that formula, it all feels a little more slow-burn and structured as it seeks to tell a story about what happens when you dare to take a chance and change things up. How discombobulating it is and how the universe reacts. We thought last season was a main course, but it was apparently just an appetizer.

Watch it on Hulu

11. Specials Ops: Lioness (Paramount Plus)

Because bucketfuls of Taylor Sheridan TV shows still aren’t enough, the former Sons Of Anarchy cop is here with an inspired-by-real-life story about the CIA’s Lioness Program. Zoe Saldaña stars as an operative who helps mentor and mold recruits, who will one day become fearsome assassins. Saldaña is surely relieved to be back in ass-kicking mode, over a decade after Colombiana proved how riveting she can be as an action star. Nicole Kidman also headlines as the chief of the Lioness Program, which is part of the “CIA’s efforts to thwart the next 9/11,” according to the show’s synopsis.

Watch it on Paramount Plus

10. Quarterback (Netflix)

Quarterback is Netflix’s next stab at a sports docuseries, after first diving into F1 racing and professional golf with surprising success. This one follows — you guessed it — a group of NFL quarterbacks as they prepare for battle in an NFL season. We get looks at everyone from Patrick Mahomes to Kirk Cousins to Marcus Mariota as they try to fling the pigskin successfully while getting chased by very large dudes. It’s basically an action movie.

Watch it on Netflix

9. Full Circle (Max)

We are fixing to be awash in Tim Olyphant. Not only is Justified: City Primeval on the way, but he also plays an apparently hatless role in this crime drama series from Steven Soderbergh. Olyphant and Clare Danes portray parents of a kidnapped child, so yes, this might not be the kind of “tense drama” that you’re craving, but the talent is stacked into the stratosphere. Zazie Beetz plays the lead investigator on the case, and naturally, do not expect a cut-and-dried story from Mr. Soderbergh. Yes, there are secrets afoot here.

Watch it on Max

8. They Cloned Tyrone (Netflix)

They don’t make movies like They Cloned Tyrone anymore. Pulled from a Black List script from first-time director Juel Taylor, this slick, riotous crime caper is an amalgam of genres – one part mind-bending sci-fi, one part Blaxploitation homage, mixed with 70s era funk, infused with Nancy Drew references, and propped up by stellar comedic performances from Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris. John Boyega’s in here too, playing a reluctant hero tasked with saving his block from a secret government conspiracy that’s somehow twisted up in fried chicken recipes and grape drink offerings and hair relaxer. If we could have more of this, that’d be great.

Watch it on Netflix

7. The Afterparty (Apple TV Plus)

The Afterparty was a ton of fun in its first season. It was a little whodunnit mystery with a cast full of your comedy favorites — Sam Richardson! Tiffany Haddish! Ben Schwartz! And so on! — and a fun hook where each episode focused on a different character and was presented using a different style of storytelling. Well, it’s back for a second season now, with a new murder and some new genres and a similar crew of characters. There is very little to complain about here.

Watch it on Apple TV Plus

6. How To with John Wilson (Max)

A surprisingly stirring mosaic of human weirdness, modern annoyance, and the pursuit of presence and meaning, How To with John Wilson landed when we needed it most amidst the wall-to-wall coverage and heavy isolation of the peak pandemic. Like other revered HBO shows (Succession, Barry), it’s now leaving, perhaps a little sooner than we expected or wanted. Nevertheless, it feels like it’s going out on high and on its own terms creatively with another volume of mundane misadventures adding up to something touching profundity.

Watch it on Max

5. What We Do in the Shadows (FXX/Hulu)

Body-swaps. Pride parades. Mall outings. The best comedy on TV is officially back, baby. WWDITS’ latest season introduces our favorite group of undead idiots to even more 21st century hijinks proving that this show – unlike its immortal characters – only gets better with age. Guillermo’s struggling with an identity crisis of supernatural proportions, Nadja’s been hexed, Colin Robinson is thriving in the service industry, and Nandor and Laszlo are knee-deep in a centuries-old feud. The house is in chaos, which is just how we like it.

Watch it on Hulu

4. The Righteous Gemstones (Max)

The super-rich mega-church proprietors are back and they’re ready to step into a new chapter that sees patriarch Eli Gemstone ceding control to his kids. Shades of Succession? In some surface ways, sure, but Gemstones is its own swirl of chaos and genius, and this new season goes all in on family feuds while adding monster trucks, romantic entanglements, backwoods survivalists doing that thing they do, and an all-new Baby Billy scheme.

Watch it on Max

3. Harley Quinn (Max)

Even though there’s been a lot of upheaval at HBO Max/Max and even more so for films and TV shows starring DC characters, at least one supervillainess is safe. Miss Harley (who does not need the Joker for success) was almost pointedly renewed as a clattering of show cancellations and removals swirled. Heck, Kaley Cuoco’s voice even gave us the only Valentine’s Day special worth watching this year. Soon, we might find out whether Bane is still making love to a skyscraper as Harley attempts to get in good with the Bat Family. Quite a contrast there.

Watch it on Max

2. Justified: City Primeval (Hulu)

Everyone’s favorite extralegal lawman is swaggering back into our hearts, long after he made it out of Harlan alive. Can he make it out of Detroit alive, too? We’ll see, and Raylan Givens’ daughter, Willa, is also onboard to give the hat a hard time because someone needs to do it. We’ve already pinpointed the one Justified episode, “Long In The Tooth,” that makes an ideal essential rewatch before this spinoff, and Raylan should have a swell time hunting bad guys in Motor City. At the top of his list: The so-called “Oklahoma Wildman,” portrayed by Boyd Holbrook and his tighty-whiteys.

Watch it on Hulu

1. Twisted Metal (Peacock)

Twisted Metal is one of the more unlikely video game-to-TV show adaptations, but the Peacock series has put together quite the crew for this post-apocalyptic joyride. The action-comedy stars Anthony Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz, Thomas Haden Church, Mike Mitchell (of Doughboys fame), and wrestler Samoa Joe as Sweet Tooth (Will Arnett provides the voice of the evil clown). The Last of Us was great, but did it have a clown driving an ice cream truck? Exactly.

Watch it on Peacock

Róisín Murphy saved a lot of people during lockdown. Her 2020 disco-pop gem, Róisín Machine, came out at a time when celebrating its merits on the dancefloor just wasn’t possible yet. So, her empowerment and self-discovery anthems had to come across as viscerally as possible and Jesus did they ever.

The Irish pop singer (her name is pronounced “Ro-Sheen” by the way) came to the fore in the late ’90s as the vocal yin to producer Mark Brydon’s yang in the duo Moloko. Their track “Sing It Back” is forever a gushy, melt-on-the-dancefloor staple and Murphy has made a career out of sparkling alongside a range of dance music producers. From Matthew Herbert to Crooked Man and then briefly in 2018 with one of today’s finest-yet-elusive artists, DJ Koze, on his masterpiece knock knock. On the chilled-out thump and especially on the driving pulse of “Illumination,” theirs was a collaboration that seemed destined for greater things. And here we are.

Murphy’s upcoming album, Hit Parade, is produced entirely by the German Koze, and it sees two artists at the top of their respective games colliding in style. For fans of both, Hit Parade (out September 8 on Ninja Tune) is a dream scenario; an album that scratches the itch of wanting to hear more — and more and more — of those first two divine collabs, especially considering Koze has never done an entire collaboration album with any vocalist. Early singles like the flowering stringed “CooCool” and the slow-building snazzy “Fader” are bonafide hits, with Murphy at her masterful adaptable self over Koze’s nectar for your ears. It’s different from anything the producer has ever done though, living in an entirely new world spun by the duo. “It blows my mind,” Murphy says. “It blows my mind that I can be prolific at this stage of the game and keep making surprising music.” We caught up with Murphy on Zoom from her home in Ibiza, where she was taking a break from watching episodes of The Bear to talk about the method behind the madness of an entire album of disco pop panache from her and Koze, in what’s sure to go down as one of this year’s best.

This interview has been slightly modified for length and clarity.

The first time I came across you was in 1999 on a track called “The Truth” (with J-Live) off of the first Handsome Boy Modelling School album. ‘twas a lovely introduction.

It was a trip making that track. I wrote it on the 4-track to that sample of the piano in Sheffield. And then I got on a plane and got picked up by Dan The Automator and Prince Paul and they drove me straight to the studio. I was petrified. I mean…Prince Paul was a massive hero of mine and we hardly knew each other at this point. I just thought, “Shit they expect me to be brilliant straight away.” Again, petrified. I went in and sang it like twice and they turned around and were like ‘That’s it. It’s done and it’s superb.’ And then I had three days with them to do nothing, so we bought loads of weird toys and kimonos and laughed a lot. It was pretty much exactly as I put it down. So that was an eye-opener.”

Well I’m glad I asked you about that, even though I wasn’t really planning on talking about this old project as much as the new one.

As much as anything else in my career, I think there’s a thread from “The Truth” through to this record.

How so?

Well, there’s that hip-hop feeling to it, a real soulfulness. There’s a way that the vocal sounds; it’s so prominent. It has a kind of a mood like the vocal that maintains on “The Truth” that has that old-fashioned feel almost. It feels organic, and somehow not digital. Not that the new one doesn’t sound digital. There’s a good connection there.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with the songs off the new album. I think it’s brilliant and I hear trap influences on it, beats I hadn’t heard before from Koze and now that you mention the throughline, it kinda makes sense.

I mean, he was a hip-hop DJ and a DMC champion when he was 16 in Germany. They’d be like “Crazy ah! Hip-hop German punks! We fuck you up!” [laughs] He’s as German as the day is long.

It’s funny and sorta perfect that the series that this story is a part of is called Hitmakers and the album is called freakin’ Hit Parade!

I mean…come on!

This is a great match. Were you two trying to consciously make #hits on this album or was it a reference to another train of thought?

Oh no. We weren’t consciously doing anything. If anything was conscious, it would be immediately dismissed by Stefan (Kozalla; DJ Koze.) He really doesn’t want that consciousness. He doesn’t finish a song until it sounds amazing and if you put any pressure on him like, “I just made a dance record, maybe we should make more dance tracks or something?” He’ll be like, ‘First of all don’t compare my music to anything else you’ve ever done before, because I’m genius.” [laughs] and “Just you wait and see,” basically. And I think that’s why he worked with me. Because I can go along with that easily, and I’m very happy to go on an adventure of discovery.

After “Illumination” and “Scratch That,” what made you both decide to collaborate on an entire album?

Well, he offered it. Straightaway afterwards he said, “I wanna make more stuff for you.” And I was like, “Well, I have to make a Róisín Murphy record next” and he just said “Ok, that’s what we’ll do.” And I thought it was wonderful. Just that people would give me their music, that’s incredible. That’s the joy you hear on the record. That’s me speaking to the music.

“CooCool” came out in March and has this song of the summer feel to it with these blooming sounds — the whole persona of the song is this sort of blossoming. What were you thinking about when you wrote and made that song?

I was thinking about what I’m always thinking about when I write love songs: How you have no choice. You have these decisions in your head like “Can I stop thinking about this person? Can I not be in love with them?” It’s absolutely pointless. It really proves to you that you have no free will when you’re in love.

But this one is you getting carried away on the “CooCool”… Carried away, carried away. It’s a very joyful one and hasn’t got an edge. I like the line, “This thing was way beyond any kind of parody.” I was trying to be very earnest in my way without being boringly earnest.

What did Koze bring out of you that you had maybe never imagined was there before?

I definitely think he prioritized the vocal…In a way that maybe only Matthew Herbert had done before. The vocal was put onto a velvet cushion. It was a total priority to both of those producers to make me sound as compelling and soulful and full as possible. And Koze always said that: “I’m gonna make you sound fucking great”

That’s interesting because do you think other producers prioritize the beat over the vocals? Is that the counterpoint to that?

A lot of things can get in the way of that…a lot of little ego things. Not necessarily negative things, but other areas can be concentrated on. This was obsessive, you can hear the things he [Koze] did to my vocal in order to satisfy his ear, in order to make sure that it was sounding incredible. He’d speed it up, he’d switch the key, he’d switch it up, turn it upside down — not really on “CooCool” though. That’s the least changed of all the tracks really. The backing track is very close to what he sent me to sing on and singing it very close to the arrangement that the key and tempo I put it down on.

Does Ibiza as a locale inspire you?

Well I wrote my bit of ‘The Universe’ with Koze in Ibiza. That’s the only song we did together. He stayed with us for a couple days in Ibiza and we set up a studio there for him and I still didn’t see him work, just saw him record me on that session. But he took sound from around the space. There are sounds from the ambiance like crickets and stuff. He loves our house. It was in between the lockdown and Ibiza was really quiet and magical in some ways. And as you can hear there are these incessant, narcissistic voices on the record, which you can find quite a bit of on Ibiza — especially in the summertime.

Maybe my weed is too good when I’m listening to it all, but I hear subtle brushstrokes of the island in parts of the record. Not sonically per se, but I try to place myself where your head is.

Well, our compound is heaven. But there is the rest of the world going on, just outside the frame and that’s the feeling that you have across the record. That’s how the world kinda is still…

Why Koze? Why was this the move for you?

I love to surprise people. It’s my favorite thing. If I’m surprising, then I’m alive. If I’m changing, I’m alive. As you get older, it’s funny…I thought you’d become more of a stick in the mud, you’d become less flexible. But the truth is, you go the other way. Because you see the changes. You live through so many changes that it becomes something. When you’re younger, you don’t expect to change and now, I expect to be in flux and I think that’s a good place to be creatively.

One of the biggest pieces of news in the music world from the past few days (a particularly busy stretch with Sinéad O’Connor’s death and Tom DeLonge’s role in the congressional UFO hearings) has been Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro calling off their engagement and breaking up. Following the initial reports, we’ve heard Alejandro’s perspective, and now Rosalía has shared hers.

Rosalía posted a statement on her Instagram Story today (July 27), writing, “Yo quiero, respeto y admiro muchísimo a Raul. Ni caso a las películas, nosotros sabemos lo que hemos vivido. Este momento no es fácil así que gracias a todo el mundo por entender y respetar [white heart emoji].” That roughly translates to (via ChatGPT), “I love, respect, and admire Raul very much. I don’t pay attention to the gossip; we know what we’ve lived through. This moment is not easy, so thanks to everyone for understanding and respecting it.”

In his own recent statement, Alejandro said his and Rosalía’s engagement actually came to an end a few months ago and noted of rumors surrounding the break-up, “There are thousands of problems that can cause a breakup, but in our case, it was not because of third parties or infidelity.”

Zion Williamson has found himself in the news a lot this summer, but unfortunately the headlines have often had little to do with his basketball prowess.

The Pelicans’ All-Star forward has found himself in trade rumors and personal conflicts that have become public, most recently finding himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit, alongside his stepfather, Lee Anderson, and mother, Sharonda Sampson, over an unpaid $2 million loan from a tech company. According to the Associated Press, Ankr PBC — a tech company specializing in blockchain technologies — is suing Williamson and his family for having failed to repay $1.8 million worth of a $2 million loan the company lent them in 2021. The company was hoping to get Williamson to be a spokesperson, and provided the loan after already paying $150,000 up front to Anderson to even open negotiations for a business relationship.

Williamson’s mother, Sharonda Sampson, is named as a defendant, in part because Ankr wired money into her account after Anderson allegedly told the company his family urgently needed a “bridge loan” to cover investment obligations.

“Anderson represented that the loan was urgently needed, as the family had taken on expensive investments including the purchase of certain real estate in New Orleans and could not meet their obligations due to the temporary suspension of payments from Williamson’s sponsorship deals resulting from an injury,” the lawsuit stated.

Ankr also alleges that Anderson told the company that “his family would suffer financial hardship, and Williamson would not enter into a business relationship with Ankr,” if the loan was not made immediately.

Ankr stated that it agreed to make the loan on condition it be paid back by Aug. 21, 2022, but that Anderson subsequently requested a series of extensions, and that when Ankr finally received a check for $25,000, it bounced.

After entering forbearance earlier this year, Ankr was supposed to get paid back $500,000 of the loan by the end of April, but states the $500,000 paid so far only covers $200,000 of the loan itself and $300,000 in interest. It seems the focal point of the lawsuit is Anderson, who was negotiating the deal and asked for the loan, but it is unfortunately an example of how an athlete needs to have his affairs in order off the court and the right people in control of financials to avoid such situations.

Will Arnett didn’t set out to play a pivotal on-screen role with the adaptation of the Sony Playstation classic Twisted Metal that he’s exec producing, it just worked out that way with him lending his instantly recognizable voice to a demented clown with a passion for the stage. The body? That belongs to AEW wrestler Samoa Joe, but don’t let on that you could tell it wasn’t a swole Arnett on the screen for the post-apocalyptic action-comedy from Deadpool and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (this really feels as though it’s cut from the same cloth as Zombieland). Little bit of a sore spot.

Uproxx had a chance to catch up and goof off with the somewhat unserious Arnett a few weeks ago (pre-strike) where we had some fun with his decision to “Mandalorian” the role of Sweet Tooth, how he almost fired himself, and the scene that allowed him to find his way into the character. Arnett also gives praise for Anthony Mackie (the star of the show, who seems like he’s having the time of his life as a smart-ass courier in the badlands of a collapsed US), what he really thinks about his SmartLess podcast partners (Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes), and whether or not he knew the words to Sisqó’s “Thong Song” (a key moment from the show, which just dropped on Peacock with all episodes available).

But first, we begin with Arnett gushing about the kick-ass sight of the tricked-out and gunned-up throwback ice cream truck (also named Sweet Tooth) that his character tools around in on the show while wreaking havoc.

Hey, Will.

What do you think of my backdrop, man?

That’s pretty good. I like the ice cream truck. Did you get to drive the truck actually? I know it’s not your body, obviously, but you’re a producer, you have certain rights.

First of all, don’t say obviously not my body. It could be! Come on, man.

Maybe a little more time in at the buffets. Maybe a little more time in the weight room. Where’s your commitment? Actually, that’s a great lead-in. Thank you. Why did you have a lack of commitment to not get fully swole for this role? What happened there, Hollywood?

(Laughs) This is starting off terribly.

Oh, it’s only going to go downhill from here.

It’s only going downhill. By the way, you’re not wrong. If I was more committed, I would’ve spent… Let’s be honest, it would’ve taken me three years to get that big. Can you imagine if I showed up, but I was like The Rock big, and I just disappeared for a couple of years? I’d still do my podcast, but I basically disappear and then I reemerge just massive.

Remember the media cycle around Kumail (Nanjiani) got when he got ripped for The Eternals? That could’ve been you, but instead, they were like, “Oh, we can Mandalorian this shit.”

Oh, he really milked that too.

There’s always season two.

Yeah, there is season two. You’re right, you’re right. By the way, (Samoa) Joe did such an awesome job. I was saying to somebody earlier, he did so much work. He just did the bulk of the work and I likened it to he ran 99 yards with the ball and then lateraled it to me with a yard left. Like, “Don’t mess it up, dude.” You know what I mean?

I was watching the dailies and stuff and he was just so in it physically. He was just doing so much awesome stuff. And he’s doing the scenes with Anthony (Mackie). And he’s doing such an awesome job. And so I legit just didn’t want to mess it up.

I don’t think you did. Was the plan always for you to voice this character? Was there a thought for you as John Doe (the Anthony Mackie character)? Or was it mostly just about getting the show on the air and then you’d figure out where you fit in on-screen afterward?

We weren’t sure that I would do anything in the show. We wanted to get this made and we wanted to do the best version of it. And pretty immediately we were like, “Oh, Anthony Mackie.” I think he’s so awesome. He’s such a good actor. He’s kind of cool. He’s got a coolness to him. We were like, “Yeah, we got to maybe get him.”

There was never any thought or discussion of me playing John. And it was one of those things later in the process, everybody was like, “Maybe you voice Sweet Tooth?” And I forget exactly how that went down… By the way, people will be like, “Oh yeah, I’m sure. The moment where the guy goes, ‘I forget how that went down’ is the moment where he was like, “I should do it!” That’s not how it went down.

I will say this, I said this earlier too, but when we were first doing it and trying to find the voice of Sweet Tooth, the first couple of sessions, I was a little unsure. Again, I just wanted to get it right and I felt like what Samoa Joe had done on-screen was so good. I was kind of like, “I don’t feel like I’m delivering in a way that’s really satisfying.” And I came really close to firing myself. I actually sent out an email to everybody saying, “Maybe I should not do this. Maybe somebody else should do this.” And Michael Jonathan Smith (the showrunner), to his credit, was like, “No, no, no. Look, let’s work on it and let’s find the right thing and find the right tone.” Because I wanted him to be scary and I wanted him to be menacing and I wanted him to be insane. I wanted to feel like he’s going to shoot you or cut your head off or cut your feet off or do whatever, but also be funny. Yeah, it was a process.

What I hear you saying is that your voice doesn’t sound enough like a demented clown, and I disagree.

Thank you.

You’re welcome. (Laughs) Was there a specific kind of twist, turn, or pivot that helped you get to where you wanted the character’s voice to be? Because it is fantastic. It’s also a deeper voice. Which is amazing. I don’t know how your throat survived.

I think if I look back, going and doing the scene in episode two, Sweet Tooth delivers this monologue, this one-man show in Vegas. I think that moment helped me understand because it’s so absurd, kind of who he is. I mean, there’s a whole story there about his parents and people lying to him, et cetera, blah, blah. That helped me understand who he is. So it’s that, coupled with probably doing “The Thong Song,” that helped me understand how this character can live up here and live down here simultaneously. He’s just unhinged.

Did you know the lyrics to “The Thong Song” before this, or was that new to you? Be honest.

I did not. I’m being honest.

Okay. That’s really disappointing.

For what it’s worth, it sounds like you immediately thought I was going to lie to you, but that’s okay. (Laughs)

I mean, it’s a judgment, but it might be a question for you to ask yourself why that is.

(Laughs)

This may be self-explanatory, but what is the difference between voicing a character for this where again, there’s another actor, but it’s live-action, versus something like Lego Batman where it’s an animated thing?

The Lego movies — and I include Lego Batman in that — weren’t so much reading a script. You go in and you meet and you discuss and you’re looking at art. And they’re walking you through. The script, often in those films, changes a lot because they know that they have this two to three year runway to land this thing. And so there’s a lot of trial and error. There’s a lot of going in and working on a script that might change. Literally, they’ll change the second act and the third act. And as you’re recording, you’ll record something that doesn’t work. And two weeks later or two months later, you go back and you rerecord the whole second act. But then after you lay that track down, they animate to what you’ve done.

This is the process I’m watching Samoa Joe do these live-action scenes with. I’m actually seeing him doing it and I’m hearing him act these scenes out with Anthony. And then I’ve got to sort of, afterward, as we start cutting the show, start laying in my voice to what he’s done. It’s much more of a collaboration in that way, on a level with another actor, another performer, in a way that you’re not accustomed to doing with animated stuff. Because I’m sort of driving it in animation. Now somebody else has kind of got the wheel and I’ve got to adjust based on what he’s already done physically. It was more challenging than I thought it was going to be.

With the SmartLess podcast (and MAX series), a colleague of mine asked me to ask whether you guys (Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes) actually like each other. Is this a frenemy situation or is it a full-on enemy situation?

(Laughs) I can’t speak for Jason and Sean, but if I did speak for either of them, it would be, “Uhhhhhh.” That’s what they sound like to me. No, I love those guys so much. We were just recording earlier today. We’re recording an episode and we were talking about the fact that especially in the doc series, I give Jason so much crap about what he eats or what he doesn’t eat and blah blah blah, and people are coming up to him like, “Hey man, are you okay?” What they have to understand is so much of it is like, we’re just friends giving each other crap, and that’s what we do. And we talked about it I think in the special, but certainly we’ve talked about it on the podcast before. It’s our love language. We’re hitting out at each other because we love each other.

All episodes of ‘Twisted Metal’ are streaming on Peacock

Maggie Rogers just kicked off her Summer Of ’23 Tour to follow her Feral Joy Tour earlier this year. The pop star had in-person ticket sales to fight off bots and prioritize fans, and she has great guests like Del Water Gap, Alvvays, and Soccer Mommy joining her as openers on the stages.

So far, she’s been performing tracks from her two albums, 2019’s Heard It In A Past Life (which contains her Pharrell-approved hit “Alaska”) and 2022’s Surender (which has the Obama-favorited anthem “That’s Where I Am”). In May, the Harvard graduate also revealed that she finished working on her third album and would be playing songs from it for audiences on tour. “that’s a wrap on LP3 !!!! [star emoji] [butterfly emoji] written + recorded + off to mixing,” she wrote on social media. “so so so in love with these songs and cannot wait to start playing them for you this summer.”

Check out the setlist from Rogers’ Nashville concert at Ascend Amphitheater, according to setlist.fm.

1. “Anywhere With You”
2. “Want Want”
3. “Say It”
4. “Be Cool”
5. “Light On”
6. “Sick Of Dreaming”
7. “Overnight”
8. “Horses”
9. “Symphony”
10. “Shatter”
11. “Don’t Forget Me”
12. “Love You For A Long Time”
12. “Alaska”
13. “That’s Where I Am”
14. “Fallingwater”
15. “The Kill”
16. “Different Kind Of World”

There are two sides to timing. When timing works, and it feels like the universe has opened a special door for you, replete with red carpet for your arrival, and when it doesn’t, and that door doesn’t just slam but splinters under your hands, the exact conditions for that moment in time gone forever. Zaire Wade knows, intimately, both sides of time.

After just 12 games into his 2021-2022 G League season with the Salt Lake City Stars, what Wade hoped would be his entry point into the pros, he felt his knee give out on an innocuous misstep. Wade could’ve looked at his injury as something that robbed the next nine months from him. Instead he used it to recalibrate, working with his dad, Dwyane Wade, on his recovery, conditioning, and steadily building back his strength.

Candid about what was one of the more difficult stretches of his life, on and off the floor, Wade lets out a big sigh when asked how the injury changed his perspective on his health, “It changed it tremendously,” Wade tells Dime over Zoom, where he’s just arrived back home to L.A. from South Africa.

“Being young, you don’t really pay attention to that. You think you’re kind of invincible and then when the day comes when something serious happens and you can’t play, or even walk at the time, you really start looking at things from a different perspective,” Wade says, “I took my health more seriously.”

Wade calls that time “a blessing in disguise,” doubling down on work ethic and becoming curious about supplements like Thorne, a NSF certified supplement brand he and his dad are currently ambassadors for. Wade had just turned 20 when he got hurt. His body, through playing professional basketball, was probably in the best shape he’d seen it, but he still wishes he had more sense of control, and committed to finding that as his career unfolded.

After being waived by the Stars following his injury, he wanted a different target to aim for. Criticized in the past for some of the moves he’s made thus far in his very young career being the product of nepotism, many of Wade’s pivots, or more untraditional decisions, have only borrowed from his father’s broader understanding of the basketball world as a whole. It’s common sense that, playing alongside athletes like Bronny James, Brandon Boston, and Ziare Williams at Sierra Canyon, Wade was not going to get as many minutes and by extension, exposure. He’d already played at two high schools prior to SCS, so a quick hop over to Brewster Academy in New Hampshire after his senior year was only going to add more runway. And it did, Wade got plenty of offers from Division 1 schools, but then came COVID.

“That whole college process was very tough because of the time, it was COVID. I think it was the first year that COVID really hit. It was kind of a bad time,” Wade recalls. “The transfer portal was huge that year, a lot of people were transferring and a lot of schools that did offer me spots, they were being taken because of that. So it was kind of tough finding the right fit somewhere, somewhere I would go and not just sit.”

It’s this theme of momentum, of wanting to be physically and mentally in the mix of the game through his own capabilities, that runs as an electrified thread through Wade’s decisions. His dad, obviously, knows this, and the decision to forego college and enter the G League Draft came through the two of them talking out what the younger Wade most wanted: to play basketball.

“[Colleges] kind of were just saying that they essentially wanted me to be a player that came in the first year and learned from the [older] guys,” he remembers. “We were thinking well, if I was going to do that, I might as well learn from the pros. To get a head start at that.”

Wade wasn’t even supposed to travel with the Stars, he was originally a practice player. He wasn’t betting on an automatic shot at more minutes than he would’ve seen in college by entering the G League, he just knew he had a better shot to work for them. But timing, on Wade’s side through his few months in the G League, suddenly switched.

“I was kind of in the middle,” Wade says of that time, “I knew I wasn’t going to go back to the G League, simply because I wanted to prove myself on a different stage, one where I could play more or in a better position than I would in the G League again.”

In that stretch, Wade still got up every morning to train and put in reps regardless of not knowing what his next move would be, or when. There’s a Kobe Bryant quote he admittedly does not want to mess up, but the gist is that taking chances in life is crucial, but in order to be able to take advantage of chances, you have to be ready for when they come.

“The [BAL] Combine came out of nowhere. It was like,” Wade snaps his fingers, “throwing you in the fire. I came out of there great, but if I wasn’t ready? You’ve got to be ready at all times, no matter what it is.”

The Basketball Africa League, now in its third season, held its second Combine in Paris in January. There, with a few months of playing pro under his belt and a renewed focus, Wade breezed around the floor in his lilting, dancer-esque pace, as unbalancing to defenders as it is mesmerizing to watch for the way he tends toward floaty stutter-steps and long, reaching strides. He impressed NBA and FIBA scouts alike, but it was the Capetown Tigers that called him up the weekend of his 21st birthday and offered him a roster spot.

“That experience, I can’t even put it to words,” Wade says, smiling wide, when asked how his experience in the BAL has been thus far. “Learning different languages, going to different areas, talking to different people, seeing like, How did they grow up? What have been their struggles? The things they like to do or don’t like to do. It’s really just learning. And me being able to be myself. I think a lot of people over there, they wanted to see me for me with no strings attached to it.”

Growing up around basketball, Wade wasn’t a stranger to travel and the broader, global perspective it can lend. But he likens his time in Johannesburg (“Jburg”), where the Tigers practice, and Cape Town so far as taking a big breath of fresh air, all for himself.

“I think this was unique because it was solely mine this time. I was out there, I had to figure it out,” Wade says, noting everything from the playing style, to the professionalism of the league and the lifestyle of the guys he was playing alongside, as things he was happily adjusting to. “And my name, Zaire, is original to Africa, the DRC, so I was close to the DRC for a short time — so things like that, when I was a kid it’s never where I thought I was going to be.”

More and more, athletes are figuring out alternate paths either into the NBA, or into professional basketball abroad. Part of this is due to the game’s broadening global footprint and rise in popularity, and part is due to the staggering increase in talent and skill of hopeful young players overall. Even moves like Kemba Walker deciding to play abroad and signing with Monaco signal that there doesn’t have to be just one, linear line when it comes to making a career.

“I think it’s definitely something that’s going to help me in the long run, especially in furthering my career and seeing where I can take it. Now I’ve got eyes on the world to see how they play,” Wade says, when asked how he sees his path thus far as an asset. He also touches on the different approach to the game he’s noticed in international players, like Nikola Jokic or Giannis Antetokounmpo.

“It’s a whole different style of play. I was touching on it a little bit [this year], the passion,” Wade says. “And I wouldn’t say we Americans don’t have passion, because we obviously do, but you see guys like Jokic, and Giannis, they play for their respective countries. Versus, we play for our families or because we simply love the game.”

He comes back to a saying his Tigers teammates use before games, “Show what it means to be a South African.” Wade says really, it means to represent whatever it is you stand for, and aside from the physical play, it’s what he considers one of the biggest edges he’s taken from his time in South Africa so far.

Talking with Wade, and seeing secondhand the way his dad is — especially when it counts — his biggest fan, the way their relationship is oversimplified as either nepotism or a long shadow that Zaire will forever be working to escape from feels like a myopic and bleak categorization. It’s also a stale duality that, as more sons and daughters of former players enter the pros, is due for retirement. Dwyane Wade was certainly there to help Zaire navigate the hard and first time big decisions, like any parent would, but it was in making those decisions that let Zaire step out onto his own for the first time.

Wade is comfortable with the comparison. He laughs when he shares how he teases his dad about where he might be if he knew as much about health and wellness and the two do now, or in acknowledging there’s no escaping becoming your parents. Part of what he liked so much about their shared Thorne campaign was getting to work alongside each other.

“‘Cause I feel like he’s an older me, right? Just kind of looking at myself, how I’m going to be personality wise. Just the way he approaches business as well. Like we joke around, but he knows when to get serious. He’s a role model for me as far as that goes,” Wade says, recalling how he watched his dad closely on set when they recorded their campaign commercials, how he moved and interacted with everyone.

There’s another finer, harder to pin down point that automatically citing basketball nepotism tends to bulldoze over. There’s a reclamation of time in the Wade’s relationship. The best case scenario is that Zaire is able to figure out his own path, but save on some of the missable mistakes his father made. Timing, in this way, doesn’t have to split. It can align in what the two want for each other.

The summary of this — and the way Zaire Wade’s approached his career — came in an answer he gave, when it came to how overwhelming the world of supplements, health and wellness can be for people who aren’t pros.

“You’re perfectly fine,” he said, “you just have to find something for you.”