BP Gallery
Brad Pitt, Chris Evans, Laura Dern and Six Other Stars Grace the Covers of W’s Best Performances 2020 Issue
For the Best Performances 2020 issue, the stars of the biggest films of the past year posed for photographer Juergen Teller in the most quintessential of Los Angeles locales: strip malls, parking lots and hotel rooms. This time around, the annual portfolio features nine different covers, with Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and Ad Astra), Joaquin Phoenix (Joker), Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers), Eddie Murphy (Dolemite Is My Name), Chris Evans (Knives Out and Avengers: Endgame), Laura Dern (Marriage Story and Little Women), Adam Driver (Marriage Story, The Report, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems) and Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit) at their bold, unvarnished, effervescent best. For the portfolio inside the issue, the actors sat down with W’s Editor at Large Lynn Hirschberg to discuss their lives and work: Dern reflects on her public perception (she’s never felt like an icon), Lopez recalls her early days as a dancer, and Murphy opens up about the films and comedy albums that influenced him as a kid. Here, all of Teller’s iconic covers for W’s first issue of the new decade, and its tenth edition of Best Performances.
Be sure to read Brad’s hilarious (in my opinion) short interview right here.
• x005 W Photoshoot
The Magic Behind the ‘Great Performers’ Issue
Jack Davison’s photographs capture this year’s best actors with a minimalist and inventive approach.
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.
Released in December, just before awards season, the Great Performers Issue is one of The New York Times Magazine’s most anticipated of the year. After watching many hours of movies released in 2019, The Times’s co-chief film critic A.O. Scott and critic-at-large Wesley Morris narrowed down their choices for most striking performances in film this year to 10 actors: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lopez, Elisabeth Moss, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lupita Nyong’o, Julianne Moore, Antonio Banderas and Robert De Niro. All 10 appear in this weekend’s issue of the magazine.
“You have to kind of read the room,” Mr. Davison said. Some actors asked questions and wanted to collaborate; others wanted him to do his thing. Mr. Pitt, for one, “was quite interested in what the materials did when I was shooting through them,” Mr. Davison recalled. Mr. Banderas even got playful. All told, Mr. Davison spent two days shooting in Los Angeles, two more in New York and one in Spain (to shoot Mr. Banderas).
Read more. Bigger version picture at the BP Gallery.
BP Gallery Update
• x016 Photoshoots
• x012 November 02 – Springfield, MO
• x003 November 04 – Paris, France
• x006 November 16 – ‘LA on Fire’ Art Exhibition – Los Angeles, CA
• x014 November 24 – Kanye West’s ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ Opera Show – Los Angeles, CA
• x012 December 03 – U2 Concert – Tokyo, Japan
• x002 Breitling
• x002 Ad Astra – Promo
• x023 September 13 – Ad Astra – Tokyo, Japan
• x013 September 16 – Ad Astra – Washington DC, WA
• x027 September 18 – Ad Astra – Hollywood, CA
• x007 October 22 – The King – West Hollywood, CA
• x006 November 02 – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (special screening) – Los Angeles, CA
New York Times
As the stuntman Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” Brad Pitt laid down a performance of vintage Hollywood dudeness. His character is equally at ease being a human security blanket for his B-list-actor boss, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, as he is subduing murderous Manson family members while tripping on acid. In James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” Pitt used the same tools he wielded so deftly in Tarantino’s film — laconic cool; understated emotion — to build an entirely different version of masculinity. In it, he’s Roy McBride, an astronaut on an interplanetary mission to find his absentee (in multiple senses of the word) father. But McBride’s imperturbability is rooted in repression and hurt, nothing like Booth’s so-it-goes acceptance. “The two characters could be connected,” Pitt says, “in the sense that you have to go through an evolution to get to a place of comfort. You have to go through profound internal hardships.”
• x004 New York Times
