Workers at First Avenue, its 6 sister clubs, ratify first union contract
UNITE HERE Local 17 announced the ratification on Tuesday for 230 event and service staff at the downtown Minneapolis spots First Avenue, neighboring 7th Street Entry and Union Depot, and Fine Line. It also covers three St. Paul venues: Fitzgerald Theater, Palace Theater and Turf Club.
Union officials say the three-year contract includes "big raises, longevity pay," "improved scheduling, training and safety policies" and "protections for LGBT+ workers."
Employees first announced their intent to unionize in 2023, which management voluntarily recognized.
First Avenue, now in its 55th year of operation, is one of the most hallowed music clubs in the world, due in large part to its connection to Prince, who featured it prominently in his hit 1985 movie "Purple Rain."
Originally a Greyhound bus station from 1937 to 1968, First Avenue was repurposed into a club in 1970. Its iconic exterior is now adorned with more than 400 silver stars featuring the names of artists who've taken the main stage — including a single gold star for Prince.
According to its website, UNITE HERE is a New York-based labor union representing 300,000 U.S. and Canadian workers in the "hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation and airport industries."
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The 25 Best Movies of 2025 (So Far)
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." It's the middle of summer, and New York is following brutal, smelly heat wave with brutal, smelly heat wave. And the news—well, you know the news. But on the bright side… laughter! Yes, laughter. At the movies! I know, I know. It's the middle of summer, movies aren't funny in the middle of summer. Well this year… they kind of are?!? I've been out here in the dark, chortling, chuckling, giggling, guffawing, and, yes, even doing a bit of tittering and tee-hee-ing. And I've got to tell you, whether it's the simple belly laughs at the wonderfully ridiculous puns in The Naked Gun or the harder-edged cackles brought on by Eddington's too-real satire, it feels great. And this month, the laughs will keep coming thanks to what may be my favorite movie of the year, the utterly bananas Splittsville, as well as the slyly funny Lurker. There have also been some great recent flicks that are not so comical. Reid Davenport's excellent new documentary, Life After, is a good reminder of what a cruel society we live in—as is Eva Victor's Sorry, Baby (which, granted, does have a bit of humor). And 28 Years Later might've made a zombie movie fan out of me. Anyway, here are all my other favorite films of 2025 so far. I'll admit it: I did not expect the best studio comedy in years to star Liam Neeson in a reboot of the Naked Gun franchise. But here we are! And what a joy! Co-writer and director Akiva Schaffer brings the playful absurdity of Lonely Island sketches to a rather relentless send-up of policing, rich tech guys, and Hollywood clichés. The film hits all the right targets, and does so with perfect timing, but it's its silliness that made me cackle—whether it was a bit involving chili dogs or an evil Aster's latest has been a massive commercial flop and it has deeply polarized critics. It's easy to understand why: Who wants to relive the relentless, crazed din of 2020? Eddington is a tough film to sit down for, but I found it to be a surprisingly fun watch—a genre exercise that cycles through comedy, conspiracy thriller, and action. Aster captures the toxic energy of the pandemic, poking fun at the excesses and hysteria of both Left and Right. But this isn't an exercise in both-sidesism. Aster has a bigger target in mind, and that is the internet. Aster likes to say that Eddington is a movie about a data center getting built, and he's not just being flip. This is a film about how the internet broke—and continues to break—all of our brains. I've found myself thinking about it a lot since seeing it, and I imagine it will only become more powerful with time and greater distance.I'm typically not big on zombies, but it's hard to deny the power, thrill, and bite of 28 Years Later. In reteaming 23 years after 28 Days Later, Alex Garland, who wrote the script, and Danny Boyle, who directed, are each operating at peak form. From its thorough world-building, to its visceral performances, to its tense and gruesome action sequences, 28 Years is a dynamic genre film. Remarkably, it's also an incisive Brexit can probably guess the horrible thing that happened to Agnes, who is played with easy humor, awkward charm, and flashes of raw pain by the film's writer-director, Eva Victor. The film has a hard time naming the thing, but it's always there in the back of your mind — anticipating it before it happens and casting a large shadow afterwards. In this way, Sorry, Baby gets at how difficult it is to ever fully escape the cloud of trauma. But Victor's film—which is easily one of the best directorial debuts of the year—is gentle and compassionate, too, and a testament to the beauty and power of you'd asked me if disabled people—or any person—should have the right to die before I watched Life After, I would've said yes. Reid Davenport's powerful new documentary, though, forcefully challenges that belief. Davenport focuses much of the documentary's attention on the person who kickstarted the debate, Elizabeth Bouvia. In 1983, at 26 years old, Bouvia, who had cerebral palsy, sought 'the right to die.' But Davenport probes much deeper than the legal and media circus did at the time, questioning whether Bouvia actually wanted to die or wanted to die as an alternative to the inhumane care she was facing. Now, 40-plus years after Bouvia's case, care for people like Bouvia has barely improved, and Davenport makes a strong case that the right to die is being used to encourage society's most expensive citizens to end Simpson's debut feature is about a small coastal Florida town that's expecting a hurricane. But this isn't your average disaster movie. Like other films that have come out of the Omnes Collective (most recently Eephus and Christmas Eve at Miller's Point), this is a slow, atmospheric ensemble film. Simpson casts a spell in capturing the sounds and images of the calm before the storm—at once tinged with nostalgia and a sense of loneliness. If you were wondering if Tim Robinson's antics could sustain a feature-length movie, the answer is a resounding—if profoundly uncomfortable—yes. Director Andrew Deyoung's feature debut brilliantly subverts the bro-ish buddy comedies of the early aughts (even casting Paul Rudd in the new-friend role), foregrounding the fractures in modern masculinity. Beyond its incisiveness, Friendship is simply one of the funniest comedies in years. Shop NowDavid Cronenberg wrote The Shrouds after his longtime wife died of cancer in 2017, and he has acknowledged that the film was inspired by his own experience of grief. But the film dwells less on the pain of losing a loved one and more on how people channel that pain. Karsh (a Cronenberg-styled Vincent Cassel), a wealthy 'producer of industrial videos,' opens a cemetery that pioneers a technology called GraveTech. It allows loved ones to view the deceased composing in their graves through an app on their phone. Karsh claims it's comforting to watch his wife decompose. But when the cemetery is vandalized, Karsh becomes consumed by conspiracies. If all of this sounds rather macabre, it is—but it's also slyly funny and one of the truest portrayals of how grief tends to mutate. Shop NowThere's a small, slowly growing genre of Loser Men Hiking in the Woods movies. And with all due respect to Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy and India Donaldson's Good One, the men in those films don't hold a candle to Derek (Joel Potrykus) and his best friend Marty (Joshua Burge), the leads of Potrykus's raw, acidic Vulcanizadora. Here, past misdeeds beget horrific new ones. Though the film can be darkly funny, Potrykus largely treats these characters with objectivity and empathy. Shop NowYou've got to admire Ryan Coogler for absolutely going for it. His latest blockbuster follows a pair of gangster twins, Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) as they prepare to host a party for the non-white community in Jim Crow Mississippi. Their young cousin Sammie (a terrific Miles Catton), a gifted singer and son of a preacher, joins to play the blues. But midway through the film—and the party—things take a dramatic turn. Coogler uses genre as racial metaphor, deploying it in a way that's both highly entertaining and smart. Shop NowOften, music documentaries emulate the style of the artist they seek to capture. Alex Ross Perry takes a different tack with his inventive portrait of the '90s indie rock band Pavement: He gives maximal effort to these slacker icons. Perry's take on the band, which he clearly loves dearly, is that it contains multitudes. He captures the various sides of Pavement by channeling a core part of the band's spirit: irony. Within the documentary, Perry stages a real musical, a fake biopic, and a pop-up museum installation. He weaves the various pieces together with a structure he says he borrowed from Dunkirk. It's an attempt to poke fun at the ways beloved artists—from Queen to Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen—cash in on hagiographic IP. But it also provides a funny, thoughtful study of the to The Shrouds, grief opens the door to conspiratorial searching in Courtney Stephens's micro-budget narrative debut. The film was born out of a collaboration with actor and writer Callie Hernandez, who plays Carrie, the daughter of a conspiracy-minded alternative-health advocate. When Carrie's father dies, she inherits a patent for an experimental healing device. In her search for answers about the device—and, really, about her father—she meets with various acquaintances of his (a who's who of indie filmmakers) in his small northeastern town. The film, which includes footage of Hernandez's actual late father, captures the slow, mundane pace of life following the death of a loved one, as well as the way grief begets magical Friedland's first feature, Familiar Touch, has a familiar premise: Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), a retired cook, has dementia, and she and her family must cope as she adjusts to a new way of life. The film hits many of the beats you'd expect it to—with Ruth forgetting her son, staging minor revolts at her new senior-living facility, and also bonding with some of her caregivers. And yet Friedland's film is so gentle and well observed, with superlative performances from Chalfant and H. Jon Benjamin (playing her son), that it feels new and fresh Anderson is nothing if not consistent. His latest stars Benicio del Toro as a wealthy 1950s industrialist, Zsa-zsa Korda, whose close brush with death leads him to reconnect with his novitiate daughter and enlist her in his latest scheme. The film delivers everything you've come to expect out of Wes: impeccable compositions, clever jokes, a convoluted plot, superlative performances from an all-star cast, and a fractured family coming together. It's also, though, the most violent and religious film in Anderon's extensive oeuvre. Shop NowMany months after catching April, from director Dea Kulumbegashvili, at last year's New York Film Festival, I can still feel its weight. The film centers on Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), an obstetrician at a hospital in rural Georgia (the country, not the state) who performs underground abortions in her off-hours. The film, which verges on the surreal at times, captures the emotional toll of such work—dark, lonely, at times this movie a bit of a mess for its first two and a half hours? Yes. Do the last 30 minutes involve Tom Cruise doing some of the most bananas amazing stunts ever captured on screen? Also yes! Eephus, the debut feature from director Carson Lund, is set on a crisp October afternoon in a small 1990s Massachusetts town. Two rec-league baseball teams are facing off for the final game at Soldier Field. A more conventional film might take one team's side or pit the players against an evil developer. But here the field is giving way to a public school, and these two teams are united against a different, more universal foe: time. As the hours slowly pass, the umpires clock out and the sun goes down. To finish the game, the players have to get resourceful. Though one team does come away victorious, I couldn't tell you which. Eephus is a movie about the little moments that make baseball—and, really, life—beautiful. Shop NowI don't think I've ever seen a character in a movie as unrelentingly angry as Marianne Jean-Baptiste's Pansy in Hard Truths. The actor, who last worked with director Mike Leigh in 1996's Secrets and Lies, snarls, seethes, and sulks throughout this brilliantly funny and affecting familial drama. Though the film alludes to Pansy having had a complicated relationship with her deceased mother, Leigh treads lightly on character backstory. We never fully find out what's going on with Pansy or how she became the person she is. But the film is so well observed that, ironically, despite how dead inside Pansy is, she is one of the most thrillingly alive humans in recent cinema. Shop NowBong Joon-ho's long-awaited follow-up to Parasite has more in common with his previous film Okja. It's an absurdist comedy about stupid, powerful people and their disregard for the natural world—and, really, everything and everyone other than themselves. Robert Pattinson stars as Mickey, a nasally, down-on-his-luck man who flees his earthly problems by becoming an Expendable on a mission to colonize a faraway planet. As an Expendable, his role entails dying and being reprinted. Complications arise, though, when he survives a near-death experience and a new Mickey is still printed. The two Mickeys vie for survival until they become united against a greater enemy. Will Mickey 17 win an Oscar? Probably not, but it's a highly enjoyable, frequently funny romp nonetheless. Shop NowProbably the horniest, most unexpected, and, yes, most French movie that will come out this year. Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia flirts with various genres—murder mystery, film noir, sex comedy, existential drama—but ultimately is too original and weird to easily categorize. It's a film that requires abandoning preconceived notions of how people should act and how movies should operate. And if you can do that? Well, you might just dig the wild ride. Shop NowRungano Nyoni's On Becoming a Guinea Fowl begins with its protagonist, Shula (Susan Chardy), driving down a quiet road in Zambia wearing a flamboyant party costume—when she comes across a dead body splayed out in the road. The body turns out to be her uncle Fred, who we soon learn abused Shula when she was a child. Shula's costume is one of the few showy things in this film. Nyoni unravels new wrinkles in the story gradually and with little satisfaction, showing how cultural norms can stand in the way of catharsis and family secrets enable generational trauma. Shop NowThis often exhilarating new documentary from Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards follows John Lennon and Yoko Ono through their early New York days, culminating in a benefit concert they played at Madison Square Garden in 1972. The concert was in support of the children of Willowbrook State School, which had recently been the subject of a damning television report that exposed the grim conditions to which children with disabilities were subjected. The film is light on new information about Lennon and Ono, but it's full of powerful, magnetic moments, both onstage and off. Macdonald and Rice-Edwards foreground the couple's activism and the ways it intersected with their art. Lennon, in particular, burns bright. His passion and righteousness are captivating and contagious. More than 50 years later, Lennon and Ono's political battles are still being fought—and Lennon's enthusiasm still feels capable of igniting a revolution. Shop NowA dozen years after announcing a short-lived retirement, Stephen Soderbergh has emerged as America's most prolific filmmaker. His first of two films this year is a ghost story predicated on a formal conceit: The camera takes the perspective of the ghost. The specter dwells in a beautiful suburban home that a family of four has just moved into. And though there is some suspense around the ghost's identity and aims, the draw of the movie is the family drama. Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan play the parents of two frequently bickering high-school-aged teenagers, Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Maday). And the family dynamics—the alliances, sources of conflict, and secrets—are vivid and intriguing. Each actor is smartly cast and gives a strong performance. I'm still not sure I liked the dramatic ending and climactic reveal, but the film's clever conceit and rich characters make Presence a worthwhile watch. Shop NowOne of several intertwined plots in director Matthew Rankin's Universal Language involves a Winnipeg tour guide (Pirouz Nemati) who takes a rare group of visitors to some of the city's cultural landmarks. This Winnipeg is an invention of Rankin and his cowriters (Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi), and it is one that is full of brown and beige brutalist buildings, roaming turkeys, and a Persian-speaking populace. It's also one where the city's landmarks are amusingly mundane. My favorite was the UNESCO-designated site where someone left a briefcase at a bus stop and no one touched it. It's 'a monument to absolute inter-human solidarity, even at its most basic and banal,' the tour guide explains. You could say the same for the film. Throughout Universal Language, Rankin and his collaborators are imaginative, playful, and quite witty, but the overarching goal of their project is to testify to humanity's potential for care and exuberance, even in a bleak, beige world. Shop NowBefore seeing Warfare, I was warned that it is loud. Still, I wasn't prepared for just how loud—body shaking—this thing would be. Fresh off his speculative American war film, Civil War, Alex Garland teamed up with Ray Mendoza (an Iraq-war vet and advisor on Civil War) to re-create a brutal battle that Mendoza's platoon experienced in Ramadi in 2006. The film is drawn exclusively from the memories of Mendoza and his platoon, and it plays out over the course of a day. Ultimately, the film expresses the trauma of war as much as a film is capable of doing—thanks to the sound, yes, but also the subtly pathos-filled performances. It's an incredibly intense watch and one that foregrounds the true horror of war. Shop Now This year, we will have a new president, a new total lunar eclipse, and a new viral phrase that supplants 'brat.' I won't pretend I'm capable of predicting much else—well, except for this: We're about to have an incredible year in cinema. After a spotty year for noteworthy releases, the 2025 slate is jam-packed. There are steamy, star-studded romances; there are franchise finales (goodbye, Mission Impossible!); and there will even be one talking hippo. Most excitingly, there are an inordinate number of movies coming from the world's greatest filmmakers. And not just that: Many of said films sound as though they'll be high points even within storied careers. Guillermo Del Toro, for instance, is finally taking a swing at a story he's been dreaming about for decades; Kelly Reichardt is making a heist movie with Josh O'Connor; Paul Thomas Anderson is making his biggest film yet. I could go on. Instead, though, why not just read through this list of 51 films we're excited for in 2025. You Might Also Like Kid Cudi Is All Right 16 Best Shoe Organizers For Storing and Displaying Your Kicks
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40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'The Summer I Turned Pretty': Lola Tung Is Ready For What Comes After Summer
All clothing, accessories, and fine jewellery, Chanel. It's sweltering hot in the sun-drenched, top-floor café on the Lower East Side that Lola Tung is using as her makeshift dressing room. The electric fans do little to battle the July humidity, and the bottled water for the crew has gone lukewarm. The actress feels the heat, too, as she changes from one Chanel look into another for her ELLE photo shoot, but she powers through. After all, she thrives in the summer. At 22 years old, Tung is the star of Prime Video's The Summer I Turned Pretty, the wildly popular TV show based on Jenny Han's bestselling book series of the same name. The television adaptation debuted in 2022 and introduced her as protagonist Isabel 'Belly' Conklin, a teenager caught in a love triangle between two of her longtime family friends: Conrad Fisher (Christopher Briney) and his younger brother, Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). With a literary fan base, a cast of good-looking newcomers, a soundtrack filled with Taylor Swift songs, and a love triangle that could rival Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, TSITP had all the makings of a pop culture sensation. And sure enough, it shot to the No. 1 slot on the streamer when it first premiered, even bringing a resurgence in popularity for Han's books and, as if she could get any bigger, Swift's own music catalogue. Tung, who was born and raised in New York and attended the famous LaGuardia School of Performing Arts, was a freshman at Carnegie Mellon when she was cast as Belly—her first on-screen role ever. Since then, she has skyrocketed to It-girl status with the wardrobe and followers (4 million on Instagram, but who's counting?) to match. 'When we were filming the show, people were like, 'Your lives are going to change,' and we were all like, "I don't know what you're talking about,"' she says later over Zoom, reflecting on earlier seasons with the cast. 'It's really wonderful to know that there are people who love the show so much and that your work means something to [them].' As evidenced by social media posts from fans, the viewers aren't just the YA demographic, but also women in their 20s and older, even moms who watch the series with their kids. (Belly's mother, Laurel, played by Jackie Chung, also has her own arc in the series.) There's just something universally irresistible about a summer coming-of-age romance set on the beach. The world couldn't help but dive in. Three years later, TSITP is back for its third and final season. As viewers lock in for one last vacation at Cousins Beach, Tung is saying a bittersweet goodbye to her breakout role and looking ahead to what's next. 'I've loved getting to play [Belly] for so long. It's kind of like graduating,' she says. 'I'm excited to show a different part of myself—and even have people see me in a different world.' Until then, fans are savoring every last episode of TSITP we have left. If you had heard the screams coming out of Bryant Park last Wednesday night, you would have thought there was a live concert taking place. In reality, it was a premiere screening of The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3. Crowds gathered on the grass with blankets, snacks, and friends in tow, cheering when the cast made an appearance and gasping along at each plot twist. 'I've never experienced that ever in my life,' Tung recalls. 'There were just so many people.' Viewers had a lot to chew on in these new episodes: Belly is now a junior in college and four years deep into a relationship with Jeremiah. However, things don't really seem to be settled between her and Conrad, even after they broke up years ago at prom. She and Jeremiah face an obstacle in season 3, episode 1, when Belly learns that he slept with another girl during a spring break trip to Cabo—twice! The circumstances of the hookup are murky; in classic Ross and Rachel fashion, Jeremiah thought he and Belly had broken up during an argument before the trip, whereas Belly believed they were still together. A dramatic series of events follows: Belly and Jeremiah fight at a frat party. She slaps him. He tries to win her back. Belly's brother, Steven, gets into a car accident and suffers a possible brain injury. After Steven wakes up safely from his coma, Jeremiah apologizes to Belly profusely at the hospital, and then proposes to her. She says yes. 'Young love is intense,' Tung says during another call days after the premiere. While fans and haters alike might classify this intensity as chaos, she walks me through how Belly is handling all of the ups and downs. First, the fight with Jeremiah: 'I think it's just pure shock for Belly,' Tung says of her character's headspace. 'This is someone who's been her rock for so many years and who she's known her entire life. It can be heartbreaking when you feel like you don't know everything [about someone].' It kind of leads Belly to wonder, What else don't I know about you? She and Casalegno rehearsed the emotional scene prior to filming. 'It was important to have a level of trust in each other, especially with the slap,' Tung recalls. 'Poor Gavin, he was like, "Yeah, you can slap me." I was like, "Are you sure? Please, I don't want to hurt you!"' Ultimately, they filmed the slap in just a couple of takes. 'I was not about to slap him 50 times otherwise. For some of the angles, I would just kind of wave my hand…I'm used to the stage slap,' she says. Now, onto Jeremiah's alleged infidelity: 'No matter whether you think that he cheated or not, it's wrong,' Tung says diplomatically, pointing to how Jeremiah rebounded with another girl shortly after the presumed split, and then hid it from Belly. 'I personally don't think they were on a break or broken up, because that argument was so quick and everything happened so fast.' However, 'Belly is not completely blameless,' she continues. 'She didn't reach out either. There is a little bit more of a mess in her own head.' So, how does Belly go from feeling betrayed to getting engaged? She was likely swayed by Steven's near-death experience. 'She's almost lost someone else in her life that's really important to her, and they both experienced a huge loss [Susannah, Jeremiah, and Conrad's mom] years before that—it's still obviously affecting them and their relationship. The thought of losing more people in her life, whether it is Steven or Jeremiah, is just not an option.' She adds, 'Jeremiah is showing up and trying to be there whenever she will let him. I think, in that moment, she's completely overcome with all of these emotions and is in a very vulnerable space. They both are, and they really want to lean on each other, because they do love each other. Even though Jeremiah did mess up, I think when it's put into perspective, it feels so silly compared to literally a life-or-death situation.' Belly also might also feel a 'little bit of guilt about not mentioning to Jeremiah what happened at Christmas. Even though nothing did happen.' Tung is referring to Belly's own secret: that she spent one Christmas alone at Cousins beach house while she and Jeremiah were dating; except she wasn't really alone. Conrad coincidentally showed up too and stayed over. Nothing romantic or physical happened between the exes, but you can feel there's still something between them. While filming those scenes, Tung and Briney wanted to convey a sense of 'ease' and that Belly and Conrad 'have a certain understanding with each other' as friends. 'It's nice that even after so long, they can sit together and watch a movie, and just exist in the same place without speaking, without having to do anything but just be,' she says. 'I think those are the most beautiful sort of friendships and relationships.' While a big part of the fandom is still rooting for a Belly and Conrad endgame—I won't spoil how the books end—Tung believes that, at least during that engagement scene, Belly's mind is solely on Jeremiah. 'I don't think she's thinking of Conrad in that moment,' she says. But Belly is aware that she and Conrad will always have an 'unspoken connection.' And to address the elephant in the room, Belly is also aware of her age. She's 20 when she says yes to Jeremiah, and based on snippets in the season 3 trailer, her mother and older brother are bound to question whether she's ready for such a commitment. 'She knows she's young, but she's also quite stubborn and is making decisions for herself,' Tung says. 'She's like, "I need to do what I need to do for myself to protect myself, and to feel safe, and to feel like I am in control of my story and my life."' While the cast and crew keep further season 3 details close to the vest, Tung cautiously teases that we can look forward to more group dynamics when the Fishers and Conklins reunite in future episodes. 'That will always be complicated, when all of them are together,' she says. Much like Han's To All the Boys I Loved Before trilogy, The Summer I Turned Pretty is fiercely beloved—sometimes to an extreme degree. As viewers debate between Team Conrad and Team Jeremiah with such enthusiasm and fervor, some comments cross the line and directly target the cast or fellow fans themselves. Days before the season 3 premiere, the official TSITP social accounts announced a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, hate speech, harassment, and doxxing. Users who break these rules will be banned. Tung supports the guidelines, saying the criticism 'can be really, really hard, especially with new cast members. It happened last year with Elsie [Fisher, the nonbinary actor who played Jeremiah and Conrad's cousin Skye]. We were all really, really upset about it, and they're so wonderful and was such an incredible addition to our cast and our dynamic. … We're human beings. A lot of times, we see what you say, especially if it's mean, and those things stick with us.' 'A lot of it is so unnecessary, especially when it's not about the characters and it's about the actors,' she continues. 'Ultimately, you don't really know these people.' Tung hopes viewers are 'respectful' to the new season 3 cast members, 'kind' with their discourse, and that they 'appreciate the characters,' even with all their flaws. 'Everyone is working really hard to make sure that the story is the best that it can be for the fans. And we love the fans, because they have given us the opportunity to make three seasons.' Tung, for her personal well-being, tries to stay off social media. 'You just can't really engage [with the comments], because then it feeds the fire a little bit. It sucks. Because people can be mean when they're behind their screens, which, I'm not saying anything new,' she says, ever so politely. On rare occasions, interactions can get uncomfortable in real life, too. Tung remembers a moment when a fan approached her in public and asked to take a picture when she wasn't feeling up for it. 'I was like, "I'm so sorry." I hate saying that, because then you feel guilty. And then he was like, "Well, I already have the camera out." I remember feeling a little like, "Oh, man," like a boundary was broken.' Tung fully understands the passion is coming from a place of 'enthusiasm and a love for the show.' She says, 'I always appreciate when people are super respectful, and just understand human-being boundaries. It can be such a lovely thing, and [I've had] such lovely conversations, and some people really stick with you, and it makes you so happy.' Thankfully, she's able to find support in her co-stars when it comes to handling the 'really weird, niche things' that come with adjusting to fame and public scrutiny. 'I think we all lean on each other,' Tung says. Han, who is a showrunner and executive producer on the series, has also been a lifeline. 'I've learned so much from Jenny. When I was working on the first season, and figuring out how to navigate the really busy schedule we had, she had a conversation with me—not in an overstepping way, because we're very close—but she was just like, "Hey, maybe start going to therapy." That was one of the most helpful pieces of advice she's ever given me.' Tung adds, 'I was a really emotional kid and teenager, and I still am a really emotional person. I was sometimes afraid of letting people see that emotion and being vulnerable in front of people. That's what this profession is all about, and that's what this show is all about. I'm forever grateful that we get to see that, especially through Belly, and then even through Jeremiah and Conrad…[showing] Conrad in therapy is huge. I think it's such an important thing for young men and boys to see.' When it comes to showing emotion in the spotlight, Tung actually felt seen by Ariana Grande during the Wicked press tour last fall. 'A lot of people were being very critical of Ariana crying in a bunch of interviews, and I was like, "What are you talking about? This was her dream! It makes me so happy to see her so overcome with emotion."' She adds, 'To see her get so emotional was nice just to see, as an actor and as someone who's in the public eye, because it made me think, Yeah, why not? Why not show that you care about something?' The Summer I Turned Pretty was an education for Tung. 'I've learned so much from Belly, and from her boldness, and from watching her take risks,' she says. But she also gleaned a lot from working on a set for the first time, and by observing other actors, directors, and crew members. She also learned how to take care of herself—and recognize when it's time to rest. Those are lessons she'll take with her as she transitions into life post-Summer. Tung has already been dropping hints of what that'll look like. Last year, she made her Broadway debut as Eurydice in Hadestown, a dream role that nourished her inner theater kid. (Legend has it she fell in love with acting after playing the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz back in middle school.) And this past April, she wrapped filming Forbidden Fruits, a women-centric horror film due in 2026 co-starring star Lili Reinhart, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, and Emma Chamberlain. That genre might be a major departure from the sunny beaches of Cousins, but Tung was eager to give it a try. She's recently been watching scary movies like Longlegs, Sinners, The Substance, and Jennifer's Body. 'It was transformative,' Tung says of the latter. (Diablo Cody is also a producer on Forbidden Fruits.) 'I loved getting to sit down with the director [Meredith Alloway] and talk for three hours about the dynamics of female friendships, and what that looks like in a horror setting. ... I love having conversations with all of these incredible women, and seeing them soar,' Tung says. She hopes to do more of that in the future—just like her fellow cool-girl creatives who are collaborating with one another. 'There are so many really cool women right now who are making cool art with their friends, like Ayo Edebiri, Rachel Sennott, and Molly Gordon,' she muses. Tung is excited for what's to come but admits that every new project can be daunting, whether it's adapting a beloved book series for TV or stepping into an entirely new genre. 'That's the wonderful thing about art—it's always a risk, and it's always a little bit scary, but it's so, so worth it.' Hair by Dana Boyer at The Wall Group; makeup by Misha Shahzada at A-Frame Agency; special thanks to Ludlow House. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE. You Might Also Like Pyjamas You Can Wear All Day 10 Hand Soaps To Make Your Bathroom Feel Like A Fancy Hotel 8 Of The Best Natural Deodorants
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The song of the summer is a bummer
The summer of 2025 is severely lacking in 'Espresso.' Gone are the sweaty days when 'Not Like Us' lit up parties nationwide, uniting Drake dissers everywhere. There are manchildren and daisies and animated anthems from 'KPop Demon Hunters,' but nothing that's made as big of a cultural dent as 'Birds of a Feather' or anything from 'Brat.' There is no song of the summer this year. And if there is, it's probably a bummer. The top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 are occupied largely by downers. At No. 1, Alex Warren's vaguely Christian ballad 'Ordinary' is best suited for a quiet study session, not a raucous party. Morgan Wallen, fresh from God's country, can't feign enthusiasm on his recent half-baked singles. Even pop prince Justin Bieber is keeping it low-key on his new album, which relies on sparse, downbeat guitars. (This, coming from one of the men behind 2017's song of the summer, 'Despacito.') And then, if the most popular songs in the country aren't somewhat dour or mellow to a fault, they're holdovers from 2024 (or older). This year, it seems we left pop bombast in 2024. 'We're coming off a huge wave of amazing stuff,' said Mike Errico, a songwriter and instructor at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. 'A lot of what 2025 has come out with — they're kind of down, kind of low energy. It's good, but it's not going to light up a room.' The state of the song of the summer is in crisis. There's still time to find a definitive song that unites both snobs and casual listeners — Sabrina Carpenter's new album arrives at the end of August, after all — but so far, the song of summer 2025 is one long sigh. 2024 was just special Last summer, we met exciting new pop stars like Chappell Roan. Underdogs like Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter, who worked steadily for years as cult favorites, finally broke out. And maybe you heard that two of the most famous women in the world — Taylor Swift, Beyoncé — released projects last year? '2024 was exceptional,' Errico said. 'I don't think you see that a lot — really humongous hits, with insanely long lives on the charts.' This year's popular new music has been decidedly downbeat, with ballads and ponderous country songs topping the charts, Errico said. Even Bieber's 'Daisies,' charting high in the weeks after its release, is relatively pared back for the one-time collaborator of fiery artists like Skrillex and Quavo. 'A lot of stuff was low energy,' Errico said of this year's new music. 'It's good for dim rooms, but I don't think that's associated with the 'song of the summer.'' Ideally, a song of the summer is 'bright, poppy, upbeat,' Errico said — a celebration in miniature that's easy to dance along to. It's a song that won't grate even when you hear it one million times over one summer. This year 'did not deliver that,' he said. 'Maybe we shot our bullets in 2024 all at once,' he said. This summer's most popular songs aren't new 'Do we need a song of the summer to be brand spankin' new?' Errico pondered. 'Can it be something from, oh, 10 months ago?' Release dates haven't held back some of the year's most popular songs from continuing to soar. Four of the top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 were released in 2024, including Shaboozey's 'A Bar Song (Tipsy),' a scrappy, easily singable country song that's been charting for over a year, and 'Luther,' Kendrick Lamar's laid-back jam with SZA. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' 2024 dulcet duet 'Die with a Smile' has survived for nearly a year in the top 10 — meanwhile, the spiky, danceable cuts from Gaga's new album 'Mayhem' have disappeared. (There's also Teddy Swims' inexplicably popular 'Lose Control,' which is now over two years old.) 'I think it speaks to the power of 2024, that they're still on the charts in 2025,' Errico said. 'Maybe 2024 isn't over yet.' Songs with cultural clout aren't charting There is a type of song that makes less of a dent upon arrival but winds up defining the summer, like '360,' 'Guess' and 'Apple' from Charli XCX's 'Brat.' This year, that slot appears to be filled by PinkPantheress' 'Illegal,' which has soundtracked over a million TikToks and counting. It slid off the charts fairly quickly after its May release, but it fills the earworm quotient, and it's the rare viral hit that hasn't yet worn out its welcome. Also in contention are songs from burgeoning pop star and original TikTok idol Addison Rae and Ravyn Lenae, whose 'Love Me Not' is a rare bouncy gem in the top 10. 'You're not seeing (these songs) en masse, but maybe that's better,' Errico said of the cult hits. 'Maybe not everyone should be invited to a single party. Maybe we should have different parties with different playlists that reflect a smaller but more dedicated group of people.' It's possible that when we look back at this summer a year from now, older songs will spring to mind, Errico offered. The CEO kiss-cam meltdown at a Coldplay concert in July became one of the summer's biggest stories, and fans may remember the moment set to 'The Scientist' or 'Fix You.' Ozzy Osbourne's death has already prompted fans to revisit his greatest hits, like the karaoke barn-burner 'Crazy Train.' Or maybe, Errico suggested, the song of the summer is one that best exemplifies the quickening encroachment of AI into creative fields, like AI band Velvet Sundown's AI song, 'Dust on the Wind.' Even the title sounds like a Fleetwood Mac-inspired ChatGPT prompt. Is the song of the summer dead? This fruitless search for the song of the summer has made Errico wonder, do we even need one this year? The songs of 2024 are already tiding us over. 'Maybe music needed this minute to chill,' he said. 'Let's let everybody digest it and come back strong next summer.' Maybe we'll get back to the good stuff in summer 2026. Or maybe late entries like Carpenter; Tyler, The Creator and Chappell Roan (whose new song is a ballad) could run away with the season — or the year. After all, Errico said: 'A good song is good for longer than the summer.'
