THERE'S CONFIDENCE, AND then there's confidence-the kind that helps a Silicon Valley wine mom serenely weather her husband's flagrant infidelity. Or a lowly fashion assistant charge $500 worth of cocaine to her corporate card. Or a totally green 18-year-old nab a gig as a Broadway understudy after one of her very first auditions.
In real life, Meghann Fahy has done just one of these things.
(Guess which!) But spend time with her and you'll see she's as self-assured as her characters. "Because I never really planned a career in this space, I never really had any idea of what I was hoping it would look like," she says on a video call from London, where she's taking a breather with her boyfriend and former White Lotus costar, Leo Woodall.
"I just kind of go with the flow." Growing up in Massachusetts, Fahy dreamed of becoming a singer: if not the next Whitney Houston, maybe at least the next Avril Lavigne. After that pivotal tryout, though, she did contemplate a career as an actor. Fahy wasn't cast in the show she was auditioning for the ill-fated Spider-Man: Turn Off the Darkbut she was impressive enough to earn a spot as a standby in Next to Normal before the musical transferred to Broadway and won a Pulitzer. Later she officially joined the principal cast.
She performed eight shows a week while simultaneously chewing scenery on One Life to Live as the devious Hannah O'Connor, whose greatest hits included kidnapping, stalking, and more than one attempted homicide. "I was fully dressed in a cowgirl Halloween costume while forcing this woman to dig her own grave. And you know what? That is exactly how I would choose to be on a soap opera," Fahy says.
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Jenna Ortega's Year of Wonder - The breakout star of Wednesday settles into fame and with a Beetlejuice sequel on the horizon gets ready for more of it
On the eve of Wednesday's cultural domination, "Tim" invited Jenna Ortega to his house for a meeting. I love when this happens in Hollywood conversations: casually, not even pretentiously, legends referred to by first names only, as Ortega does over a clandestine morning coffee. Here is Wednesday on a Sunday at Velvet, a moody cocktail bar at the Corinthia hotel in London.
SETTING THE STAGE
Before they conquered Hollywood, George Segal, Peter Falk, Roy Scheider, and Wayne Rogers were some of the finest-though perhaps not the finest-stage actors in New York. WAYNE LAWSON, who knew them when, revisits a golden era that revolutionized American theater
HOPE AND CHANGE?
As the threat of another Trump presidency looms, AMERICA TURNS ITS EYES TO THE OBAMAS, who remain two of the most important politicians in the world-whether they like it or not
The Natural
Comedy, singing, scandal, attempted murder: Meghann Fahy, the breakout star of The White Lotus and now The Perfect Couple, can do it all
FULL-COURT PRESS
Microsoft made him one of the richest men alive. Now STEVE BALLMER is chasing one of the few prizes money (alone) can't buy: an NBA championship for his team, the Los Angeles Clippers, whose staggeringly expensive state-of-the-art arena opens this summer
THE TWISTED LOVE STORY OF JOSE AND LADDY BETTY
A 95-year-old diamond heiress and her much younger genderfluid spouse became social media stars. Was theirs a feelgood romance for the agesor something far darker?
CONSIDER
NO ONE KNOWS CANDIDATE ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.'S PROBLEMATIC HISTORY BETTER THAN HIS FAMILY. JOE HAGAN TALKS TO THAT RELUCTANT INNER CIRCLE ABOUT KENNEDY'S PAST AND THE STAKES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE
Paris When It Sizzled
IN 1973, FIVE AMERICAN DESIGNERS AND 36 MODELS DESCENDED ON THE CITY OF LIGHT FOR WHAT WOULD BECOME AN ERA-DEFINING FASHION SHOW-AND WITH THEM WAS PHOTOGRAPHER BILL CUNNINGHAM. HERE, AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT HIS TREASURE TROVE OF LARGELY UNSEEN PHOTOS, PUBLISHED TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME
Playing It STRAIGHT
Dynamic young stars have broken out in queer roles. Should their own sexuality matter?
Another COUNTRY
Searching for James Baldwin in the South of France
