In today’s cover story segment on the Daily Variety podcast, Variety’s Michael Schneider details his reporting and the incredible access he received to cover the fifth and final season of HBO Max’s hit comedy Hux.
Also, Cindy Lin, executive director of media, entertainment, technology and sports at the Ziffren Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses big developments in entertainment law as Variety unveils its annual “Power of Law” issue, which includes this year’s Legal Impact Report winners.
Listen to the entire podcast:
Schneider said that for the “Hacks” storyline, he actually flew to Las Vegas and was able to “witness first-hand the final days of filming in America for the show.”
“So it was really nice to be there and feel like a part of that family, standing and talking to Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder and the rest of the cast and producers, and sharing some of the melancholy that they were feeling as they finished and were filming the final scene.”
Smart, the Emmy Award-winning star of “The Hucks,” “felt very nostalgic thinking about her last long-running show, which of course was ‘Designing Women,'” Schneider says. But she was at a very different time in her life than she was in the early 1990s, and things were different this time around.
In the final season of “The Hucks,” Smart said, “I was working day in and day out and living with these people. And, of course, as I’ll go into more detail in my story, there was a lot going on personally with her, both on the show and in Los Angeles, and it all came down to this group.” It’s like a piece of work that you’ve never seen before because they’ve been through so much together. And I think this is something that will really stand the test of time for everyone involved in this piece,” says Schneider. show. ”
Also on today’s podcast, Lin said that AI and its impact on Hollywood will once again be a “big topic” in this year’s Ziffren Center curriculum. “Now more than ever, we have to address this issue,” she says. “It’s hard and exciting to ignore. Things change so quickly.”
Lin cited the Ziffren Center’s 2022-2025 Name, Image and Likeness Clinic, developed in collaboration with UCLA’s athletic department, as an example of “how things are always changing, but not much is changing” in the world of entertainment law. “It’s been really exciting. It’s like having student-athletes as customers. We’ve been able to train law students to advise and advise them on endorsements and sponsorship deals. On the one hand, it seems like a really big deal, because the NIL landscape is the Wild West and it’s changing, changing, and changing.”
(Top photo, left to right: Hux star Gene Smart, executive producer/creator Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, star Hannah Einbinder)
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