- Making Fashion Fun: Bob Mackie (1939-2026) (September 15, 2026)
The world has become a little less glamorous this week, as Bob Mackie, the iconic designer known for costuming countless divas in all manner of rhinestones, glitter, and feathers, died of pneumonia at age 87 on Monday. Best known for his long creative partnership with Cher—which began on the set of “The Sonny & Cher Show” and continued for the duration of her career—and his comedic costuming for “The Carol Burnett Show,” Mackie’s name has long been synonymous with sparkle, and his cultural impact is so great that even if you’re not a fashionista, you’d likely recognize his work.
Mackie was born in 1939, and his passion for fashion developed as he watched the Technicolor musicals of Golden Age Hollywood in his youth. After dropping out of art school, Mackie worked for designer Ray Aghayan, who became his partner from 1963 until his passing in 2011, and in one of his earliest jobs, he created the original sketch for Marilyn Monroe’s 1962 “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress (the dress itself was made by French designer Jean Louis).
Following this auspicious start, Mackie started designing for Mitzi Gaynor—the first of many stars he’d work with directly—in 1966. After seeing one of Gaynor’s stage shows, Carol Burnett hired Mackie for “The Carol Burnett Show,” and he stayed on for the comedy classic’s entire 11-year run, from 1967 to 1978, making dozens of creative and funny costumes for the comedian and her castmates each week. His most famous look for Burnett was a heavy gown made from curtains (rod included!) for the 1976 “Gone With the Wind” parody sketch “Went With the Wind.” Mackie’s idea to incorporate the curtain rod into the dress to enhance Burnett’s physical comedy made campy visual humor a touchstone of his prolific career.
It was on the set of “The Carol Burnett Show” that Mackie met Cher, his ultimate muse. In 2024, when I interviewed the designer (delightfully unpretentious and with a youthful, lively spirit even in his eighties) for Woman’s World, he recalled that the show’s producers and writers initially didn’t know what to do with the entertainer. Mackie immediately picked up on Cher’s star power. “I said, ‘She can be anything you want her to be. You write it, we’ll do it.’ And it worked,” he told me. “Every week, people would watch to see what she was going to wear. She played famous queens and courtesans of history and all these crazy parts. It was all comedy, and it was so fun.”
Mackie’s creativity and Cher’s charisma proved a winning combination, and he said, “I put her in anything and everything, and she took it right on. She really understood it even though she didn’t have any education about fashion.” Over-the-top style became a Cher signature, and Mackie later designed her notoriously revealing 1986 Oscars ensemble and bodysuit from the 1989 “If I Could Turn Back Time” music video. Mackie praised Cher for being game for anything—and he even admitted he occasionally had to tone her down! The designer dressed Cher into the ’00s and beyond, and in 2019, he won a Tony Award for costuming “The Cher Show,” a Broadway jukebox musical based on her personal and professional life. In a heartfelt X post, Cher wrote, “My dear Bob has gone up to heaven. Knowing him, he’s bringing Sequins, Beads, & his sketch pad. Good nite, sweet Prince.”
The list of celebrities Mackie has worked with is like a who’s who of the entertainment industry’s most fabulous: Diana Ross, Madonna, Tina Turner, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler, and Elton John (to name just a few) have all worn his sparkling confections. While he made his name working on the small screen and won nine Emmy Awards, he also made an impact in film, earning Best Costume Design Academy Award nominations for the Diana Ross-starring Billie Holiday biopic “Lady Sings the Blues” (1972); Barbra Streisand’s “Funny Girl” sequel, “Funny Lady” (1975); and the Steve Martin/Bernadette Peters musical “Pennies From Heaven” (1981).
His costumes enhanced the period aesthetics of these films immeasurably, and his regular work with their leading ladies led to an easygoing rapport behind the scenes. In their tributes, the actresses Mackie worked with have spoken highly of his kindness and the bold approach he took to fashion. Streisand recalled, “He designed one gorgeous outfit after another for me in ‘Funny Lady.’ He might continue designing creations for the angels,” while Peters called him “one of the most talented people you’d ever want to meet,” praising the way that “He could take something, you could do a run-through of something, and he would get an idea and take it to the nth degree . . . he was just brilliant, just brilliant. And lovely and kind.”
Bernadette Peters in “Pennies From Heaven.”
In a statement that alluded to a fundamental tension throughout Mackie’s career, Burnett said, “Sadness doesn’t come close to how I feel. I loved him very much. As for his genius, there are fashion designers who don’t do costumes and there are costume designers who don’t do fashion. Bob did it all. There was no one like him.”
Mackie designed both runway and off-the-rack fashion over the years (including a mainstream line for QVC and a collection of Barbie dolls), but the fashion world didn’t always take him seriously because of his costume background. As he told me, “Very often, what I do isn’t right for everybody. I love to see when a woman puts herself together in an interesting way, and I try to analyze every performer, because they’re not just ladies buying a dress. I’m not really in fashion as much as I am in costume design.”
In his vividly rendered fashion sketches, Mackie made his famous clients look like stylish superheroes, and Mackie’s designs are wonderfully emblematic of their eras, with costumes that embody ’70s disco chic and ’80s power dressing. In recent years, as vintage fashion has become increasingly popular on the red carpet, Mackie’s retro glam has earned a new following, with young stars like Miley Cyrus, Sabrina Carpenter, Zendaya, and Taylor Swift rocking glittering looks from his archive. He stayed in the public eye with a 2024 documentary, “Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion,” and a cameo in an episode of “Hacks” earlier this year.
In a time filled with bad news, doomscrolling, and an unfortunate resurgence of policing queer culture, Mackie’s lavish creations feel like a balm for the soul. The sparkles on a Mackie dress instantly transport us to a carefree, colorful world, and while he primarily worked with the rich and famous, he always believed glamour should be accessible.
As he told me at a preview event for an auction of his designs in 2025, “Glamour is having a good time getting dressed up and enjoying yourself, and looking a certain way or a way that you’ve been wanting to look. You don’t want to look foolish, but at the same time, you want to have fun.” Few designers have made fashion quite as fun as he did, and his dazzling body of work proved that sometimes too much can be just right.
- TIFF 2026: Cheyenne, Rescue, Union Town (September 15, 2026)
The documentary selection at the Toronto International Film Festival always finds stories in the most interesting corners of the globe. This year was no different, including these three fascinating–and sometimes heartbreaking–stories about rodeo cowgirls in the American West, migrants making their way from the dangerous waters of North Africa to Europe, and union workers fighting for their rights in the Big Apple.
As I watched Taimi Arvidson’s documentary “Cheyenne,” I thought about Jake Allyn’s 2024 film “Ride,” which followed the struggles of a handful of beat-up old rodeo cowboys, addicted to, among other things, the rush of the ride. Arvidson’s film similarly explores the highs and lows of rodeo life, the blood and dust, and the drive to win that elusive gold belt buckle. Only here we’re following four women—Bee, Brooke, Lake, and Ally—who are all contending for a spot on team U.S.A. at the Daddy of ’em All: Cheyenne Frontier Days.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Although women in rodeo date back to the origins of the sport in the 1800s, after one incident in which a female rider died of her injuries in the 1920s, women were banned from the bucking broncs competition for nearly a century. As these women risk it all to be the first in a century to remind the hypermasculine sport that women are tough as hell, they carry not only the burden of their own ambitions, but the future of the entire sport as well.
“How many people think a cowgirl can do whatever a cowboy can?” an announcer asks as the film opens on Ally, sporting a salmon pink shirt, long blond hair, and a white straw Stetson, riding a bronc like the best of them. Ally, we learn, is a survivor of sexual assault. She rides because “Consent is sacred in the arena. Nothing happens until you nod your head.” As the women ride the circuit leading up to the Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming, we learn why each of them do it.
Bee is the oldest of the bunch, a single mom supporting her young son, but she’s got the bug. “I’ll quit broncs eventually,” she says, “as soon as I find that demon I’m chasing.” Hawaiian cowgirl Lake carries the memory of her recently deceased mother; she’s competing to show herself her sacrifice was worth it. For Brooke, the youngest of the group, she claims it’s for the big payout. But when an injury lands her in the hospital and her first thought is “when can I ride again,” it’s clear she’s got the same itch as Bee. Watching these women chase their dreams, broken bones and all, reminds us that some passions know no frontier.
Many films about the current migrant crisis, heightened by endless wars and climate change, have played TIFF over the last few years, like Agnieszka Holland’s excellent “Green Border” and Sally El Hosaini’s “The Swimmers,” which both found a personal story at the center of the crisis in order to magnify the horrific reality of this situation. Similarly, Sine Plambech’s documentary “Rescue” centers on one family caught up in the E.U. reprehensible deals with militias in order to halt migration from North Africa. While filming the crew of the Geo Barents, a rescue ship operated by Doctors Without Borders, Plambech’s film is plunged directly into a heartbreaking family tragedy.
Although the ship is able to rescue several men from a boat, most of the women and children are abducted and held for ransom, including the wife and two small children of a man named Hani, who exclaims, “If we all died at sea, we’d all die together. But taking my soul away…” As Hani and his grown son seek asylum first in Italy and later in Germany, they must watch in agony as his wife Roro and his two younger children remain captive in Libya. Miraculously, Roro was able to hide a cellphone in her baby’s diapers, allowing both for painful FaceTime calls between the family members, but also harrowing footage of the torture and abuse that Roro, who had already fled from sexual assault violence in her home country, and her children must endure as they await a chance to reunite with the rest of their family.
Plambech’s film loses a little steam when it cuts back to the Geo Barents as it goes on other rescue missions, while also dealing with the bureaucracy of operating in supposedly international waters; Italy has sanctioned them many times, forcing them to drop anchor for months on end, which we learn means possibly the deaths of hundreds of migrants. While this background is absolutely necessary for the film to show the many ways in which many right-wing E.U. governments are facilitating human rights violations and even death, the edit between the macro story and micro story is not as smooth as it could be. Regardless, it’s powerful and highlights the human cost of these dreadful policies, and the resilience of women like Roro, who, despite continually being failed by the world, keep the faith that there must be a better world waiting for them somewhere.
“I am not a person for the company. I am just a number. They don’t care about us.” So says one of the deliveristas featured in Barbara Kopple’s essential and timely new documentary “Union Town.” The title comes from the notion that New York City is a union town, that the working class of this great city has each other’s back, through the thick and the thin of it. Like her previous union films, the Oscar-winning “Harlan County U.S.A.” (1976) and “American Dream” (1990), “Union Town” is focused on one specific region of the United States. While those two films centered on othered places–Appalachia and the Midwest–by setting her gaze on the working-class struggles of the Big Apple, Kopple sends a distinct message: the class struggle in this country is everywhere, not just in the so-called flyover states.
By cleverly weaving together stories of the deliveristas (delivery app workers largely made up of migrant workers), UPS Teamsters, and Amazon workers, “Union Town” deftly shows how this class struggle has affected America’s arteries. These are the silent workers who keep our economy moving, yet each company exploits this labor in its own way, pitting workers against each other and isolating them from the rest of the working class. Kopple’s film asks us to see how deeply this struggle is woven into the fabric of society.
As in her previous films, things get messy. Union members don’t always agree with leadership’s decisions, or even with each other. In one of the most shocking sequences, an Amazon worker harasses his fellow workers for trying to unionize, asking them how they feel about breaking the law by being on the property with their literature. The organizer asks the man back, “When companies were on strike in the 1930s and 1940s, and they weren’t allowed to, what do you think happened there? Do you think they followed the law? How about when the cops came and beat people in the streets?” The man remains unconvinced, likening their choice to speak on Amazon property about workers’ rights to setting something on fire.
It’s a wild leap in logic and shows just how brainwashed so many people are into toeing the company line. I thought back to this interaction during the sequence where N.Y.P.D. union members participate in union-busting activities as the Teamsters help Amazon workers facilitate a strike during Christmas. It’s a brutal moment that reminds us, as we saw many times in “Harlan County U.S.A.” as well, that not all unions are in this thing together.
Kopple’s film also weaves in contemporary right-wing politics and the re-election of Trump, leading to many deliveristas becoming afraid to speak up for their rights lest they be deported. Kopple contrasts this with the Teamsters, who overwhelmingly voted to re-elect Trump, despite his economic policies directly leading to their further exploitation. Although during the three years covered in “Union Town” organizers achieved some historic wins for labor rights, Kopple ends her film on an ominous note with Carol Tomé, the CEO of UPS, joking about footage she’s seen of worker robots, saying “They don’t get sick” before blithely asking, “How do I bring in the robots but not destroy the jobs?” It’s a bleak reminder that, despite all of our collective gains, as the deliverista said earlier, the ruling class simply doesn’t care about us.
- TIFF 2026: Trash Mountain, Babies, Everybody Wants to F*ck Me (September 15, 2026)
It’s tough out there for comedy fans. As any aging comedian will tell you, it’s difficult to get theatrical laughers made, as more and more people go to theaters solely for event movies, cinematic babysitters, or buzzy horror. Making a profit on making people chuckle has become the providence of TV creators more than film ones. But the fight continues at TIFF, where several comedies, including Jesse Eisenberg’s hysterical “The Debut,” aimed for that incredible moment when a crowd of people escapes the real world for a funnier one. The three comedies in this dispatch are unlikely to set the box office on fire, but at least one does exactly what it sets out to do, while another should speak to its target audience and fans of its stars. The third? We’ll get there.
The best of the bunch is Kris Rey’s “Trash Mountain,” a deeply personal project for stand-up star Caleb Hearon, co-writing a vulnerable comedy about his struggles with family and grief after the passing of his father. Hearon is an interesting screen presence, someone who first feels too mannered for what’s obviously a Sundance-esque “family lessons” comedy, but he proves to have unexpected range. He’s clearly playing a version of himself, but that can be harder than it looks, especially when it requires this level of vulnerability.
Hearon plays Gavin, a Chicago man who lives a vibrant life as a drag show host, a reality far from the drab, semi-conservative reality of life in Missouri, where he grew up. He’s forced to return there after a call from his sister Abbi (Zooey Deschanel) reveals that their dad has died. Gavin wasn’t close with pops, and it’s clear they lived very different lives. He heads south and moves in with Abbi, her husband (Kyle Marvin), and their two kids, but he’s constantly talking about when he’s going back to Chicago. Hopefully, they can get this wrapped up before Thanksgiving.
Of course, they can’t. It turns out that not only does no one know where dad’s Social Security card is—they need it to settle the estate—but Gavin discovers the extent of his father’s hoarding. The house is a disaster, filled with empty beer bottles and a freezer with something so smelly it sends everyone reeling. “Trash Mountain” is a film about siblings processing grief and their conflicted feelings about their father while cleaning up his shit—an all-too-common reality that hasn’t really been captured on film before.
It’s also pretty charmingly funny. Jaboukie Young-White is sweet as a love interest for Gavin while Deschanel reminds one how grounded she can be in indie material. She does a lot with a little and proves to be a true supporting partner for the less-experienced Hearon. Jacki Weaver is saddled with a bit of a caricature as the grieving grandma, but she gets some of the biggest laughs. And Hearon and co-writer Ruby Caster are careful not to paint the South with too broad of a brush, including characters like Deschanel and Young-White’s to show that there can be good people in flyover country too.
I wish a movie that’s about how messy and cluttered life can be didn’t wrap up as neatly as this one, but Hearon and his collaborators have earned enough goodwill by then to make it work. So many of us have had or will have to reckon with the full scope of our relationship to our parents when they’re gone. Few are able to make this genuinely sweet of a movie about it.
There’s a personal angle to Lauren Miller Rogen’s “Babies,” too. Earlier this year, Lauren’s husband, Seth Rogen, made some headlines when he said on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” that having kids “doesn’t seem that fun.” Lauren and Seth have been married 15 years, and almost certainly have been asked when they’re having kids. Who wouldn’t want Seth Rogen as a dad, right?
“Babies” feels like a response to those conversations, and a counter to the dozens of movies that Hollywood has produced about the joy of parenting. What about the joy of not having to potty train? Although, one should note that Rogen’s endpoint is more ambitious than just “kids are messy,” and makes convincing arguments about why a loving couple wouldn’t want to bring a kid into the world beyond just the fact that AI and climate change might end it. The filmmaking can be frustrating, but the ideas here, as well as a few of the performances, should find a loyal audience of fortysomethings who haven’t really been seen on screen before. Childless married couples in fiction don’t have to be the villains.
Anna Kendrick is the lead in “Babies,” which we know because of the incessant voiceover that tracks her thoughts about the people in her life. There’s so much that works in Rogen’s script but almost none of it is in the inner monologue of Annie, which not only doesn’t sound as genuine as when two performers are allowed to riff believably in character but spells out way too many of the film’s themes as it goes along. Someone should “Blade Runner” cut this film and take most of it out.
What you would be left with is the story of Annie and Aaron (Rogen), a couple who still sometimes talk about kids but have never taken the plunge. Like a lot of people their age, they’re surrounded by the little ones spawned by their friend group. Kate Berlant and Dan Stevens play a divorcing couple with a child that Annie adores. The drama at home forces Annie and Aaron into temporary parent roles, illuminating both the joy and pain of the job.
Issa Rae plays a pregnant friend with whom Annie is trying to open an art gallery that’s to be funded by an obvious slimeball played by Ed Helms. David Strathairn pops up as Annie’s dad, forced to take care of a wife with dementia, and re-entering the dating scene. What does this have to do with having kids? It actually speaks to the script’s most impressive angle: People often think that childless couples just aren’t ready for the drama. Annie knows how to deal with tough stuff.
Clearly going for a bit of “L.A. Woody Allen” vibe with its big ensemble, “Babies” works best in its small beats: Usually a choice by someone in its undeniably talented cast. And that’s what makes the overwritten scenes and voiceover so much more frustrating. It has a habit of repeating its themes and bits instead of building on them or allowing the actors to find more dimensionality. I feel like it will be a more direct hit to couples like Lauren and Seth, which is probably the way it should be, but there’s a better version of this film that works at pulling in those of us who have to worry about carpools and college tuition, too.
Finally, there’s the atrocious “Everybody Wants to F*ck Me,” a comedy that’s supposed to be skewering male sharks in the 2020s dating pool but is actually one of the most misogynistic films in years. Taron Egerton does his absolute best to rescue this flailing script, but it truly feels like a 2000s Dane Cook project that got pulled out of the bin. With very minor variations, you could put an aging Happy Madison star like David Spade in the lead and drop this on Netflix tomorrow. And so it actually becomes depressing to see a star as talented as Egerton give his all to a movie that has nothing to give its audience.
Egerton plays Adam Samuels, a London art gallery employee who has mastered the art of the sex game. In the film’s first sequence, he picks up Mia McKenna-Bruce’s character at a bar, seduces her with talk of how much he loves “Before Sunrise,” and has sex with her. The next morning, he kicks her out with talk of his “bojangled headspace.” “Everybody Wants to F*ck Me” pretends to be about gross men, but it also posits a world in which gorgeous women are dumb enough to fall for dudes if they have a Maya Angelou book in their social profile or an Agnes Varda poster on their wall.
The gender politics get even gnarlier when Adam meets Sofia (Jessica Henwick), who takes him home, drugs him, and does something to him. Suddenly, every time Adam is alone with a woman, she throws herself at him. It could be on a train, in a hospital room, or even at home with his female dog.
As you might imagine, Jonathan Schey’s script gets pretty dark, although this is one of those films that’s nowhere near as kinky as it could have been, and, even worse, does some pretty demented shit only to the walk back from the edge at the end, leaving viewers with the feeling that this movie has nothing to say beyond: “Don’t believe in first impressions, online or in person.” It’s a movie about how shallow people can be in an online world that allows manufactured personalities. Too bad it’s equally lacking in depth.
- A Dog with a Bone: Maria Sten on “Neagley” (September 15, 2026)
Danish-Congolese actor and Maria Sten has some big shoes to fill (literally). Granted, she’s spent three seasons on Prime Video’s hit action series “Reacher” playing no-nonsense private investigator Frances Neagley, frequent ringer and closest companion to Alan Ritchson’s itinerant titan Jack Reacher. She’s a fellow MP and compatriot who can throw down just as easily as Reacher can with half of Ritchson’s bulk, and her appearances in the flagship show have made her a household favorite. But in the upcoming spinoff “Neagley,” it’s her show through and through, which comes with no small amount of pressure.
Where each season of “Reacher” sees its bulky problem-solver in a new town, a new dilemma, and with a new supporting cast, “Neagley”‘s home is in Chicago, where she’s set up shop as a private eye. And this season uses the mysterious death of a childhood friend of Neagley’s to force her into uncovering a broader conspiracy, with the help of a conflicted Chicago cop (Greyston Holt’s Hudson Riley), a streetwise kid (Jasper Jones’ Keno), and her protege at her PI firm (“Mortal Kombat II” alum Adeline Rudolph as Renee Birdwhistle).
In the week prior to the show’s release, Sten sat down with RogerEbert.com during a press junket in Chicago (hours before Sten was to catch the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field) to talk about expanding her role into a full-length series, the training required for such a show, and what the new series will teach us about Neagley as a person and a fighter.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You’ve been playing Neagley since 2022, and the character’s been a big hit since the first season of “Reacher.” What were the first rumblings of a possibility that Neagley could sustain herself as the center of a spinoff?
Interestingly enough, that came up when I first booked the job. If it went well, and it was a success, we thought there might be a possibility of a Neagley spinoff. I thought, “Right, of course, because that happens, sure.” But I’m just so surprised we’re finally here, because I didn’t feel that was necessarily in the cards. Reacher is very much Reacher, and Neagley comes in to help him out, as is true in the books. But I’m so thrilled to be able to take her on her own little journey. Even when I read the books she’s in, I felt she had so much more hidden under the surface. So I’m excited we’re finally getting to see all of that now.
Yes, because Neagley hasn’t been the central focus of a Lee Child book to date, and all the “Reacher” seasons are based on a specific book. What were the challenges you guys had in building on that source material to craft more layers for her to delve into?
We have freedom in the sense that there is no specific book to work off. The writers just went off the cuff with whatever we wanted. But of course, it was important for me to carry on the skeleton and fabric that were initially in the books, everything we had built in the show, and stay true to and expand on that. That was super important to me.
Greyston Holt, Alan Ritchson, Jasper Jones, Maria Sten
One of the most interesting things about Neagley as a character, and her relationship with Reacher, is that they’re so alike in so many fundamental ways: Tough, antisocial, uncompromising. But when it came time to build the show, what did you want to do to differentiate her from Reacher as a different kind of lead for a show in the same universe?
I think there are some key differences, even though they are so similar. One is that Reacher isn’t looking for trouble; trouble seems to find him. But Neagley is a PI; she’s always looking to solve problems. That’s a big difference in the show’s nature and thrust. Neagley is a dog with a bone, and you feel that in the show.
But she has a softness to her, especially around children, which we’ve seen in “Reacher,” and it’s something she’s hiding from the world. This show has more vulnerability. There’s a lot of heart, and there are some incredible character arcs, because we have these four main characters [Neagley, Keno, Riley, and Birdwhistle] who are going to hopefully hang around. They get to have their collective journey in this first season, which is different than Reacher, who treks around and gets into trouble with different people every year.
Speaking of those softer elements, it’s interesting to see how they peek through Neagley’s exterior, like her love of Kellogg’s cereal or the fun wrinkle of the shelf of action figures in her apartment. Did things like that, which come from production design or other elements, help you internalize those other aspects of Neagley?
I mean, the production design for the show is incredible. Even from the old-school noir vibe of Chicago, that’s the world that we’ve built, and there are these little quirks to Neagley that are things we set up in the prior seasons of “Reacher” and now get to expand upon. Everywhere Neagley is, there’s a little Easter egg of something in her office, in her house, in her car. She’s got these little gummy worms in a cup in her car, because those kinds of things are what make the character pop. I think that’s what makes her fun and interesting. I told them that there were specific trinkets I wanted from specific books in that apartment to make it feel authentic for her and they put it in there.
We get to dive a bit into Neagley’s backstory with this show, including her aversion to touching people (haphephobia) and where that comes from. How early was that seeded in Neagley’s character, and what’s it been like to build on that past to inform Neagley’s present?
It’s in the books, so it’s always been a character trait for her. But the books never explored the reason behind it, so we always felt a new show needed to answer that question. It’s a key element to her as a person, and in a lot of ways, without it being loud, it’s a huge part of her life. Walking around the world not being able to touch people is a huge thing to carry. We felt that was the thing we needed to dive into this season, and man, do we dive into it.
Maria Sten, Greyston Holt
Neagley is obviously a very physical role, and has been for the four seasons of “Reacher” before this. But when it came time to take the lead, did you have to do additional work to sustain the level of action you’d need across eight episodes? What more did you have to do?
Once you get to episode seven, you’re really just trying to survive, because the schedule is just so intense. And of course, we like to ramp up the action towards the end of a season. And you have to be in good shape going into it. I think it’s just conditioning and making sure that you’re healthy and fit. I definitely got out of that experience saying, “Okay, I need to lift heavier weights. [laughs] My joints need to survive another season of this. That’s such a high priority for a show like this—not just for aesthetic reasons, but for health reasons, because I like to do as much as possible myself and give it authenticity.
What about things like gun training—did you need additional work on that for this show?
I’ve been working with the same armorer since season one of “Reacher,” who’s an amazing Canadian armorer. We have a shorthand now; he’ll watch stuff, and when I get up there every year, we’ll do drills. Remembering how you clear a room, how to disarm someone, how to take a gun apart, etc., to get that muscle memory back.
And before we started filming “Neagley,” I did a private session with an instructor to fire some live rounds. Because I think it’s really important to know what that feels like in your body versus just firing blanks. It’s a very different sort of bodily experience, just to make things as authentic as possible.
Spinning off into your own show, you have to shoulder the responsibility of carrying a series’ tone and to lead a cast to some extent. Did you talk with Alan Ritchson at all about those responsibilities, and did he have any advice?
Not specifically about that, because I’ve done that in the past. But I think the bigger thing is that it’s a property that is so well known and loved by so many, because Lee Child’s books have sold, you know, a billion copies worldwide, right? So you have a responsibility to those fans to pay homage to that and stay true to the universe he created. There’s a lot of expectation around these properties.
For my part, I felt a lot of pressure because “Reacher” was so successful, and I wanted to step into these shows, fill them, and not disappoint people. Everybody loves “Reacher,” so I felt the kind of pressure we both experienced when we signed on to these shows. I’m so thrilled for Alan, and he’s such a great Reacher; I hope I can continue and build on this show’s success.
- “Neagley” Can’t Reach The Heights of “Reacher,” But It Punches Above Its Weight (September 15, 2026)
It happens often enough to seem inevitable. Time passes, and old friends we adore fall out of touch. Nobody plans it. The feelings haven’t changed. Yet life moves in different directions, and fond memories become more frequent than phone calls. Most of the time there’s time to fix that. Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) doesn’t have that option.
She’s busy working cases and coming to the rescue whenever her military mentor, Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), needs her. She doesn’t have room in her schedule to check on her childhood friend, Tommy (Jhaleil Swaby)—not until she’s speaking at his funeral. His parents have suspicions, Neagley has suspicions, and although her father tells her she’s avoiding his fatal illness, the private investigator in her goes to work.
Based on the character created by novelist Lee Child, Maria Sten takes the reins of her own series in “Neagley.” The “Reacher” spinoff hits streaming on Prime Video on September 16, but there’s no chance to catch your breath. The top two members of the Army’s 110th Special Investigations Unit immediately hurl us into the breakneck action of a ransom exchange.
Adeline Rudolph
Neagley is a character that every “Reacher” fan has fallen for. With good reason. Sten is incredible at crafting a Neagley who is tangible and fierce, while remaining (if you know the character) untouchable. She suffers from haphephobia, or touch aversion. The trauma behind that central character trait is revealed in this first season of the Chicago-based series. The character development is tragic but appreciated. Every plotline is related to her friend Tommy’s case, and as Neagley curb-stomps everyone involved, she gains a team of her own—totally against her will. Our girl is a loner by choice, but she’s soon working with Detective Hudson Riley (Greyston Holt), the hustling street kid Keno (Jasper Jones), and wannabe Junior P.I. Renee (Adeline Rudolph).
Following the trail of a creepy narcotic that even Wonderland would reject for tripping too hard leads the Neagley Gang to a cult. One more sinister than the usual. So that’s bad. Especially once we meet the cult leader Lawrence Cole (Damon Herriman), who’s never without his groovy sunglasses. Herriman knows his way around a cult thriller; after all, he has a history of playing Charles Manson. He did it twice (“Once Upon A Time … in Hollywood,” the second season of “Mindhunter“). He’s done it again with a character oozing enough toxicity to trigger a gag reflex.
Maria Sten, Greyston Holt
Allow me to break the suspense: this show isn’t “Reacher.” The pacing isn’t slower but steadier, darker but less brutal. The action sequences are ballistic, while the plot has enough twists and payoffs to make the ride worth it. It’s just so serious. Even with sprinkles of humor, it’s perhaps too serious for the Reacher-verse. It’s true: “Neagley”‘s sedate tone aligns with the lead character’s personality. The tongue-in-cheek swagger in “Reacher” does the same, but the spin-off could use more contrast to bring Neagley into fuller fruition. The connection would be stronger if Neagley’s world wasn’t painted in the same colors as she is—contrast makes for better focus.
However, in its most touching moments, this is a show about fathers and their children, father figures and their protégés, and parentless kids of all ages searching for family. What’s missing from a solid, if not yet fully realized, debut season is that while “Reacher” has a Francis Neagley, “Neagley” doesn’t have a Jack Reacher.
The big guy makes an appearance or two, the performances are seamless, and the cast works well together, but the characters themselves lack dynamism. The secondaries in “Reacher”‘s fourth season, led by Sydelle Noel, are dynamic but complicated, with idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes. The Neagley Gang presents more like bundles of goals and backstory wrapped in archetypal veneers: the mobster son trying to be a good cop, the plucky street kid seeking connection, the posh woman looking to prove herself. That is not a dig at the actors. They play the roles they were given well; I just wish they’d been given more to play with.
Still, you cannot miss Sten taking the lead as the untouchable Neagley; she does not miss. Go ahead and try her.
