Category: Entertainment

Italy remains Stanley Tucci‘s first love. But a man can travel, right? After winning three Emmys for CNN’s “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,” followed by two nominations (including this year) for Nat Geo’s “Tucci in Italy,” the star is on the move. Tucci tells Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast that he’s currently filming his new season in the United Kingdom, where he lives full time.

“I wanted to do the U.K. because I just feel like there’s so much here,” he says. “I’ve been here for almost 15 years now, and London was just voted the best food destination in the world. But I’m not just talking about fancy restaurants and all that. I’m talking about the U.K. as a whole. I think that the produce that’s here — the seafood that’s here, the meat that’s here, the devoted people like these fishermen or lobstermen, or a guy who raises pigs that will be like the best pork you’ll ever eat — that kind of stuff is amazing. And then, really amazing chefs that are devoted to farm to table or farm to fork, I guess is the new expression.”

Having now done travel shows for a while, Tucci says he considers it “a great honor to meet so many of these people, because they’re just extraordinary. Their devotion to what they do. Amazing chefs and home cooks alike, farmers, cheese makers. I mean, their whole life is invested into this one thing. This singular focus is really so impressive to me.”

Tucci is once again nominated as executive producer and host of “Tucci in Italy,” nominated for outstanding hosted nonfiction series or special. He talks to the Awards Circuit Podcast about what it was like to become a host, the skills he has developed in interviewing everyday people, and whether he’s OK with us calling him “The Tooch.” He also takes our 10 Questions quiz, and looks back at his first time in the pages of Variety.

But first, on the Roundtable, Gold Derby editor-in-chief Debra Birnbaum joins us to give her takes on the Emmy race, including how “Widow’s Bay” has become the comedy front-runner. Listen below!

“Tucci in Italy” comes at an interesting time for Tucci, who remains busy in front of the camera as well — including this year’s “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” “I’m really happy about having a lot to do, and yet at the same time, at the age of almost 66, I think, ‘how long can I do this?’” he says. “There’s a part of me that wants to spend more time at home, and so I’m trying to orchestrate things so that I can do that without compromising my career. Because there are still things I want to do, stories I want to tell, movies I want to make, plays I want to direct. It’s finding that correct balance.”

Hosting a travel show didn’t seem like part of the plan, but Tucci notes that he first came up with the idea of traveling through Italy and breaking it down by region about 20 years ago.

“I’d never seen a show like that,” he says. “I brought it up to a few people, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. And then six or seven years ago, CNN came to me and said, ‘Do you have any ideas for a show?’ And I did. I had two other ideas: One was about refugees and food, and the other was about cancer, finding a balance between standard of care and alternative treatments. No one seemed very keen on either of those. So, and then I said, ‘Oh, I want to go through Italy and break it down region by region.’ And they went, ‘OK!’”

So here’s the big question: What’s the most underrated region of Italy that we should check out? “I think Le Marche is a really beautiful region, which is right next to Tuscany. I shouldn’t even be saying this because I know that people will go to it. But it’s a really beautiful region, and it’s not packed with a huge number of tourists. The seaside is really pretty. The food is absolutely wonderful, and it’s not crazy expensive. But it’s gorgeous.”

As for hosting, Tucci says there was a learning curve at first. “I was very nervous when I first did it. I thought, ‘What am I doing? I don’t know how to do this.’ I know how to memorize lines, or I know how to improvise, but with an actor, not with a normal person. But now I’m much better at it, and I feel more comfortable.”

The secret, he says, is to listen. “If you’re not listening in the scene and responding truthfully, it’s not going to work,” he says.

For Tucci’s first time in Variety, it was Oct. 6, 1982, in a review of Broadway’s “The Queen and the Rebels.” Tucci was listed as one of the travelers/soldiers, alongside his pal Campbell Scott.

“I had just graduated from college,” he says. “I felt very lucky. I grew up with Campbell, and his mom was doing the play, and she cast us. He had one more year of university to do, I think. We were doing the play in the summer, so it was amazing for me. I understudied a role, and we were cast as extras for all practical purposes, and it was great because it got me my equity card and health insurance. That made a big difference. I was paid $550 a week, and I was in heaven. I thought this is the greatest thing ever. I got an agent, so I had all those things right out of college, SUNY Purchase. That’s a huge thing for an actor starting their career.”

10 QUESTIONS WITH STANLEY TUCCI:

1. Childhood nickname: “Tooch.”

2. Something you loved as a kid but can’t believe you were into it now: “Velveeta.”

3. Go-to karaoke or sing-in-the-shower song: “You don’t want to hear me sing. If you’ll notice in those reviews you spoke of, there’s not a single musical in them, and in a 40-45 year long career, and there’s not a musical. But I sing in the shower, thinking I’m brilliant. Something like ‘Our Love is Here to Stay,’ which is a song that I always sang to my kids when they go to sleep.”

4. Give me an alternate title for your show: “Oh God, you don’t know how long it took us to come up with the simplest title in the book. ‘Tucci Eats Italy’? Just bad.”

5. What’s your secret talent?: “I would say drawing and painting.”

6. Favorite ice cream flavor: “I don’t really eat ice cream. If I had to say, it would be chocolate. It’s so boring. I’m so sorry.”

7. The one item you couldn’t live without: “A knife that I have. That sounds scary, doesn’t it? But no, it’s a chef’s knife.”

8. What TV show in all of history do you wish you were a cast member of?: “Wild Wild West.”

9. Fictional character you most admire: “I really loved doing ‘Captain America.’ I did it like 15,16, years ago, and it was one of the best work experiences I’ve ever had. And I absolutely loved playing that role, even though when I was sent the script, it said, ‘German scientist in his 70s,’ and I was 50. I was like, ‘Oh man, come on!’ But it was so well written, and I just loved it. I just watched it again with my kids the other day.”

10. Your favorite piece of advice: “My acting teacher George Morrison, who passed away a number of years ago, said, ‘go beyond what’s comfortable.’ And the second one is that ‘the undoing of something is as important as the doing of it.’ That was from my father who told me that. And Alberto Giacometti.”

Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts.

In his HBO sketch series “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” Larry David travels throughout history, inserting his stubborn and curmudgeonly self into America’s most pivotal moments. “Lawrence,” as he’s often called, fights in the trenches of World War I, heckles George Washington during his Farewell Address and defends Rosa Parks on a Montgomery bus (for all the wrong reasons, of course).

The show is produced by Barack Obama through his and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground banner. So it’s only right that, in the series finale, Obama stepped in to reexamine the most historically important moment in his presidency. Not the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Iran Nuclear Deal or the legalization of same-sex marriage. No, something far more momentous and presidency-defining: the time he ignited a media firestorm by wearing a tan-colored suit to a 2014 press conference about ISIS. (The sartorial choice, which has its own Wikipedia page, saw Obama lambasted as “unpresidential,” was criticized by news outlets ranging from the New York Times to GQ to Fox News.)

Obama appeared in the first episode of “Life, Larry” to help introduce the show. But when David and co-creator Jeff Schaffer told the former president they wanted him to act in a sketch, he and Higher Ground executive producer Ethan Lewis came up with the idea to relitigate the tan suit debacle. “From the very beginning, my dream was to close the book on the tan suit once and for all,” Lewis says.

Schaffer and David then devised a “Curb Your Enthusiasm”-like revisionist history in which David (appearing to play himself) is the one to blame for the fashion crime. In the sketch, Obama is preparing for the press conference while a mango smoothie sits on the Resolute Desk. When David asks for a sip, Obama turns him down to avoid “old lips” on his straw. When the president finally leaves the Oval Office, David goes to steal a sip of the smoothie, and he ends up spilling it all over the navy blue suit Obama planned to wear. When POTUS returns, David frantically tries to divert his attention away from the mess. “I think you should wear the tan suit to the press conference,” he says, insisting it’s “casual Friday.”

Obama obliges, and tries on the lighter suit, causing David to deliver his classic, “prettay good… prettay… prettay… prettay… prettay good.” He assures Obama, “People are going to be talking about this for a long, long time.”

Schaffer tells Variety that directing Obama was “one of the coolest things I’ve ever gotten the chance to do.” “It’s so cool being around him. You feel smarter and better, somehow, by just being in the area,” Schaffer says. “He had some great improv stuff. His comic timing was impeccable. He was a good actor, not just as a former president, but, like, as an actor.”

Schaffer, who has worked with David since the “Seinfeld” days, was amused by watching Obama give the septuagenarian comedian notes. “The funny thing was watching him go, ‘Larry, you’re coming in late!’ He was the president, so he’s used to telling people what to do. Larry was in the odd position of being told what to do, which never happens on a Larry set.”

The most nerve-wracking part of directing a former president?

“The first thing was: What do I call this man?” Schaffer says. “I’m directing and things are moving fast, and I have to remember, ‘Sir, let’s do that one more time.’ Or, ‘Hold on, Mr. President.’ I didn’t want to screw things up and go, ‘Hey, Barack.’”

The Oval Office stage was crafted by the Obamas’ interior designer Michael S. Smith, who led the 2010 makeover of the real White House room. Smith perfected the layout and furniture of the space, so much so that when Obama walked in, he said, “This is unbelievable. It looks just like it was when I was here,” Schaffer remembers. The attention to detail extended even to Obama’s on-screen aide, played by his real-life Director of Oval Office Operations Brian Mosteller.

According to Schaffer, just as surreal as directing the former president was chatting with him during the downtime of the four-hour shoot. “You’re just sitting in the Oval Office with President Obama, hearing him talk about stuff,” he says. “He’s got some funny theories.” He relays one of Obama’s most memorable takes: “No one should be using ketchup after age 12. That’s a child’s condiment. It’s just sugar. Use mustard! Use an adult condiment!”

Lewis, who joined Higher Ground in 2022 and serves as its head of non-fiction and sports, concurs: “The banter was phenomenal. Being a fly on the wall in that room was incredible.”

Despite Schaffer’s praise of his acting chops, Lewis doesn’t think the ex-POTUS will be rushing to add more credits to his IMDb page. “President Obama doesn’t have a great desire to make that career pivot, but it was very fun [to watch him act] and I’m glad it worked out for the show,” Lewis says.

“Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness” was billed as a seven-episode limited series celebrating the 250th anniversary of America. Still, Lewis and Schaffer would love to extend the show. “I think it’s done well, and we all have a lot of fun making it,” Lewis says. “Ultimately, that’ll land at the feet of Larry and HBO to keep going, but I’d love to do it.”

Though, for Obama’s own good, perhaps he should spend some time away from David. “The president said, ‘I have fun being annoyed by Larry, and when we get together, I realize I start sounding like him,’” Schaffer says. “Larry is sucking him into his black hole of negativity.”

The announcement dropped on a pulverizingly humid Thursday afternoon in New York City: just a few hours later, an Olivia Rodrigo surprise gig would take place at Brooklyn’s intimate, 1,100-capacity venue Warsaw. The expected mad dash for tickets — only available at the venue’s box office — ensued, with fans lining up in heat that was technically 91 degrees but with a “real feel” of 105. But of course, the venue was packed long before the 8 p.m. showtime, even though it was just as hot inside.  

Rodrigo, clad in a red flowered schoolgirl dress and black go-go boots, dove in at the deep end, starting the set ambitiously with the album’s first single, “Drop Dead” — a challenging song to sing, with its upper-register chorus that offers few opportunities to take a breath — but she pulled it off with ease. “We’re going to be playing a lot of songs from my new album for this first time,” she said, and promptly obliged with three more tracks from “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” concluding with the Wet Leg-esque “My Way.”

Her five-piece band was razor-sharp — they’ve played a number of concerts this year, from the Primavera Festival in Spain and “Saturday Night Live” to a surprise cameo with the Smashing Pumpkins at Lollapalooza last weekend — but apart from an “Austin City Limits” taping last weekend, this was indeed the first time most of the eight new songs have been performed for a concert audience.

After the opening blast, Rodrigo then sat at the keyboard for a brace of ballads from her previous albums, including “Drivers License,” before rolling out four more new songs — including the fan favorites “Maggots for Brains” and “The Cure,” the latter of which she said is “probably” her favorite song from the album, as well as an emotional debut performance of “Less Than” — before finishing off the set with “Good 4 U” and “Déjà Vu.”

Throughout the set, she was her usual effervescent self, bouncing, spinning, holding out her arms, pumping her fists and leading the audience in several singalongs — and not a word about her latest altercation with the president. The “Pretty Sad” songs were note-perfect, but new material always takes a few gigs to break in and it’s likely they’ll be looser as time goes on. Likewise, a few older songs will probably be added to the setlist before they begin touring in earnest, beginning with Rodrigo’s own Daisy Chain Fields festival in Southern California at the end of this month, and the months-long “Unraveled” tour, which launches on Sept. 25.

How sweet — or suite — it still is. Judy Collins is doing a valedictory lap or two around the country on what is billed as a farewell tour, even though, at 87, she’s showing little in the way of weariness about maintaining a full concert schedule or lack of prowess in pulling these shows off. “It’s time” is the fullest explanation she’ll give about why it might be time to think about slowing down her schedule. In the meantime, there is a long way to go on her “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes Farewell Tour 2026-2027,” named for the song pal Stephen Stills wrote to celebrate her almost six decades go.

If she thought she’d looked at clouds from multiple angles when she had a top 10 hit with the Joni Mitchell-penned “Both Sides, Now” in 1968, imagine how many more cloud sightings she’s had in her career since then. She changes her sets nightly, but ticketholders for the tour are likely to get a sampling of her most well-known recordings — which include covers of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Morning” and the hymn “Amazing Grace” — as well as her self-penned material, as highlighted in her most recent studio release, 2022’s “Spellbound.” Whichever songs she picks, fans won’t likely regret a chance to see her for what may or may not be a local last time. In L.A., she headlines the Ford on Friday night, joined by a fellow monster of folk-rock, Bruce Cockburn. (Openers on some of the other tour dates include such big-name acolytes as Richard Thompson, Amanda Shires, Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter.)

Variety caught up with Collins via Zoom from her New York home as she prepared to fly out for the tour’s west coast swing.

Your official farewell tour kicked off July 4, but looking back, you already had had a really busy year. It looks like you’ve done over 35 shows so far in this calendar year, and you’re just getting started.

Yeah, we usually do 100 a year, so that’s good.

You haven’t yet put an end date on your farewell tour. Does it really feel like this is farewell, or is there some ambiguity as far as how long you might keep going?

No, it is a farewell tour. You know, I’ve been doing this for 67 years. I don’t know if anybody took note of that. But I think I’ve done a farewell tour later than most people do. I don’t know anybody to compare it with. But I think a lot of bands and a lot of organizations and groups have done farewell tours, and I think it was appropriate for me to do mine now.

And why so? As you said, you’re doing it further along in years than a lot of people who have officially done a last tour. But you have also  frequently talked about how you actually enjoy touring.

Oh, I do. I love it. But I have a lot of other things in my life that I have to deal with, which is writing a couple of new books, and I have a commitment with a Broadway (producer) with a stage show that I’ve written all the music for. So there are other things, of course, that have to be dealt with. And, it’s time.

It feels like you are… I don’t want to say wholly unique, but somewhat unique among performers, in loving being on the road so much. We talk to so many performers who say, “I love the two hours on stage. It’s the other 22 that I can’t deal with.” Yet you’ve said you enjoy the part of touring that other people hate, which is transit of getting from one place to another.

I love touring. I love it.

And this has something to do with first experiencing being on the road with your father?

When I was a little girl, my father was a great entertainer, and it was through him I found my reason to have a career and be doing what I wanna do. He had a a radio career for 30 years, and he also toured at the end of the war. I first was on the road with him when I was a little girl. I was 3, and he was touring with National School Assemblies, and we were up in Butte, Montana when I had my first time on stage. He said, “You want to sing for these nice people?” And I sang “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” It’s the one I knew. It was April.

He said, “Do you want to sing for the people?” And, “do you want  to ride in the car?” I said, “I want to do both.” And I love traveling. I love living in New York, but I also get to travel all over. The other day we were with the High Kings, and we were in Duluth, and we had a big show at this huge, wonderful place in the woods [the Big Top Chautauqua]. I was there with Don McLean years ago, and he called me up because he saw that I was gonna be there, and he was reminding me of our show at that wonderful venue. And we were driving in the most beautiful area in Wisconsin, near Lake Superior.

I get to see all these places. And I get to ride in planes; I don’t mind planes at all — I love planes. But also we get to drive, and I get to see every tree that’s ever been considered to plant somewhere. I love it. Do I know what they all are? No, because I’m not a botanist. But I love everything that grows. You know, Saturday night I got home, and I raced around and watered all my plants.

So your father was a role model for being in show business?

I do a lot of things that he did. I tell a lot of jokes. I want to make people laugh. I grew up on the wonderful entertainers who always told jokes. You know, we were babies of that culture. And also, you know, I’m the Betty White of the folk movement.

Like Betty White, just in terms of endurance and still being around and enjoying it?

Sure. I mean, she certainly kicked off pretty late. And I have a lot more steam… a lot more juice in my engine, I’ll tell you that.

You’re not bidding farewell because your voice is gone. Everyone still loves to hear you sing.  Sometimes we have to wonder if a lot of it is just genetics — that Tony Bennett can sing well into his 90s, and you are doing great well into your 80s, but other people start having voice problems when they hit 70 or even 60.

Yeah. Well, the voice is a very tricky thing, and it’s a superb instrument if you can keep it with you. If you can’t… I’ve had my issues with my voice, and I had incredible, unbelievable fortune.

First of all, I was given a gift from two people in New York. One was the great teacher who taught me how to sing. By good fortune, I found Max Martley, who was an incredibly gifted teacher, and he taught a lot of people and taught me for 32 years, and I learned what to do. But also, I was an alcoholic. I am an alcoholic but I was drinking for about 20 years. And when I hit 1977, I suddenly couldn’t sing anymore, and I canceled many shows. But then I was lucky because the doctor I was seeing, an ENT doctor named Donald Wiseman, was a genius. And there was no cure for what I had. I had a what’s called hemangioma. People who drink for years get these on their faces, and I was a heavy drinker, but I didn’t get mine on my face — I got it on my vocal cord. It would have stopped me completely forever, and there was no cure at the moment. So Don Wiseman kept at it. He kept saying, “You’re not gonna be singing anyway, so let’s try this.” And it was a process that he did on the vocal cord, and it was removed. I don’t know how miracles happen — I mean, I’m not supposed to be in charge of those — but I got one. And from then on,  I went straight back to a clean vocal cord that has been working perfectly ever since.

And of course, I know what to do. I mean, I know from Max that I have to remember clarity and phrasing — two things that are my watch words. And so it’s not a mystery really, but it is in terms of technique, because I know exactly what to do, and I also have this clean vocal cord to work with. So I think that what I was given was a gift from the higher power, from whatever, and of course, I immediately… Well, within the next few months, I also stopped drinking, and I’ve been sober for 48 years, which doesn’t hurt.

So you got a second chance at life, or your career, in the ’70s…

Well, I got another life because I not only stopped drinking, but also, about four days before I went into treatment, I met the man that I was to be living with and married to [Louis Nelson]. We were together for 46 years, and I lost him. Well, I didn’t “lose” him. He died at the end of 2024. So I have gone through this widowhood and the difficulties that come with it. It’s painful, it’s heartbreaking, it’s everything you could think of. But on the other hand, I had all those years. He was an amazing man.

He did not have to live in your shadow, with such prominent accomplishments.

Among other things, he designed the [mural for the] Korean War Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and that’s been very much a part of our lives, too. All of the wonderful people that he was working with, and our trips to D.C., and our engagement with the generals, and all the Koreans, and the people who made it such an extraordinary gift not just to the Koreans, but to us, the Americans. So he was splendid and brilliant and wonderful and all of those things. And I lucked out, that I got to spend all those years with him. For an old hippie like me, I think it’s pretty good luck.

Quite a confluence of events, between meeting him and getting your voice repaired…

And getting sober. It happened all at the same time, which I think is extraordinary. And I know people that have lost their voices in similar situations to mine. So it is the luck of the draw — I love that old song.

The title of this tour is “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes,” a la the Crosby, Stills and Nash song inspired by you, but spelled without the “suite” pun. I think I faintly recall that you might have been mildly embarrassed by Stephen Stills’ song when it came out. But you embraced it enough to make it a tour title this time around.

Oh, I wasn’t embarrassed. I mean, that was the greatest compliment he could have given me, and we have been friends ever since. We’ve been friends for close to 60 years, and we still talk, and we still get together. We did a fabulous tour in 2017 and ’18, where we did 115 shows in a year and a half. We just had a ball. We were on the stage for two hours a night together. Each of us had one song that we sang (solo), but everything else was together. He is one of the great guitarists of all time, and playing in that environment with him was such a privilege. I don’t know that he’ll go out again. I don’t know. I see him from time to time. I saw him a couple weeks ago in L.A., and we had a wonderful morning together with his wonderful wife, Kristen, and we always have a lot to say to each other. He came out in March of last year, after Lewis had died, and was on a show that I did at the Town Hall here with a lot of other artists who sang songs either that I’d recorded or that I’d written. And at the end, he came on. We did “Helplessly Hoping,” and then he said, “She married the right guy.” Because he and Lewis were good friends.

You change your setlist around a lot, from night to night. But people are generally likely to hear at least one song from your last album, “Spellbound,” which was the first album where you wrote every song on it. So it’s a lot of repertoire to draw upon.

Yeah. I like to keep it fresh, for me, but also for the audience, to reach into songs that I haven’t done for a while. And I have a lot. You know, I didn’t start writing songs until I met Leonard Cohen in 1966. And of course, I recorded “Suzanne” immediately. Then he said to me, “I don’t know why you’re not writing your own songs.” So I started. I wrote a song called “Since You Asked,” and I’ve been writing ever since.

A couple years ago I came out with a poetry book called “Sometimes It’s Heaven.” And the reason was that my husband had dared me to write every day, in 2017. I had said, “Well, now it’s a new year. I’ll start a new notebook…” And he said, “Why don’t you write 365 songs or pieces of songs, and then you’ll have a whole book of poetry,” which I did. It came out a year and a half ago. And I harvested all of “Spellbound” from all of that writing. I should have called it “365 Days,” but I didn’t.

You must imagine Leonard Cohen would have been proud?

Oh, yes. Oh, he would be so happy. You know, he was sort of like having an angel on your side. We were friends for a long time. He used to call me and read me verses of “Hallelujah” — he wrote about 40 — and he would say, “Do you like it?” And I said, “Well, it’s not me that is gonna have to like it. You’re gonna have to like it.” He finally narrowed it down, but it wasn’t easy.

Is there any song you’re most proud of adding to our musical vocabulary?

Well, I’ve written a lot of songs that people seem to like to sing. I just found out that one of the young rock and rollers in the ’80s recorded “My Father.” I went to the doctor this morning, and my doctor’s nurse is a fiend about collecting and listening to rock bands, and she found this rock band —. I don’t remember the name — who recorded “My Father” in the ’80s, and I was so happy to hear about that. [The version of “My Father” referred to was likely This Mortal Coil’s.]

Sometimes you’ve done Dylan’s “Masters of War” in concert, although not lately. which You’ve said you’re a big fan of Heather Cox Richardson and people like that. Do you feel political at this moment in time?

Oh, gosh. I don’t know what to do about it all the time, but I do. And yeah, Heather Cox Richardson is my favorite. I met her with Lewis, my husband, and they just went nuts. We went out to a big event with my brother Mike, who died five days after Lewis did. My brother had had a terrible, cancer of the mouth for five years. It’s a horrible disease. But we happened to have met Heather Cox Richardson in Illinois somewhere, and it was a good meeting and such a good time that we had with her. So, yeah, I think she’s wonderful.

I told her, “I’m trying to be a Lincoln Republican” — trying to follow her, course. You know, I think we all do what we can. I have something in my hip pocket, though, that I do almost every night. I have had two dozen roses in a vase under the piano for decades now. They never go anywhere; they just sit there. And starting this past Jan. 1, I was in England, there they were, the flowers. So when we finished singing “Amazing Grace,” I took the flowers out of the vase, and I started singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and I distributed the flowers to the audience. It has continued to be a very wonderful moment. And it is my political statement of the night, and it works wonders.

Going back to this being a farewell tour, you mentioned at some point that there may be some kind of “encore” shows after the tour ends…

Well, I don’t know about that. I just know that I’m on a farewell tour, and I like being here.

And billing it as such helps people to know, “OK, take advantage of this while you can.“

Well, that’s true. Always take advantage of things that are going out of style.

“One Night Only” director Will Gluck doesn’t want you to overthink it.

The filmmaker has been fielding a lot of inquiries about the premise, logic and loopholes of his new movie, a raucous romantic comedy about the one night a year where premarital sex is legal. (Think “The Purge,” but for banging instead of murder.) Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown”) plays Allie, an aspiring singer who channels her talent through embarrassing jingles in drug commercials. Callum Turner (“Eternity”) portrays Owen, a pizza shop owner whose long-term girlfriend decides she wants to sleep with other people on this holy night. The two strangers keep running into each other during 12 hours of messy mayhem in New York City.

Gluck is aware the movie’s setup is sparking more questions — Why does the ban exist in the first place? What happens to people who break the law? How, exactly, is the government even tracking who’s getting it on? — than answers. But he maintains the particulars of this reality aren’t really the point.

“You can’t really describe this movie,” Gluck says. “[The cast] goes on talk shows and spends 80% of the time explaining the rules of the world, and that’s not what the movie is about. We have to just let people see it. That’s the best tool we have, especially for something that’s this crazy.”

Gluck, best known for directing 2010s teen classic “Easy A” with Emma Stone, knows all that matters is that people are talking about the film in the first place. Word-of-mouth fueled the success of his last rom-com, 2023’s box office sleeper hit “Anyone But You,” starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell.

“I learned from my last movie that people are going to discover this and say, ‘Wow, that’s not what I thought it was going to be,’” Gluck says. “You know how the acronym for word-of-mouth is WOM? I’m calling it a WOM-com.”

Ahead of opening weekend, the director spoke to Variety about why audiences have become prudish about on-screen sex, his love of putting “cringe” songs in his movies, and why the theatrical rom-com isn’t dead, after all.

How did you decide how much backstory to include to set up your premise?

I did a lot of thinking about it, a lot of world building. These characters are living this little alternative world that could easily happen. We have to talk about it. But I really wanted the world to live in the background. I didn’t want the movie to be about that. It’s more about how our characters navigate life.

What conversations did you have about the origin of the no-sex mandate?

Someone asked me “why don’t people just get divorced?” Well, there’s municipal signage very prominently in the movie that says you cannot get divorced unless you were married for one year, plus one day. It’s like when COVID [started], there were rules, and then people started to do other stuff, so then more rules came out, right? That’s what I imagine when this mandate was passed. They had to keep doing amendments to these rules because, yes, the obvious idea would be just get married and divorce.

Recent studies have found that Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t want to see sex on screen. Was that a concern while making this movie?

The answer is 100% yes. I went through this on two movies. I have long pages of empirical data about it. The only thing is I don’t think it’s just Gen Z and Gen Alpha. I believe it’s been a societal shift from taking nudity in adult situations and putting them on your phones at home for everybody. Now it’s more of a private, intimate thing that people don’t want to see when they’re in a shared experience. Whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable.

How does that change your approach as a filmmaker?

Once I’ve learned that, which was all through the editing process for my last movie, I applied it to this movie. But even so, I didn’t apply it enough. I cut out so much. There was so much nudity in this movie that we shot on the streets. I felt we needed to show the world that way. As we started to show it to audiences, we felt it takes you out of the movie. You’re engaged in the characters and what’s going on, and then you pan over and there’s two naked people having sex, and you watch the audience … it’s a physical thing. They turn to who they’re with and … the benefits do not nearly outweigh the negatives of it. So we just kept editing it out until we got a balance, and those comments went away.

Did you use an intimacy coordinator? So many scenes had extras having sex in the background.

Yes, we had an incredible intimacy coordinator. And we cast real-life couples in various stages of relationships. It was never like we met an extra and were like, “you guys are kissing.” It was fun because there were married couples, people who broke up during the movie and people who became couples so they could do that.

There are a lot of fun and funny posters and advertisements about “the mandate” and “one night” all around the city. Were those actual props, or were they edited in later?

This is all practical. That was the fun part of the world building. We had a huge document with every scene, not only what signage was there, but what graffiti was there and who would be in the background kissing. And the funny thing about the products, I’ve gotta stop reading the internet, but everyone says, “It’s a product placement fiasco. How much money did they make on that?” It was the opposite. We had to beg products to allow us to take them and twist it to the “one night.” Because, as you can imagine, not every corporate America consumer product was into this idea. So when I read stuff, like, “How much money did they get from Dunkin or Durex?” I’m like “Nothing!”

So you had to get permission to make the fake ads?

Of course. You can photograph anything that’s in the real world, but you can’t take something like Coke ad and say “there’s dirt in it.” We had a big list and it was “no, no, no, no.” And then we were surprised — well, the condom companies didn’t surprise us that they said yes — but Duolingo sure did. That was a shock. I was like, “Really?” So that’s why you have products like Duolingo, Red Bull, Dunkin and Equinox. Every time they would say “yes,” I’m like, “They did?” And then they would have to approve our take on it.

What are some of the challenges of filming in New York City?

Many times, we had actors in a car, half naked, and you’d have people just walking and staring. We’d say, “Hey, do you mind moving on?” A couple of people said, “No, we’re not going to move.” We were like, “Well, if this really did happen in real life, people would be staring.” So there are a couple scenes where people are looking in the windows.

How much of Monica’s character was built around her actually being able to sing?

I always rewrite the script completely once I have the actors. Once I cast Monica, I was like, “She has to be a singer.” We talked for a long time, and she does have some stage fright, which is crazy, because she has the best voice. So I just wrote that for her. And I’ve always been obsessed with drug commercials, so it was this great confluence.

Did Callum actually learn how to make pizza?

Yes, he spent five days at that pizza place being taught how to make pizza. He was really good at it. The one bummer about pizza is it doesn’t look great on film. It’s impossible because pizza gets cold so quickly. During that scene, we were constantly putting out a new fresh pizza. That’s a lesson for me. From now on, I’ll choose a different food that does not congeal that quickly.

How quickly did everyone get sick of pizza?

You can tell during that scene but Monica and Callum, they ate. They didn’t chew and spit. Because I don’t cut. I just keep rolling. They were both at the end like, “Oh my god.”

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, your stars from “Anyone But You,” don’t exactly have cameos, but they pop up in funny, unexpected ways. Did you get their permission to include them in the movie?

Yes, I did. They were both trying to do cameos, but their schedules didn’t work out. So this was great.

Music plays a big part in many of your films. I can’t hear “Pocket Full of Sunshine” without thinking of “Easy A,” and “Unwritten” went viral on TikTok after the release of “Anyone But You.” How do you choose which songs to feature?

For the drug commercials, I have a pretty good take on songs that were really popular that people think they hate, but they can’t stop singing. I’m kind of obsessed with those songs, and a lot of my movies have them in it. You’ve mentioned some of them, and I think it’s because people don’t want to admit they like popular music, so they call it cringe or lame. But they’re bangers. After my last movie, if you ever go to any bar or club all over the world, when “Unwritten” comes on, it’s like the biggest banger in the world. It always was, but now for some reason, it’s now OK to be a banger. I love those songs.

People often say the theatrical rom-com is dead. What were your takeaways from the box office success of “Anyone But You”?

If you’re not a superhero movie or gigantic IP, it’s really hard to cut through. The only way you really can cut through, if at all, is letting the audience do it. No matter how much you market it or tell people what it is, you have to let them see it and tell their friends and family about it, which is scary. If you’re spending all this money on something, you can’t just hope people talk about it. But the key is telling people it’s going to be in theaters for a while. And I think this one is going to be in theaters for a while.