Tag: HollywoodReporter

Hey, let me ask you a question. If I told you about a political candidate with impeccable patriotic bona fides, a compelling backstory and a deep war chest, wouldn’t you think he’d win by a landslide or at least turn out a competitive race?

That’s what Alex Vindman and his supporters thought. But they underestimated the Larry David factor.

Vindman, a Florida Democrat, seemed a lock to win his Senate primary bid on Tuesday. A retired lieutenant colonel in the Army. A Purple Heart-decorated Iraq veteran. A whistleblower on Donald Trump for the 2019 quid pro quo attempt with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that led to an impeachment trial. Vindman had major name recognition. He raised $16 million ($15 million more than his opponent) and was believed to be a big favorite over said rival, Angie Nixon — a little-known Jacksonville-based member of the Florida House of Representatives.

Nixon was a DSA candidate in a state that leaned moderate, and these days really doesn’t lean Democrat at all. No way a million Democrats would give the edge to her. (The pair were battling to take on sitting Senator Ashley Moody, a Republican, to finish out the remaining two years of Marco Rubio’s term.)

But that’s exactly what happened Tuesday. Nixon swamped Vindman by more than 12 points, garnering over 700,000 of the total 1.25 million votes. She pulled off the ultimate chat-and-cut.

How could this happen for the retired Army lieutenant colonel and Soviet refugee? What did Vindman do? Did he not respect wood?

I’ll tell you what happened. What happened was Larry David. 

Vindman appeared in two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm as himself, including the series finale in which he testifies against Larry for his political bribery. David even campaigned for the candidate, sending out a fundraising text message earlier this summer (including to people who didn’t live anywhere near Florida). “The man is everything I’m not, which should give you an idea of what a tremendous person he is. Vindman is not a puppet. He loves this country. He loves it so much it’s almost off-putting. I love it too, but come on. Get a life, Vindman!”

And David, in addition to schlemieling up everything on the show, has a curse attached to him. A curse that ensures people never get the votes they should.

It’s called the Curb curse, and it seeks to explain — because there is no explanation — how David never won a writing or acting Emmy in the entire 12-season, 24-year history of the show. Yes, 120 episodes and he never got a thing. (The show won just two overall, for directing and editing.) A post on Screen Rant after his most recent strikeout and last attempt in 2024 said: “Curb Your Enthusiasm Continues a 24-Year Larry David Curse After The Show’s Ending.”

And now that the show is over, it carried over to Vindman. David couldn’t win an Emmy in 2024 and Vindman couldn’t win a primary in 2026.

If this was a Curb episode, you could almost imagine Vindman showing up at David’s house. 

“You cost me the election, Larry.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t cost you the election.”

“You cost me the election.”

“Get the hell out of here! Cost you an election. Poor Candidate Vindman. Like Al Gore. [Fake crying] Cost him an election.”

And then Vindman would angrily leave, but at the end of the episode happen to be in the Santa Monica restaurant when Larry does something untoward and the camera would pan to him and he’d tip someone off and then have his revenge. The curse would be avenged.

Of course this may not be a curse so much as, you know, simply irascibility. For the character but also the personality — the real-life David wasn’t one for the glad-handing, even at parties, and it’s not like he kissed the awards ring. He didn’t even show up to the Emmys the last time he was nominated. When you attack Elmo, you don’t get love.

That irascibility also may have singed Vindman. Who wants to get a hectoring message from David? Especially asking for money. It’s not cool de la.

Sure, if you’re trying to analyze the results of the election, you can talk about the swing of Democrats to the DSA even in a place like Florida, auguring a new future for the party. Or that many of the moderate Dems in Florida have ditched for the GOP and couldn’t vote in the state’s closed primary.

But, eh. It was probably Larry.

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Little League Baseball‘s top 10 U.S. teams and top 10 international teams are competing once again for the World Series title. All 38 games in the 12-day tournament — taking place from Aug. 19 through 30 — will air across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, all three of which can also be livestreamed via DirecTV (with a five-day free trial), Fubo (with a five-day free trial), Sling and Hulu + Live TV.

In terms of coverage, ESPN is home to the majority of games while ABC will broadcast higher stakes games including the Aug. 30 LLWS championship final.

At a Glance: How to Watch Little League World Series 2026

Where to Watch Little League World Series 2026: Dates, Channels

Between Wednesday, Aug. 19 and Sunday, Aug. 30, games are set to air across three key networks: ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC.

Where to Stream Little League World Series 2026 Live Online

Since games air across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, they’ll also be available to watch live on any live TV streaming service that carries said networks, namely DirecTV (with a five-day free trial), Fubo (with a five-day free trial), Sling and Hulu + Live TV.

More on each live TV streaming option — and their new subscriber discounts — below.

Learn more about each plan option, including how to build your own channel lineup (starting at just $19.99 per month), at directv.com.

Little League World Series Schedule 2026

The 2026 World Series runs from Wednesday, Aug. 19 through Sunday, Aug. 30. It culminates in the Little League World Series championship game at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET on Aug. 30. See here for the full 38-game schedule.

Little League World Series Teams 2026, Format

The 20-team double-elimination tournament switches to a single-elimination format for the final bracket games.

United States teams include:

International teams include:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has joined the investigation into the death of Hayden Panettiere, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News on Wednesday.

The actress, who was best known for her roles in Heroes, Nashville and the Scream franchise, died on Sunday at age 36 at an apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina.

The Greenville County Coroner’s Office said on Monday that her cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation, and that there were no obvious signs of trauma. However, officials were reportedly heard discussing an “overdose” and “cardiac arrest” on a 911 call at the time of her death. A police report also said her on-again, off-again boyfriend Hickerson and his brother were at the South Carolina townhouse when the actress was pronounced dead by authorities. Hickerson was later visited by police, according to a redacted police report.

Panettiere had been open about her struggles with alcohol and opioid addiction, further detailing her experiences in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, released earlier this year.

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the DEA for more information, but did not hear back at the time of publication.

TMZ reported that DEA agents will be assisting the parallel investigations currently underway by the Greenville County Coroner’s Office and the Greenville Police Department, according to sources.

Panettiere’s death investigation isn’t the only high-profile celebrity death that the government agency has gotten involved with in recent years. The Los Angeles Police Department also teamed up with the DEA in 2023 after high levels of ketamine were found in Friends star Matthew Perry’s system after he died at age 54.

The lengthy multi-agency probe led to five arrests and convictions, including two medical doctors and a supplier dubbed the “Ketamine Queen,” for distributing the drugs that resulted in Perry’s death.

Hayden Panettiere‘s neighbor in West Hollywood recalls calling 911 at least half a dozen times to report disturbances at the actress’s apartment.

Following the star’s death at age 36 on Sunday in Greenville, South Carolina, Mia Terrazzas spoke with Inside Edition on Wednesday about her experience living next to Panettiere and her on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson. When asked if she noticed any signs of domestic violence, Terrazzas said, “Oh, absolutely.”

“I saw her leaving on a gurney. Brian was right next to her, and I asked her if she was OK, and it looked to me that she had suffered some type of trauma that looked to be battering,” she claimed. “It was clear she was terrified.”

Terrazzas also shared that notices were posted around the property by the Homeowners Association last year, warning residents to call 911 if Hickerson was spotted. However, the signs were removed a week later.

Panettiere, best known for her roles in Heroes, Nashville and the Scream franchise, had detailed physical abuse by Hickerson in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, released earlier this year. He was also sentenced to 45 days in jail in 2021 after pleading no contest to two felony counts of injuring the actress.

“This predator was in our community. He never stopped living at her place. There were times he ripped apart her bathroom, where he just took a sledgehammer at five in the morning,” Terrazzas alleged.

Amid the investigation into Panettiere’s death, a police report said Hickerson and his brother were at the South Carolina townhouse when the actress was pronounced dead by authorities. Hickerson was later visited by police for a welfare check in the days after her death, according to a redacted police report.

The Greenville County Coroner’s Office said that Panettiere’s cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation, and that there were no obvious signs of trauma. However, officials were reportedly heard discussing an “overdose” and “cardiac arrest” on the 911 call at the time of her death. Sources also told ABC News on Wednesday that the Drug Enforcement Administration has joined the death investigation.

Earlier this week, Panettiere’s mother, Lesley Vogel, also broke her silence on her daughter’s death, criticizing Hickerson, saying, “This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death and that was Brian Hickerson.”

Filmmaker Griff Furst, who worked with the actress on his 2025 film A Breed Apart, also shared on Instagram Tuesday that when Hickerson would visit Panettiere on set, “it was pretty clear that she wasn’t OK and the energy in her room was pretty dark.”

The Busan International Film Festival has selected Kim Jong-kwan’s The Table: Day and Night, a tender drama about four couples who experience romantic moments in the same Seoul cafe, as the opening film of its 31st edition. The drama will world premiere at the Busan Cinema Center on Oct. 6, the festival announced Wednesday. 

Kim has built his reputation in the Korean film industry with a flair for elegantly constructed short stories. He won the jury prize at the Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival for his 2004 debut How to Operate a Polaroid Camera, and has returned repeatedly to anthology work — directing segments of the Netflix series Persona (2019), which featured filmmakers building shorts around K-pop star IU, as well as Vestige (2022) and The Killers (2024).

Even his features have tended to operate like collections of interlaced shorts. The Table: Day and Night appears to be a loose follow-up to his 2016 feature The Table, a chamber piece featuring four women discussing their past and present romantic entanglements at the same table in a Seoul cafe over the course of a single day. That feature premiered at BIFF in 2016 and became one of his best-known works.

The Table: Day and Night follows four couples as they experience sparks of romance in a Seoul coffee shop over the summer and autumn months. Mostly conversation based, the film depicts a chance encounter between Yoo-jin (Kim Minha) and Hyeon-oh (Joo Jong-hyuk); an unexpected reunion between Sang-mi (Han Sun-hwa) and Young-min (Chang Ryul), who were friends in middle school and discover a fresh bond; a rush of creative chemistry between web novelist Hye-jin (Shim Eun-kyung) and indie filmmaker Dong-nam (Lee Hee-jun); and a bittersweet moment between idol trainee Na-kyeong (Jeon So-young) and her boyfriend Jong-su (Kim Dong-hwi). 

In its announcement, BIFF described its choice of curtain-raiser as “an elegant and assured film in which the cinematic interests, style, perspective, and world that Kim Jong-kwan has persistently explored as a filmmaker reach a provisional culmination.”

“Without relying on excessive setups or dramatic turns, it greatest merit lies in how thoughtfully it captures the unique inner voices and emotions of its characters, as well as the subtle shifts in their relationships,” the festival added. 

One of the film’s stars, Kim Minha of Pachinko fame, will also host Busan’s opening ceremony, where Michelle Yeoh will be honored as the event’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year, Ann Hui will receive the Chanel-backed Camellia Award, and Kim Dong-ho, the festival’s own founder, will be presented with the Korean Cinema Award. The 31st Busan International Film Festival runs Oct. 6-15, with the Asian Contents & Film Market held Oct. 10-13. 

In the wake of Hayden Panettiere’s death, the director of one of her last films is opening up about his experience with her on set, saying the “energy in her room was pretty dark” at the time.

The actress, who worked with Griff Furst on his 2025 film A Breed Apart, died on Sunday at age 36 at an apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina.

“I had met Hayden about 10 years before that and I knew that she was insanely talented, so when she signed on to do this picture that we were shooting, I was psyched,” Furst began in a video recently posted on Instagram. “I really wanted to work with her.”

He then recalled realizing “something was off” with Panettiere while filming, making a point to mention the actress’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson’s presence when he would visit the A Breed Apart set.

“So I’m on set, and I get word from the movie’s security team who picked her up from the airport that something was off,” Furst continued. “I didn’t think much about it, and so I left set and I walked over to greet her and her boyfriend Brian. He opened the door. Hayden was incredibly sweet and gracious and excited to work, but she was not OK.”

“I’m not going to get into the details of why that was, but having worked on over 100 movies and seeing just about everything, it was pretty clear that she wasn’t okay and the energy in her room was pretty dark,” the director added.

Amid the investigation into Panettiere’s death, a police report said Hickerson and his brother were at the scene when the actress was pronounced dead by authorities. The Greenville County Coroner’s Office said that her cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation, and that there were no obvious signs of trauma. However, officials were reportedly heard discussing an “overdose” and “cardiac arrest” on the 911 call at the time of her death.

Panettiere had been open about her struggles with alcohol and opioid addiction, further detailing her experiences in her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, released earlier this year. In the book, she also detailed physical abuse by Hickerson.

The actress’ mother, Lesley Vogel, also recently broke her silence on her daughter’s death, criticizing Hickerson, saying, “This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death and that was Brian Hickerson.”

In Furst’s Instagram video, the director added that he “believed she was getting better” and that he and Panettiere “talked about doing another picture together recently, which is what makes this shitty news hit even harder.”

Anne Hathaway is revealing that she “did push really hard” trying to get Julie Andrews to reprise her role as Queen Clarisse Renaldi in the upcoming third Princess Diaries installment.

During a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight after receiving her Disney Legends Honor at the D23 Expo, the Oscar winner reacted to Andrews saying she doesn’t “think I should be a part of” Princess Diaries 3.

“First of all, I just want to say if she has a change of heart, we’re down,” Hathaway said. “Just anything, really. But we also want to be respectful. Like, for goodness sakes, if anybody has contributed to the world of entertainment and to our collective joy, it’s her. Whatever she wants, we completely understand.”

However, The Odyssey actress added, “We did push really hard to see if she would want to do it.”

During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month, Andrews explained why she doesn’t see herself stepping into Queen Clarisse Renaldi’s shoes again. “I think the absolute truth is that I think I’m really past all that now,” The Sound of Music star confessed. “I’m not completely retired, but it’s a different kind of work that I do these days — [writing] books, and I do a lot of recording of podcasts and voiceovers. But truly, I don’t think I should be a part of it.”

While details surrounding Princess Diaries 3 are being kept under wraps, the movie is set to be a continuation of the film series, which centers on Mia Thermopolis (Hathaway), who finds out that she is the heir apparent to the throne of Genovia. At the end of the second installment, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, Mia is crowned the queen of Genovia single after Parliament abolishes the law requiring that a queen be married first. However, she also finally gets together with Nicholas Devereaux (Chris Pine) after calling off her wedding to Andrew Jacoby (Callum Blue).

Hathaway also told ET that she just wants the third installment “to be fun” for those who have been fans since the original film released in 2001.

“I want the women who were six when the first one came out — a lot of whom are now mothers themselves, maybe even with six-year-olds — I want them to feel like they’re bringing their children to something that mattered to them, a core memory for them, something that was a part of their heart and their lives,” she said. “And that means doing it justice. And that means taking the time that it takes to really build it right. That’s a lot of pressure, but I feel like this is a great team.”

Adele Lim has been tapped to direct the feature, with Flora Greeson writing the script. Aadrita Mukerji had written an earlier draft of the screenplay before the production team pivoted in a different direction.

When Seth Rudetsky received an invitation to appear on Nikki Glaser’s podcast, he had no particular reason to think it wasn’t real.

Rudetsky, the Broadway performer and SiriusXM host, gets asked to do podcasts all the time. Better yet, this one was offering him between $4,000 and $5,000 to appear. “Oh my God, they’re actually paying for a podcast,” he remembers thinking. A Glaser fan, Rudetsky quickly said yes.

The invitation also seemed to know an awful lot about him. It mentioned his Broadway cruise and his work with Sara Bareilles — the kind of details that suggested somebody had actually done their homework.

“All these specific things about my career,” Rudetsky recalls. “I’m like, oh my God, they totally know my work.”

But they did not.

Rudetsky had stumbled into an increasingly sophisticated scam in which fraudsters impersonate famous podcasters and their representatives, using flattering, highly personalized invitations — most likely composed by AI — to lure prospective guests into handing over money, login credentials or control of social media accounts.

And he is not the only recognizable Hollywood figure who fell for it. Bruce Vilanch believed Terry Gross wanted him on Fresh Air. There is no indication yet if the two scams are connected, but the pattern follows similar AI-assisted scams reported on recently by THR.

“It was so articulate and so like her,” the veteran comedy writer and performer tells The Hollywood Reporter of an email he believed came from Gross. The correspondence that followed was equally persuasive, laying out the subjects the person identifying themselves as Gross intended to discuss with him, demonstrating what appeared to be deep, actual knowledge of Vilanch’s work.

“I thought, ‘Well, this must really be Terry,’” Vilanch recalls.

There were, of course, red flags, in retrospect at least. Vilanch knew Fresh Air was an NPR production with an entire organization behind it, yet Gross seemed to be personally handling the booking. He decided perhaps she was simply “a maverick.”

Then “Gross” asked him for money. The explanation was tailored to the moment: NPR was a nonprofit, they explained, but the government had cut funding and the organization needed help. Vilanch found the request strange, but by then the correspondence had established enough credibility that he decided to contribute.

“It felt real,” he says. So he sent the money.

But the scammers didn’t disappear after getting his money. They continued preparing him for his Fresh Air appearance, sending more questions and ultimately scheduling the interview. When the appointed day arrived, Vilanch clicked the link. Three windows appeared on his screen: himself, one labeled NPR and a third containing a man.

“Hello, this is Mike,” the man told him. “I will be conducting the interview.”

Vilanch stared at him in disbelief.

“No, you won’t,” he replied. “I’m talking to Terry or I’m talking to nobody.”

The man explained that Gross was conducting another interview. Vilanch’s skepticism finally overwhelmed his willingness to believe. He waited about 15 minutes, then left. He sent one last message to his supposed host: “Whoever you are, I hope you enjoy the paltry sum that I sent.”

Vilanch then contacted WHYY, the Philadelphia public-radio station that produces Fresh Air, to warn them someone was impersonating Gross. To his surprise, they already knew.

Vilanch says the station asked him not to immediately post publicly about the scam and told him others had reported similar impersonations. He subsequently spoke with a WHYY media executive and turned over his entire email chain.

For Rudetsky, the scam had a different objective.

After accepting the supposed Glaser invitation, he was asked to join her “manager” on Zoom for a technical setup involving Facebook Live. The man’s camera was off. He had a British accent but told Rudetsky he was in Pakistan. Even his email address struck Rudetsky and a colleague as suspiciously literal, something resembling “NikkiGlasersManager [at] Gmail.”

Yet each compounding oddity was just plausible enough to ignore. Eventually the “manager” began guiding Rudetsky through Facebook permissions. Administrative control of Rudetsky’s page still belonged to a marketing company he’d worked with years earlier, so Rudetsky brought its representative into the process.

Later that night, Rudetsky tried to log into Facebook. He couldn’t. At first he blamed the marketing rep. Then, lying in bed around midnight, Rudetsky suddenly wondered whether something more sinister had happened. He Googled a combination of words: podcast, scam, celebrity, Facebook. Immediately, he says, he found an article describing essentially what had just happened to him.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” he remembers thinking.

Suddenly the oddities made sense: the email address, the manager overseas, the turned-off camera, the elaborate Facebook instructions. Rudetsky eventually regained control of his page. He says his former marketing company was also compromised, although Rudetsky doesn’t know precisely what the scammers accessed or what damage they caused.

Both Rudetsky and Vilanch were left wondering how people who considered themselves reasonably savvy had been taken in. And both kept returning to the same thing: the extraordinary specificity of the approaches.

“I know why I fell for it too, because I’m so old. I don’t think about AI,” Rudetsky says.

The supposed Glaser representatives knew about his Broadway cruise and his work with Bareilles. To Rudetsky, those details functioned almost like authentication.

“Wow,” he remembers thinking. “Nikki Glaser loves my Broadway cruise.”

Vilanch experienced much the same thing. The correspondence didn’t merely imitate the mechanics of a booking request. It seemed to imitate Terry Gross’ voice itself, including the preparation and literacy he associated with her.

“They went above and beyond what they had to do to nail me,” he says. Then he reconsidered how much “work” might actually have been required. “Now I feel less bad because they could probably AI themselves into all of the work that I thought they had done.”

There appears to be no indication the scammer or scammers behind this web of deception are anywhere close to slowing down. In fact, Rudetsky’s experience did not even end with Nikki Glaser.

Not long afterward, another invitation arrived, this time supposedly from Amy Poehler’s podcast. Rudetsky actually knows Poehler, so this time he employed the most reliable authentication technology available: He asked Amy Poehler. No, she replied, she hadn’t invited him onto her podcast.

Rudetsky says the fraudulent invitations continue to arrive. These days he sometimes entertains himself by engaging the scammers to see how far they’ll go, despite being warned that even replying may simply confirm that his email address belongs to an active target.

After one supposed Poehler representative contacted him, Rudetsky eventually announced that he’d reported the scam. The response was remarkably cool: “Noted. We’ll see what happens next.”

Vilanch mostly remembers the embarrassment of realizing he’d been taken. “You just feel bad because you feel like a schmuck and because you’ve been duped,” he says.

Hearing of Rudetsky’s own troubles made him feel a little better.

“They picked on two nice Jewish boys,” Vilanch says, “who give people the benefit of the doubt.”

For Sterling Point star Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie, filming the Prime Video series brought him right back to his childhood. “It felt like when you’re 9 years old, and you’re at summer camp and every day is the best day ever,“ the 23-year-old tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom.

The Megan Park-created series is a big step forward in Lavoie‘s career. The actor, much like several of his cast members on the show, has been acting since he was a child. He got his first gig a decade ago after his mom had spotted a Facebook post about an open casting call for a child actor who could speak French and was indigenous. Lavoie, who is of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation heritage and grew up on a First Nation reserve in Quebec, was intrigued but a little apprehensive.

“I didn’t have any experience whatsoever in theater or acting at all, so it was definitely scary having to learn lines and going into audition,“ says Lavoie. But his mother was persistent and encouraged him to at least give it a try. Thankfully, the team loved his audition and cast him on the spot.

That 20-day indie film shoot became the moment he fell in love with acting. He signed with an agent in Montreal and continued working on French-speaking productions. Despite leading a show in Canada, Premier Trio, he found he wasn‘t getting English self-tapes. While Lavoie loved his time working on French-speaking roles, he had aspirations to break into the English-speaking productions as it‘s a much smaller industry.

“[Sterling Point] is the biggest project I’ve ever done in my life,“ he says. The show has allowed him to break into the English-speaking market.

Lavoie is still grateful to work on the show and get to work with Park and executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. But perhaps the person he was most grateful to work with was Jeffrey Dean Morgan, or “JDM,” as Lavoie calls him.

In Sterling Point, Lavoie plays Ellis, a Canadian teen who meets the show‘s leading lady and newcomer to town, Annie, played by Ella Rubin. He becomes one-third of the show‘s main love triangle. Morgan plays his father, Joe, who is later revealed to have his own dealings with Annie‘s family.

“When I found out that he was going to play my dad, I couldn’t believe it, honestly,” the actor says. “I personally was a fan of The Walking Dead as a kid, so when I found that out, I kind of shat my pants a little bit. I was like, ‘Crap, Negin’s my dad. What?’”

The young cast of the show, rounded out by Amélie Hoeferle, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Bo Bragason, Keen Ruffalo and Mabel Strachan, were very close during the shoot. Lavoie knew none of the other actors — no one on the cast knew each other before the shoot — but everything felt natural.

“Everybody got to know each other so well and so quickly. I just love these people so dearly, and everyone’s just such a good actor,“ he continues. “I’ve learned so much working with them.“

Sterling Point wasn‘t the first show Lavoie had been in that featured a cast full of other actors his age. Premier Trio, the Canadian show he led, was a young-adult hockey show. But his personal experience was very different between the series.

On Premier Trio, he was the oldest actor, and there was quite a gap between his co-stars — he recalls being 19 and his love interest being four years younger than him — and that made the dynamics different. “I felt like I needed to lead because I just felt like I was the older brother on the show,“ he says.

Lavoie was the second-youngest on Sterling Point. He jokes that he felt like the “little baby“ of the group. “To work with people your age is just always so much fun and makes the experience just so much more fun,“ he says. “It was like we were just this tight group of friends and did everything together. On our off days, we were playing pickleball and always at the park doing something. It was really magical.”

Thanks to Park, Lavoie felt extremely comfortable on the set. He admits he was nervous going into the show, but the showrunner, creator, writer and director helped keep him calm — he notes that she has a “young soul“ that makes anyone feel like her best friend instantly. The actor found that attitude take the pressure off of his shoulders.

Lavoie recalls Park empowering the actors. “She’d let us improvise a lot,“ he says.

“I remember she told us on the first few weeks, ‘Honestly guys, obviously, I wrote this script, but if you guys want to go off script and just say this line or say this however you feel like, just do it because you guys are the Gen Z and we’re trying to make the Gen Z audience connect and relate,’“ he adds. It seems to have worked, as the authentic dialogue has been a talking point on social media since Sterling Point came out earlier this month.

Lavoie still has one hope for what‘s next after. He adds, “I hope we get a season two because I want to live it again.“