I visited Los Angeles a few months ago for the first time since February 2020. It was wonderful to see our Hollywood writers and editors in person and to feel the excitement around all the excellent movies coming out this fall and winter. I’ve been going to screenings in New York and have been so happy to reconnect with that state of emerging from a dark theater into the afternoon sunlight, still shaking off the imagined world you’ve inhabited for the last couple of hours. The disconnect between a city street and a cinematic universe only makes the film’s impression stronger. As a person who remembers the advent of the VCR, it still seems like a miracle that I can watch so many movies anytime at home—but, with the requisite precautions in place, I’ve been extra-glad to get back to the theater. Our Awards Insider team is covering this season as only Vanity Fair can, with daily updates on critic-bestowed honors, the state of the Oscar race, and expert insights into all the filmmaking components that come together to make a contender. Our first of two special issues this season features Belfast’s Caitríona Balfe, star of the cult favorite Outlander, whose performance in Kenneth Branagh’s film about the Troubles has brought her new acclaim and further kindled her ambitions in acting and directing.
It was a fun and busy week in L.A. At the LACMA Art+Film Gala I had the pleasure of seeing artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley honored, alongside Steven Spielberg. And I caught up with Priyanka Chopra Jonas, at a party she and her husband Nick Jonas hosted for Diwali. There were warm and welcoming lights all the way up the driveway, and everybody danced, and it felt like we all had reason to celebrate. As Rebecca Ford writes in her cover story, Priyanka enters 2022 with her cup overflowing: projects ranging from her recent turn in The Matrix Resurrections to new productions with Amazon Studios to her first Hindi film in a number of years, which she’ll shoot in India alongside two Bollywood actors. Listening to her, you get the sense she’s a woman at the top of her game who is also, in her own words, “at a precipice of reinvention.”
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— Caitríona Balfe’s Celtic Conquest, From Outlander to Belfast
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— The Life and Death of Rosanne Boyland, a Capitol Rioter
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