All posts tagged: Friendship

‘The Queen is terrified of what the outcome will be for their friendship’

‘The Queen is terrified of what the outcome will be for their friendship’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Add Bridgerton to your watchlist Ruth Gemmell plays Lady Violet Bridgerton Daniel Francis as Lord Anderson, Ruth Gemmell as Lady Violet Bridgerton. Liam Daniel/Netflix In its own impeccable way, Bridgerton has always pushed TV boundaries. The surprise for series four is that it’s Ruth Gemmell’s character, matriarch Lady Violet, doing some of the pushing. “Mostly she does more of the same this year,” says Gemmell, “trying to force her children into marriage. She’s rather irritated with Benedict at the beginning because he’s not really playing ball. But she also spends a lot more time with Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis).” “Spending a lot more time” is Gemmell’s euphemism for what becomes quite the steamy romance with Anderson. “I was a little bit scared when I read the scripts, if I’m honest. Just because I’m pushing 60 and the idea of having the same kind of storyline as the children was not massively appealing. But it was a laugh. Daniel’s lovely and it was a bit of a chance to do something different.” Violet’s relationship with Marcus is …

The Secret to Hollywood’s Most Enduring Friendship

The Secret to Hollywood’s Most Enduring Friendship

Published by Sam Flores

Here’s a good rule of thumb for making a movie: Don’t allow the press tour to be the most exciting component. The Rip, from the director Joe Carnahan, is a cop drama where macho guys (and gals) tote carbine rifles and grunt law-enforcement lingo—the kind of crime-genre pablum that commonly gets thrown onto Netflix in mid-January. But this one comes with a ridiculously stacked cast, including, most important, its two leads: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The longtime Hollywood pals have dutifully hit the promotional circuit to talk up their latest collaboration, as well as argue over who’s the bigger New England Patriots fan, reminisce on their former shared bank account, and generally remind everyone about the wholesome endurance of their creative bond. But none of that cheerfulness or easy friend chemistry can be found in the film they’re plugging. Damon and Affleck have acted together on-screen numerous times, but this is their first time sharing the top billing since Dogma, their 1999 dark comedy about a pair of fallen angels. The hiatus makes The …

Kal Penn on Industry’s New Rich Slob and Friendship With Zohran Mamdani

Kal Penn on Industry’s New Rich Slob and Friendship With Zohran Mamdani

Published by Jenni Sidey

For Industry superfan Kal Penn, the opportunity to appear in the fourth season of HBO’s finance drama was an instant ‘yes.’ And then he remembered the other thing that Industry is about. “I was like, ‘Oh, but do I have to take my clothes off? I really should read it first,’’ Penn recalls. “I read the first four episodes, and I was like, ‘So I don’t get to take my clothes off? Like, why not? I could get into really good shape in three months!’” In the end, Penn didn’t have to undress, though, as doomed Tender CEO Jonah Atterbury, he does spend most of the season 4 premiere, “PayPal of Bukkake,” talking about his sex life and fetishes (and yes, Jonah does declare that he’s a big fan of what’s referenced in the episode title). After season 3 left behind the not-so friendly confines of Pierpoint, the new era of Industry finds its returning capitalists spread out, and introduces Tender, a platform originally intended to help reroute porn payments. Co-founders and longtime friends Jonah …

The Messiness of Friendship

The Messiness of Friendship

Published by Daniella Wilson

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. At one point or another, we’ve all probably been that friend—the one who calls, texts, or sends a five-minute voice note with a long list of grievances. In the midst of complaining, a person might wonder: Am I venting too much? During a moment when much of modern friendship advice emphasizes trying not to overshare, venting—once treated as a basic expression of closeness—has come to be seen as risky, even impolite, Julie Beck writes. The fear of being “too much” or of “trauma-dumping” has led many people to hold back, Julie notes. Taken too far, this caution risks flattening friendship itself, she warns. Listening to your friends vent can be draining, yes—but it can also build intimacy. Friendship isn’t about setting perfect boundaries: It’s about making room, sometimes messily, for one another. Today’s newsletter is about the small, …

The Common Friendship Behavior That Has Become Strangely Fraught

The Common Friendship Behavior That Has Become Strangely Fraught

Published by Daniella Wilson

A boogeyman haunts the realm of friendship advice: the friend who vents too much. Although people have surely been complaining since the dawn of language, and getting annoyed at one another about it for nearly as long, venting about how much other people are venting has lately gotten very loud. Etiquette books, advice columns, and talking-head TikToks have taken up the issue of over-venting. Complaining too much sometimes gets framed as not just irritating but “toxic,” and sharing problems is sometimes described as “trauma dumping.” Those on the receiving end of complaints bemoan their status as the “therapist friend.” The message is: Vent with caution. Therapists and researchers I spoke with have also noticed a heightened anxiety among their patients and research subjects about venting. “It’s a real-life thing,” Peter Mallory, a sociologist at St. Francis Xavier University, told me. He said that when he interviews people about their friendships, he frequently hears them “talking about the burdens of other people coming to them when they need emotional support.” In turn, some people seem to …

The Chemistry of Friendship

The Chemistry of Friendship

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Scientists are vitally interested in understanding social behaviors and the bonds we form with “conspecifics” (other members of the same species) because the overwhelming majority of studies of social behaviors have shown that the ability to form a bond with another person is linked to a healthier, happier, and longer life (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton, 2010). In addition, the inability to form a bond with someone else is often a symptom of psychiatric disorder. If we want to understand psychiatric problems like depression, schizophrenia, and addiction, then understanding how to form a social bond is essential. Bonding between mating pairs, at least monogamous bond formation, is actually relatively rare, even in social animals. Lots of bird species form mating bonds, some lasting a lifetime, but among mammals, the bonds that are formed are more likely to be temporary, lasting only a mating season and not for the lifespan of the animal. Luckily for researchers interested in social bonding, some species of animals mimic our human propensity to form lasting, monogamous bonds with another. One of …