BY TIMOTHY BELLAJ.B. Smoove did not know what he was getting
himself into when he was asked to race Larry David
at a s ki resort in 2011, but one element was both
clear and familiar: He expected his longtime friend
and boss on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” to fail in
spectacular and preposterous fashion.
Smoove had not skied in 10 years but figured he
could get away with starting halfway down the slope
in Park City, Utah, with his skis tilted together like a
slice of pizza to carefully go downhill. David wasn’t
having it, insisting he would start from the top of the
steep hill for the charity fundraiser hosted by Robert
F. Kennedy Jr. What unfolded next, Smoove said,
could only be described as “a ‘Curb’ moment” —
inevitably, something bad happened to David in real
life as it regularly does on the show.
“Larry proceeded to fall four times before he got
to the bottom of the hill,” Smoove told The Washing-
ton Post, adding that he was making snow angels
while he waited for David to mercifully complete his
skiing struggle. “You know how cartoon characters
fall and roll and become a big-a-- snowball? I
thought Larry was going to become a snowball
himself; that’s how many times he was rolling down
that damn hill.”
Luckily, Smoove has largely avoided “Curb” mo-ments worthy of the show’s unmistakable tuba-
heavy theme in the 14 years since he joined the HBO
series. Instead, the fast-talking New Yorker with
high-end fashion sense to match his loquacious-
ness, has reached new heights thanks to his role as
Leon Black on “Curb,” where he’s formed a celebrat-
ed and often-quoted comedic duo with David, the
show’s creator.
Smoove, 55, is seemingly everywhere these days,
in part because of his role as spokesman for Caesars
Sportsbook, a gambling and fantasy sports app
whose aggressive marketing campaign has made
the comedian an inescapable presence on TV and
Twitter. And his stardom has soared even more after
he recently won his first Emmy for his role in Quibi’s
“Mapleworth Murders” — which is both great for his
career and more complicated for his home life.
“All my shelves in the house are more narrow than
the Emmy. The Emmy is sticking out over the edge!”
he said of his trophy for outstanding actor in a short
form comedy or drama series. “I don’t want the
Emmy to feel like it’s on the edge of a cliff, you know
what I mean?”
Now, Smoove will step back into the role that
made him a household name when “Curb Your
SEE J.B. SMOOVE ON C2J.B. Smoove’s enthusiastic
approach to acting humor
The offbeat co-star of Larry David’s returning HBO comedy has this gift of the profane gab
“We’re back,”
Sheila Johnson
proclaimed as
she greeted a
packed
ballroom at
her
Salamander
Resort and Spa on Oct. 14, the
opening night of the
Middleburg Film Festival.
The evening’s film, “King
Richard,” starring Will Smith as
tennis patriarch Richard
Williams (father of Venus and
Serena), officially kicked off
Middleburg’s ninth edition. But
in many ways, it marked a
whole new beginning after
nearly two years of shutdowns,
postponements, scuttled plans
and cancellations.
Middleburg weathered the
upheavals with ingenuity last
year, shifting screenings to a
drive-in screen in the 340-acre
resort’s sprawling parking lot,
and showing other movies on
an inflatable screen on the
generous back lawn. The
festival kept the drive-in this
year, but it also welcomed
viewers back inside, albeit with
SEE HORNADAY ON C2
After
shutdowns,
filmmakers
open up in
Middleburg
Ann
Hornaday
GREG DOHERTY/ART DIRECTORS GUILD/GETTY IMAGESJ.B. Smoove, pictured at the Art Directors Guild Awards in April, returns for the new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on
HBO. The actor, who plays the highly quotable Leon, shared a strong comedic bond with series star Larry David.BY SARAH L. KAUFMANNo major choreographer has
worked harder to bring spiritual
awareness to the human heart
than Ronald K. Brown. His danc-
es concern our struggle to find
love and connection, where com-
passion alone can ease the gruel-
ing physical journey of life. True
to form, the three works per-
formed by Ronald K. Brown/Evi-
dence at the Kennedy Center on
Thursday night took up this
theme, though in unexpected
ways. (The program continues
through Saturday.)
His 1999 work “Grace,” which
capped the evening, wastes no
time getting to the point. It
doesn’t indulge in scene-setting
or role-playing; it doesn’t beat
around the bush. Urgent and
immediate, it plunges straight
into the disorganized ferocity and
yearning of the human experi-
ence. A fiery angel takes a disor-
dered group of humans into
hand, and by the work’s end,
they’ve been softened, polished.
They melt toward one another,
they move in sympathetic unity,
and the gate of heaven opens up.
“Mercy,” a 2019 work that
SEE DANCE REVIEW ON C2DANCE REVIEWRonald
K. Brown’s
graceful
program
KLMNO
Style
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23 , 2021. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ SU C
BY JACLYN PEISER,
SONIA RAO
AND TIMOTHY BELLAActor Alec Baldwin fatally shot
a cinematographer and injured
the director on a f ilm set in New
Mexico on Thursday after dis-
charging a prop firearm, officials
said.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s
Office received a 911 call reporting
a shooting on the set of the west-
ern “Rust,” according to a news
release. Cinematographer Halyna
Hutchins, 42, was pronounced
dead at the University of New
Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque
after being transported via heli-
copter. Director Joel Souza, 48,
was taken by ambulance to Chris-
tus St. Vincent Regional Medical
Center in Santa Fe, and later re-
leased. Production has halted, ac-
cording to the Associated Press.
Baldwin, 63, said in a pair of
tweets sent Friday morning:
“There are no words to convey my
shock and sadness regarding the
tragic accident that took the life of
Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother
and deeply admired colleague of
ours. I’m fully cooperating with
the police investigation to address
how this tragedy occurred and I
am in touch with her husband,offering my support to him and his
family. My heart is broken for her
husband, their son, and all who
knew and loved Halyna.”
The sheriff’s of fice said i ts in-
vestigation remains “open and ac-
tive.”
“No charges have been filed in
regard to this incident,” the office
said. “Witnesses continue to be
interviewed by detectives.”
The incident occurred at Bo-
nanza Creek Ranch, a popular
filming location near Santa Fe.
Baldwin discharged the prop fire-
arm while in character, authori-
ties said.
Officials said an assistant direc-tor who h anded Baldwin the load-
ed prop gun on the set of the
western “Rust” told the actor the
firearm was “cold,” or unloaded.
The assistant director “did not
know live rounds were in” one of
the three guns set aside on a cart
for filming before Baldwin fired
the gun, striking cinematogra-
pher Hutchins in the chest and
director Souza in the shoulder,
according to court records ob-
tained by the Associated Press,
New York Times and Santa Fe
Reporter on Friday. The document
does not answer how the live
round ended up in th e gun.
Juan Rios, a s pokesman for thesheriff’s of fice, told The Washing-
ton Post detectives are investigat-
ing how many prop firearms were
on the set, how they were handled
and what projectiles were dis-
charged. The sheriff’s of fice ex-
pects to have more information
early next week.
Firearm experts, writers and
producers have wondered aloud
how the incident on the “Rust” set
occurred. While some producers
insist on using prop guns with
blanks to closely capture the
sound and look of a real gun firing,
others have been calling for them
to be banished from film sets, say-
ing that computer-generated im-aging offers a s afer alternative.
“There’s no reason to have guns
loaded with blanks or anything on
set anymore,” tweeted director
Craig Zobel, whose credits include
the 2020 film “The Hunt” and
HBO’s “Mare of Easttown.”
“Should just be fully outlawed.
There’s computers now.”
A regular gun cartridge is made
up of a shell casing holding a
propellant powder. When a nor-
mal gun is fired, the propellant is
ignited and the bullet attached to
the front of the shell casing is
activated. The blanks used in prop
guns generally have a material
SEE BALDWIN ON C4Cinematographer dies in prop-gun incident on set of Alec Baldwin movie