Eagles in Hollywood

Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler ’93 is back in movie theaters this spring with Inside Out 2, a sequel to the 2015 Pixar hit about human emotions. Poehler returns as the embodiment of joy, who lives inside a young girl’s head, along with anger, fear, sadness, and disgust. The first film saw Poehler’s character, Joy, struggle when Sadness becomes a stronger part of the girl’s emotional life as she begins to enter puberty, and the sequel takes the girl deeper into adolescence.

Comedian and writer Gary Gulman ’93 ended 2023 strong, with the premiere of his latest comedy special, Born on Third Base. The show, which examines Gulman’s childhood growing up in poverty, is streaming on MAX and was called both “radical” and “technically impeccable” in a rave review by New York magazine, which praised his ability to mine comedy from heavy subject matter. Gulman also recently published a memoir, Misfit, about growing up as an awkward kid in 1980s Boston.

Writer and director Lulu Wang ’05 serves as the showrunner on the new Amazon Prime series Expats, which stars Nicole Kidman and follows the lives of a group of expatriates living in Hong Kong. Wang, who is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed film The Farewell, directed every episode of Expats, which is based on a novel by Janice Y. K. Lee about three women leading very disparate lives who find connection and community with each other while living abroad.