60 | NOVEMBER 17 • 2022 

 
MORE FABELMANS, 
AMAZON COMEDY, 
STALLONE’S NEW FAMILY
As I wrote last week, The 
Fabelmans opens wide in 
theaters on Friday, Nov. 
23. It’s a “sort of” memoir 
of Steven Spielberg’s teen 
years, and it was directed 
and co-written by Spielberg, 
75. 
I have to add to my last 
column. First, to my great 
surprise, Spielberg disclosed 
the “devasting family 
secret,” as it was described 
in the Fabelmans’ advance 
publicity, in an interview 
(Nov. 6) with CBS Sunday 
Morning. The interview is 
posted on YouTube. It’s 
entitled Steven Spielberg on 
The Fabelmans: A Happy 
Beginning.
Not only does Steven 
“spill the beans”— the CBS 
interview includes an excerpt 
of an old interview with 
Spielberg’s now-late parents 
in which they discuss “the 
secret” or “secrets” (there 
are really two highly related 
secrets). 
 Don’t watch the interview 
or read detailed critics’ 
reviews if you want to learn 
the “secret” from a film 
showing. Do watch it after 
for “the whole story.” 
Last week, I wrote that 
Gabriel Labelle, 20, who 

plays Sammy Fabelman 
(the Steven-like character), 
isn’t Jewish. I’m now reliably 
informed that his father, 
character actor Rob Labelle, 
60, is Jewish. (It is very hard 
to find info on Gabriel’s 
mother).
Gabriel, a Vancouver 
native, has had some 
Canadian TV roles. He 
was picked out of 2,000 
actors who were invited to 
audition for the Sammy role. 
In a Vulture interview, he 
seems to say he identifies 
as Jewish. Vulture writes:
“Labelle and Spielberg 
connected over the 
experience of growing up 
as the lone Jewish kid at 
school, wondering whether 
certain classmates ‘were 
being hateful or trying to be 
funny and didn’t have that 
empathy.’”
She Said is a dramatic film 
(opens Nov. 18) about Jodi 
Kantor and Megan Twohey, 
the NY Times reporters who 
broke the story that big-time 
movie producer Harvey 
Weinstein, now 70, was a 
serial sex harasser (and, 
now, a convicted rapist). 
Their 2017 investigative 
reporting was so detailed 
that, within weeks, Weinstein 
was fired by his production 
company and stripped 
of his membership in the 
Motion Picture Academy 
(which gives the Oscars). 
Their reporting greatly 
helped launch the “me too” 
movement, a movement 
that has really changed the 
culture. 
Not surprisingly, Kantor 
and Twohey shared the 
2018 Pulitzer Prize for 
Public Service. In 2019, they 
wrote a book, titled She 
Said, about the Weinstein 
investigation. When She 
Said came out, I quoted 
something Kantor, now 
47, said in 2017: “I grew 

up around people with 
numbers on their arms — my 
grandparents are Holocaust 
survivors. It led me to think 
about the big questions we 
often ask in investigative 
journalism: ‘How could 
something like this have 
gone on? What allowed this 
to happen?’”
Zoe Kazan plays Kantor in 
the film. This is her second 
Jewish role in the last few 
years. I won’t kvetch: Her 
grandfather, the late Elia 
Kazan, directed Gentlemen’s 
Agreement (1947), the first 
blockbuster film about 
American antisemitism. (The 
movie won the best pic 
Oscar and Kazan got the 
best director Oscar). 
Rebecca Lenkiewicz, 
44, wrote the She Said 
screenplay. I’m not sure what 
her formal Jewish ties are. 
Her late stepfather, popular 
English painter Robert 
Lenkiewicz, was the son 
of Jewish refugees from 
Germany. Unlike her two 
“full” brothers, Rebecca took 
Robert’s last name. She has 
co-written two acclaimed 
Jewish-themed films 
(Disobedience and Ida). 
The People We Hate at 
the Wedding is an original 
Amazon comedy film that 
begins streaming on Nov. 18. 
Here’s the official capsule 
description: “Struggling 
American siblings Alice 
[Kristen Bell] and Paul [Ben 
Platt, 29] reluctantly agree to 

attend the wedding of their 
estranged, wealthy half-sister 
in the English countryside 
alongside their mother, 
Donna [Allison Janney].” 
 The trailer gives us a little 
more information. Platt, who 
has long been openly gay, 
plays a gay character. Donna 
is “OK” with Paul being 
gay but is very awkward in 
conveying this. 
Tulsa King, a series, began 
streaming on Paramount+ on 
Nov. 13. Sylvester Stallone 
(whose maternal grandfather 
was Jewish) stars as Dwight 
Manfredi, a NYC Mafia big-
wig who has just finished a 
25-year prison sentence. His 
boss sends him to Tulsa to 
establish a crime operation 
there. Not knowing anyone 
in Tulsa, Manfredi has to 
build his own “family.”
Max Casella, 55, plays 
Armand, Manfredi’s right 
hand man. Casella, whose 
father was Jewish, had a 
pretty big recurring role on 
The Sopranos as gangster 
Benny Fazio, a Soprano 
Mafia family member. 
Andrea Savage, 49, a 
quite talented actress best 
known for her comedic 
roles, has a “main cast” 
role as a federal ATF agent 
stationed in Tulsa.
Frankly, I think that the 
Tulsa premise, for too many 
reasons to mention here, 
is absurd. But maybe many 
viewers won’t notice. 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

ARTS&LIFE

BY DANIEL BENAVIDES

Ben Platt

BY SA 2.0, WIKIPEDIA

Gabriel Labelle

BY GREG2600 

Max Casella

