Vanity Fair

contributors

On Sunday, March 15, Los Angeles announced the first phase of a stay-at-home order across the city. The following morning, Vanity Fair was scheduled to photograph Schitt’s Creek star Catherine O’Hara in L.A. Our photo team was suddenly confronted with two pressing questions: When could the shoot take place? And how? Before long, when and how became standard prompts for more than just photo shoots. In collaboration with some of photography’s most creative minds, V.F.’s June issue features portraits taken by drone and from more than 10,000 miles away through screens—fitting, perhaps, for an issue devoted to television. Throughout this magazine’s history, photographic portraiture has been an inherently intimate enterprise: photographer, subject, and stylist collaborating in person, in real time. To retain that intimacy in a moment of social distancing requires…

editor’s letter

Months ago, we began planning a June issue that would showcase the outsize footprint of television—streaming and network, scripted and unscripted—in our culture. In the weeks since early March, TV has only become more important. It’s no longer a diversion; it is as real as life gets, whether we are watching Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily PowerPoint presentations or bingeing Unorthodox or having videoconference dinners with our families. (Don’t bother tuning in to the president; you’ll learn more from the label on your spray can of Lysol, if you’re lucky enough to still have one.) So we kept our plan for this edition, which features a special issue-within-an-issue devoted to all things TV, edited by Jeff Giles and Hillary Busis. But like everything else this spring, it evolved in ways we had…

flip out

In the Netflix docuseries that follows the cheer squad of Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas, 20-year-old Harris became a breakout star for his indefatigable jubilance and characteristic “mat talk”—shouts of encouragement to pump up teammates. Here, the beloved underdog turned Hollywood hero shares quarantine motivation, memories from his first Oscar night, and what’s next for Navarro. HIS PASSION began “at a very young age. We never had the most money and I lost my mom at 16, but cheer has become my family. It has made me the person I am today.” WHEN NETFLIX first arrived at Navarro, some teammates turned it on for the cameras—“girls wanted makeup, guys wanted a haircut”—but not Harris: “I wasn’t going to just change the way I look, absolutely not!” THE SHOW catapulted Harris to stardom. He…

the beat goes on

SOUL SISTERS “We want to inspire more girls to pick up guitars, write, produce, and engineer,” says Danielle Haim of the L.A.-based band HAIM, who release their third studio album this summer. “We’re songwriters,” she adds, “but we’re also a rock band; it’s where we feel most ourselves.” The album, with the wry title Women in Music Pt. III, features songs written by all three Haim sisters—Danielle, Este, and Alana, who adds: “We’re always writing, especially when we aren’t touring. Danielle gets some of her best song ideas when we’re on an airplane about to take off; [this time] we had the best time experimenting with different sounds. This is the most confident we’ve ever felt on a record.” BOTH SIDES NOW Singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding releases her new album this summer, and she says,…

glad tidings

1. VITAMIN T Stella McCartney T-shirt Orange you glad you can wear your favorite citrus supplement? $350 (stellamccartney.com) 2. BURN BRIGHT Boy Smells Anjelica candle One in a six-color collection benefiting the Trevor Project, and launching in time for Pride, this cedar and juniper berry candle will uplift and soothe. $34 (boysmells.com) 3. A SHROOM WITH A VIEW John Cage: A Mycological Foray Take a ramble through the fungi with the late great John Cage in this two-volume collection of the composer’s personal photographs and writings. $55 (atelier-editions.com) 4. SCENT, MEMORY Astier de Villatte Pages à Parfumer Spritz these cards with a favorite eau de parfum and send them—along with fond thoughts—on their merry way. $55 (catbirdnyc.com)…

dream stream

If you loved recent best-picture winner Parasite, you may want to check out the new series Snowpiercer (TNT), which is based on an earlier film from Parasite director Bong Joon Ho. Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs star. (For more on the movie’s reconception as a series, turn to page 92.) If Tiger King and other true-crime twists and turns haven’t left you sated, Netflix’s dark comedy Dead to Me has returned for a second season. It’s a fictional thriller that’s just as gripping as fact, and its star Christina Applegate has never been better. If you’re celebrating the 35th anniversary of Les Mis on the West End (and were team La La Land at the 2017 Oscars), try The Eddy, a Netflix musical series set in Paris by La La Land director…