Emerging Hollywood

Telling his story: Emmy-winning Master of None co-creator and writer Alan Yang was featured on Emerging Hollywood, a new interview series hosted by Charlamagne tha God, where they discussed whitewashing in comedy, working with Aziz Ansari and his influences.

+ When it comes to whitewashing in Hollywood, Yang isn't sure the practice will ever fully stop, but he noted that "it's really the most disappointing when there are characters based on Asian characters and they still don't give it to an Asian actor, because if you're not going to give us that, we're not getting the normal shit either, so where are we going to start?" Watch.

What to watch this weekend…

THR critic Daniel Fienberg sends his recommendation:

Last week in this space, we recommended you binge the first season of Amazon's Fleabag. That was because the best new thing on TV this weekend is the second season of Amazon's Fleabag. It's tart and hilarious and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a gosh-darned international treasure.

If you want to continue to think ahead, though, you should definitely check out the first season of Starz's Vida. The first season is a sexy, provocative, emotional, occasionally hilarious pleasure and the second season premieres next week, so be prepared!

What else we're reading…

— "Tel Aviv, in Need of Distraction, Hosts the Eurovision Song Contest." Bernard Avishai writes: "The tourists, one surmises, are young, comparatively strapped, and more interested in one another than in the city—in a way, the greatest tribute of all. The city’s strength, much like New York’s, is what it enables, not necessarily how it looks." [The New Yorker]

— "Ava DuVernay’s Fight to Tell the True Story of the Central Park Five." Nicole Sperling reports: "She shot all five hours in New York City in just 66 days. The subject matter was so dark that DuVernay provided a crisis counselor on set. She spent a lot of her own time counseling others, too." [Vanity Fair]

— "Give George R.R. Martin Some Respect." Brian Phillips considers: "Without Martin’s storytelling gifts to guide the series—without his understanding of the characters he created and the world into which he set them loose—Game of Thrones has lost its way, and more than that, it’s lost its way without evidently knowing or caring that it has." [The Ringer]

— "The Phantom Menace Wasn’t Great, but Its Force Still Runs Strong." Scott Tobias considers, on the film's 20th anniversary: "Lucas’s obsession with world-building in [the film] proved a more lasting contribution to film and television in the 21st century than it might have seemed at the time." [The New York Times]

— "How Sally Wainwright Conquered TV." Rebecca Nicholson explores: "I asked her why it had taken so long for her to get to the powerful position she is in now, considering she had been a professional writer for so many years. 'I’m a woman,' she said, with a shrug." [The Guardian]

What we're watching…

+ "David Letterman's surprise when interviewing Kanye West." [Sunday TODAY]

From the archives…

+ Today in 1995: At the Seattle Film Festival, Mel Gibson premiered Braveheart, the 13th-century war epic inspired by William Wallace and the Scots' fight for independence. The Gibson-directed film won best picture and best director at the 68th Academy Awards: "Mr. Gibson has come through with an exhilarating new-fashioned epic." [The New York Times]

[icon:birthday] Today's birthdays: Violett Beane, 23, Allen Leech, 38, Tina Fey, 49, Chow Yun-Fat, 64, Patrick St. Esprit, 65, Mark Mothersbaugh, 69, Robert Morse, 88.