Nexus Studios has added director Carlos López Estrada to its commercialmaking roster. Among his credits are the feature films Raya and the Last Dragon and Blindspotting, which earned him Oscar and DGA Award nominations, respectively. The Academy Award nod came earlier this year for Best Animated Feature Film (López Estrada and Don Hall directed Raya and the Last Dragon). Three years earlier, the live-action Blindspottimg–starring and co-written by Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal–garnered López Estrada the DGA nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a First-Time Feature Film.
Blindspotting premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Lionsgate Entertainment. President Obama cited it as one of his favorite movies of the year. A spin-off TV sequel premiered in 2021.
López Estrada’s awards recognition also extends into shorter form fare, including a Latin Grammy for his Jesse & Joy music video “Me Voy.” The director’s clever concept-driven music promos showcase a variety of innovative and wildly imaginative techniques, including bringing Billie Eilish to gruesome tears, casting a troop of real life baboons in a video for pop-quartet Caged Animals, creating a cut out performance from "Hamilton" star Diggs, and bringing together the unexpected pairing of Katy Perry and Pikachu.
The work of López Estrada has been featured in SXSW, the L.A. Film Festival, Cartoon Network and the Hammer Museum as well as high profile publications including Vice, TIME Magazine and The Guardian.
He is currently directing a thought-provoking, animated feature documentary in development at Nexus Studios, set to release in 2023, as well as the live-action adaptation of Disney’s Robin Hood.
“Carlos is a unique talent with a body of work that encompasses high-end animated features, inventive music work and emotionally impactful live action storytelling. He’s a lovely human being with a rare combination of talents,” said Christopher O’Reilly, co-founder and ECD, Nexus Studios.
López Estrada stated, “Joining the Nexus family is a dream. I’ve been in awe of their creativity and their innovation for a long time. I cannot wait to get started making things together.”
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More