Dustin Hoffman had a “terrible” time filming his iconic 1967 film “The Graduate.”
In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, “Look at Me,” obtained by the New Yorker, the Golden Globe winner described “often [feeling] like he was about to be fired” while working with director Mike Nichols.
Noting that Nichols seemed to become “an entirely different person” once shooting began, Hoffman said the switch from “wonderful” to critical was “shocking” and “destabilizing.”
He found himself “in a state of constant anxiety.”
He recalled, “The whole time, I felt Mike was angry at me, either because I was doing something wrong or because he had realized what everybody else already knew, that he had miscast the lead in his film.”
Hoffman even heard from theatre director Ulu Grosbard, after an on-set visit, that Nichols was “very much” regretting hiring the actor to play Benjamin Braddock.
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At the time, Hoffman felt like he never wanted to “make another movie again for the rest of [his] life.”
He described harsh notes from Nichols, down to criticism of his eyebrows and his “neck look[ing] too thick.”
Hoffman remembered, “His mood would shift dramatically. I don’t remember the scene, but I will never forget Mike’s acid voice saying to me, after one take: ‘What were you doing?’ … Do the opposite of that.’”
He recalled doing other scenes that left him “trashed from exhaustion and dehydration.”
The film — which depicts Braddock’s affair with family friend Mrs. Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft — went on to become a classic, with Nichols nabbing an Oscar in 1968 for best director.
Hoffman earned his first of seven Academy Award nominations for the role, as well as a Golden Globe win.
Nichols died in 2014 at 83 and, in his tell-all, Hoffman dubbed “The Graduate” a “self-portrait” of the EGOT winner’s life.
He called the project a “stand-in … to absorb Mike’s self-loathing,” explaining that Nichols had once said himself that it was his “unconscious making that movie.”
“Look at Me” hits bookshelves Nov. 10.
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Ellen DeGeneres is mourning the loss of Matthew Wright, who worked as an executive producer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show for 16 years and appeared frequently on the show. Wright died Friday, October 30, “in an unfathomable tragedy” while he was working remotely in Los Angeles, according to a GoFundMe for his family. He was 52. No details about the cause of his death were shared.
“In an unfathomable tragedy, Matt Wright passed away Oct 30th while working remotely in Los Angeles His husband, father, sister and niece are in New York, desperate to be reunited for a proper goodbye. We’re asking for all of his friends, who Matt loved so fully, to help the family at this time. As many of you know, Matt and Justin were both laid off this summer. And the unexpected costs of getting Matt home, a funeral and a memorial are impossible for the family to bear,” the GoFundMe continued.
“If Matt has ever made you laugh, said an encouraging word right when you needed it, or ordered one too many appetizers for the enjoyment of the whole table, now is the time to repay the favor. Please donate what you can and share this with anyone who’s been in the orbit of Matt’s huge heart. And when you’re at dinner and see a sunset, know that Matt is looking down, loving you, but wildly disappointed in what you ordered.”
DeGeneres shared a tearful video, saying: “He was an amazing guy. He was funny. God, he made me laugh. He would surprise me with things that he did all the time. He was smart. He was kind. He was the part of our show that — I mean, everyone loved him. I loved him. And it’s just shocking — it’s shocking,” she said. “We’re gonna miss him. He is and always will be the glue to our entire family at the ‘Ellen Show.’”
Wright was a regular presence on the show, appearing frequently in a recurring segment called “Strong Opinions with Matt”. You can watch one of the segments here:
Wright also was a producer on several episodes of DeGeneres’ Ellen’s Game of Games in 2017-18 and her 2009 special Ellen’s Bigger, Longer & Uncut. He began his TV career as a producer on the 2002-06 SoapNet series Soap Talk. He
Andy Lassner, who also served as an EP of the Ellen DeGeneres Show, shared photos of him and Wright on the Jennifer Hudson Show set that were taken on Thursday, the day before Wright’s death. Lassner said Wright had stopped by the set to visit.
“We are all in shock. He was a brilliant producer and an even better human being,” Lassner wrote. “The way he looked after his mom, flying back and forth from Los Angeles to New York practically every weekend before she died, showed what an incredible son he was. He gave that same depth of love to his friendships. My heart breaks for his husband, Justin, his family, and all of us who loved him. I was so lucky to work beside Matt for so many years and to call him my friend. We should have had so much more time with him.”
Wright’s survivors include his husband Justin Fusella.

The highway of modern music flows through only a narrow band of people. Juan Atkins was one of them. Born on the east side of Detroit in 1962, Atkins died this past Saturday night, at 63, in his fifth consecutive decade of spreading the techno gospel. Provenance is a claim plenty snatch at these days, yet in Atkins’ case it was fundamentally and incontrovertibly true. From the 1980s onward, he gifted techno its sound, its name, and many of its all-time classics.
The formation of techno in the crucible of Detroit is well-trodden by now. Reams of excellent books and documentaries are available chronicling the scene’s foresight and velocity, from Techno Rebels and Electrochoc to Assembling a Black Counter Culture and God Said Give ’Em Drum Machines. Through Cybotron, Model 500, and the Belleville Three, Atkins influence on electronic music was so totalizing, it actually tended to eclipse his catalog. His nicknames usually reflect his role as a catalyst—The Initiator, The Originator, The Godfather—yet less so his ingenuity and down-home dedication.
But don’t underrate the man. Neither the Belleville Three nor the wider Techno Six would have risen without Atkins as the glue. It was Juan’s patient hand that guided Kevin Saunderson’s first production, “Triangle of Love,” to completion and helped show Derrick May how to mix records. Atkins prided himself on being a master of programmed basslines—accurately, I might add—but what we hear alongside that is the work of a malleable and highly gifted collaborator.
Even as European dance music boomed in the ’90s, offering vast commercial incentives to relocate, Atkins stayed put in the D. He’s there, in 1996’s Universal Techno, hobnobbing amiably with people who may or may not have any idea that this man qualitatively upended and reshaped the cultural history of their city. If he took flight, why should anyone stay? He was always readily available to fund acts through his label, assist artists like DJ Minx with their early break on Deep Space Radio, or make his studio available for the development of a wild conveyor belt of emerging talent, including Terrence Dixon, Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir, and DJ Stingray, who once told The Wire he laid down his first record in 1987 “at Juan Atkins’ studio, on the spot, right there.” With all of the Belleville Three operational on the same block, it’s not hard to see Gratiot Avenue as techno’s own Hitsville U.S.A.
The first and second waves of Black American dance music have been stung by loss after loss, but as the first founding father of techno to go, Atkins’ death is especially heavy. The world looked very different when he started in 2026. Bear in mind that, when Atkins began his journey, the notions of both the Information Age (which he read about in Alvin Toffler’s 1980 book The Third Wave) and mixing sequenced beats (which he heard local DJ Ken Collier do on the radio) were in their infancy. It snaps into focus how much this young man was a vessel of history across technological, musical, and conceptual lines.
Atkins had lived with health problems for years. In 2015, he disclosed that he was receiving dialysis for kidney failure caused by diabetes. He still worked ceaselessly despite visible fatigue. His presence on the scene was something we all probably took for granted—for my sins, I passed up a chance to see him play an afterparty for Kraftwerk in Detroit, which feels profoundly idiotic now. Only a few months apart in 2025, I did at least make sure to watch Atkins lay down an ambient set alongside Wata Igarashi, perform inside a laser-spewing head with Cybotron, and lead a marvellously electro-heavy London night, also featuring Dopplereffekt, DMX Krew and Onur Özer, that simply would not have existed if you removed him from the electronic timeline.
That role was the principal takeaway as tributes flooded in yesterday. Alongside a glimpse into his life as a mentor, there was an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards him, beamed in from every corner of electronic music and clubland. He wasn’t one of those artists who only becomes cherished in reflection, mythologized in past tense; thankfully, for once, he got his flowers in real time. Truly, we owe this entire thing to Juan Atkins.
Atkins’ earliest work betrays the impressions left on his spongy mind: his grandmother Lily jamming boogie-woogie on the Hammond B3; his idol George Clinton’s fondness for loud handclaps on the 2 and 4; or the role of Vietnam vet and stargazing fabulist Richard Davis, who was, by the late ’70s, already a skilled charmer of the ARP Axxe synthesizer. Inevitably, the group they formed was funky. In a delightful piece of transference from state war apparatus to working-class counterculture, Cybotron’s 1981 debut “Alleys of Your Mind” was funded in part through Davis’ soldier benefits, and while its influence on techno is beyond reproach, the song’s proximity to Ultravox’s “Mr. X” is enough to tilt our telescope elsewhere. “Cosmic Cars” is the one.
As the first Cybotron cut Atkins was in the driver’s seat for, his belief in the cosmic potential of most objects (raindance? couriers?) retains great charm. At a time when hip-hop had b-boy snap, and techno was still linked to electro-funk, the interplay between the three emergent sounds was at maximum harmony. The story goes that Atkins arrived in NYC with copies of “Cosmic Cars” to promo, only to hear “Planet Rock” and realize the future he cradled under his arms was already out of date. (”Damn!” Atkins recalled saying to himself. “They beat us to the punch!”) Steel sharpened steel: by the following year, Cybotron went “Clear,” one of the genre’s enduring standards, and electronic music’s forked path raced into view.
Model 500 – “Night Drive (Thru-Babylon)” [1985]
In 1982, a Billboard report on new movements in pop culture described “Cosmic Cars” as “a mix of Prince and Gary Numan.” That wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it betrayed the limitations of language to seize the potential and finer details of a new form that was beginning to coalesce. Flash forward three years, and the T-word was out of containment. So if techno has a Rosetta Stone, it’s M-001 and M-002. No debate.
Everything you need to know about early techno is etched onto the initial pair of releases on Atkins’ Metroplex. “No UFOs” is one of, if not the first, techno songs of all time, a clear progenitor to the self-sufficiency anthems Underground Resistance would make their own in years that followed. But no musical movement can sustain without heat and propulsion, and that’s what “Night Drive (Thru-Babylon)” gives you. Metro Times, a Porsche; deep atmospherics, uncanny sci-fi vignettes; leery lyrics which could be interpreted as either deadpan or, perhaps, an uneasy orange flag; the Transmat refrain and “techno beat” on Atkins’ mind: it’s all here. This sound was about to be very, very cool indeed.
Magic Juan ft. Normski – “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” [1989]
…and also, from time to time, a little passé! Here’s one wrinkle in the tapestry of techno you can’t easily iron out. Well before their endeavours in the shadow of a crumbling Motor City became intellectual fodder, first wave producers did play the commercial game when expedient. This topped out in 1988, as Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit hit Europe, and Saunderson’s pop-leaning trio with Atkins, Inner City, swept the UK and U.S. charts, sparking an international frenzy of ponytail-swinging and dungaree-twirling. Meanwhile, as hip-house took hold Stateside, those who had licked a new sonic language weren’t going to sit a profitable wave out.
And lo, that’s how The Godfather wound up horsing around on a bouncy sorta-rap cut with London’s club muse and scene gadfly Normski. Atkins would bust out his Magic Juan alias well into the ’90s to signal a playful mood, be it remixes of Inner City or breaks-accented house stompers with ‘Shake’ Shakir as Visions. “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” is nevertheless the apex mountain of techno not taking itself too seriously and—no bluffin’—still a pretty good time.
Frequency vs. Atkins – “Industrial Metal” [1992]
For my money, the most well-rounded and generous Juan Atkins release of all. The holy trinity of first-wave labels—Metroplex, Transmat, and KMS—had all lost juice in their second decade, and with the talent spilled through the portal that the Belleville Three had opened, you wouldn’t have been shocked if the first wave lost a step. Not so. Atkins developed an ironclad relationship with Tresor and had updated both his working infrastructure and collaborators along the way. All this fed into Infiniti. It’s rare to see an artist reach a new peak 10 to 15 years after their debut, but such was the plenitude of possibilities bouncing around Atkins’ head from his teen years.
By turns melodic, minimalist, skippy, quirky, sci-fi, and tough, his penchant for bass programming was rarely stronger than here. “Sunlight,” especially, is an absolute riff-o-rama, itchy enough to complement the trackier house music being pumped out across the States by contemporary producers like Dan Curtin, Stacy Kidd, Gemini, and Wamdue Kids. Unlike his ’80s productions, which sound understandably brittle by modern standards, the tracks Atkins dropped as Infiniti retain ample warmth and punch. Case in point, in that early-’10s resurgence, others returned to the source and cooked up a suite of stupefyingly hypnotic remixes. Still, you can’t knock the OGs. During a three-hour set at Tresor last June, I watched DJ Sotofett drop “Game One” and had my head blown smooth off.
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald – Borderland [2013]
Of all Atkins’ many collaborators, his work with Moritz von Oswald has spanned the longest, spawned the most, and perhaps proven the most fruitful of all—an extemporisation of the cybernetic highway forever linking the music of Detroit and Berlin. Their relationship dates way back to the early ’90s, a time spent “ping-ponging” over the ocean, as Atkins later put it. The Berliners, which also included Thomas Fehlmann and Mark Ernestus, would rummage through pawn shops in Detroit to pick up kit no one else had. On the other side of the ocean, Ernestus’ spare room above Hard Wax was always available whenever Atkins might need it. Apparently unsatisfied with his million other aliases, Atkins fused with von Oswald and Fehlmann for 3 Men in Berlin, or 3MB for short. “Jazz Is the Teacher,” by the by, is another essential from the vault.
Although Ernestus and von Oswald struck gold as Basic Channel shortly thereafter, MVO remained an important part of Atkins’ orbit, both as a remixer and engineer for Model 500’s 1995 album Deep Space. It wasn’t until 2013 that they sat together for a two-man collaboration, Borderland, which fell closer in hue and tone to Rod Modell, Echospace, DJ Pete and others at the dubbier end of the scene. That reflected both the grey fog blanketing the early ’10s scene and the two collaborators’ advancing years. And yet, sprawling cuts like “Electric Garden” sound exceedingly fresh in today’s dub-delay moment.
That’s the kind of pedigree you earn after 45 years in service to a singular, immeasurably consequential vision. Or, rather, 45 years and counting. “I’m going to be making music ’til I leave this planet,” Atkins said in 2024. “And then maybe for some time afterwards too.”

Will Smith spent time with his ex-wife, Sheree Zampino, in Australia after reconciling with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
The former couple was pictured smiling as they arrived at Sydney Airport together on Monday, after Will wrapped his upcoming movie “Supermax.”
The “Bad Boys” actor, 58, wore a blue hoodie, gray sweatpants, a white hat and white sneakers. He also had on a black pack.
Meanwhile, Zampino, also 58, wore a casual all-black outfit, including sandals and a baseball cap.
The former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star carried a green tote bag and a maroon shopping bag from Banksia Bakehouse.
Will and Zampino were married from 1992 to 1995. They share son Trey, 33.
The exes have stayed close since their divorce, posing together at the 2022 Oscars after Will famously slapped Chris Rock for making fun of Jada’s bald head and then won the Best Actor Award for “King Richard.”
“Epic Night! Congratulations again — when 1 wins we all win! #family1st,” Zampino captioned her Instagram post.
But after the award ceremony, Zampino admitted she “couldn’t make sense” of the slap.
“It was one of those moments where I froze,” she told Us Weekly at the time, before sharing her hope that Will and Rock, 61, would reconcile.
“When Chris and Will can come together and heal in a public way and extend forgiveness to one another, do you know how many people that’s gonna help and set free? So, I see the opportunity in it,” she said.
Jada, for her part, has said the notorious Oscars slap saved her and Will’s marriage, after revealing in October 2023 that the couple was separated for seven years.
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“After all those years trying to figure out if I would leave Will’s side, it took that slap for me to see I will never leave him,” the “Girls Trip” star told the Daily Mail in December 2023.
“Who knows where our relationship would be if that hadn’t happened?” she added.
Jada has been married to the “I Am Legend” star since 1997, and they share son Jaden, 27, and daughter Willow, 26.
Following their reconciliation, Jada revealed the couple were “talking about writing a book together,” after they both penned memoirs
In July, it was reported that they moved back in together.
“They are happy and love each other and are, as ever, committed to supporting each other,” a source told People.
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The Reebok Question Mid sneaker, which former NBA star Allen Iverson debuted as a rookie in 1996, is returning with upgraded performance features.
On Nov. 10, the Reebok Question Mid Recoded releases online at Reebok and at Foot Locker for $170. It will be available in the original “Red Toe” and “30th Anniversary Green” colorways.
Unlike past Reebok Question retros, the Recoded model features reengineered technology and an adjusted fit tailored for today’s pace of play.
“We knew this shouldn’t be a standard re-release,” Kevin Duke, Reebok Basketball’s global product director, told Andscape. “We’d told that story before.”
Much like Nike’s popular Kobe Protro line, the Reebok Question Mid Recoded modernizes an archival basketball shoe with upgraded performance features.
Reebok Basketball designer Anthony Hale led the anniversary project, mirroring the aesthetic of the 1996 original sneaker.
The premium leather upper is reshaped for a more forgiving fit and paired with tooling upgrades from Reebok’s Engine A basketball line.
The original outsole traction pattern is redeveloped for modern play. Supercritical foam pods provide a lighter alternative to the original Hexalite cushioning, while a new midsole stability plate offers greater torque and control.
When asked why the Question — now a 30-year-old shoe — can connect with a new, young audience, Reebok’s Duke was direct.
“Because the Question isn’t just about Iverson,” he said. “It’s about the doubters who knocked him. The shoe is literally named for the question marks around him being an undersized rookie.”
As the 1996-97 NBA Rookie of the Year, Iverson averaged 23.5 points and 7.5 assists per game with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Despite standing 6-foot and weighing 165 pounds, the 21-year-old rookie finished seventh in the NBA in scoring — all while wearing the Reebok Question.
“This shoe has always been about doing things your way and not asking for permission,” Allen Iverson said in a statement. “The Question Mid Recoded keeps that same energy alive for the next generation.”
That next generation is already taking shape across Reebok Basketball’s growing roster of NBA, WNBA and college athletes.
Sacramento Kings guard Darius Acuff Jr., a 19-year-old rookie who ranks eighth in the NBA in scoring at 26.3 points per game, has drawn comparisons to Iverson in appearance and attitude.
Acuff, a 6-2, 186-pound point guard, leads NBA rookies in scoring, assists and minutes per game.
Acuff, Chicago Bulls forward Matas Buzelis, Washington Wizards guard Tre Mann and Milwaukee Bucks forward Nate Ament are all Reebok endorsers who deeply revere Iverson.
“Pretty much every player on our roster grew up learning about Allen and what he did for the game,” Duke said. “Darius dove all the way in. He’s talked publicly about how much of his own game comes from studying AI, and about what Allen means to him off the court.”
Reebok plans to release a signature shoe for Acuff, who currently wears player-exclusive editions of the Reebok Engine A.
WNBA stars, including Angel Reese, DiJonai Carrington, Aneesah Morrow and Lauren Betts are also active Reebok ambassadors.
Reebok chose St. John’s sophomore Tounde Yessoufou, who holds an NIL deal with the brand, as the focal point of its Question Mid Recoded shoot.
Though the 20-year-old guard cannot wear Reebok in games because of his school’s Adidas sponsorship, his rise as an immigrant from Cotonou, Benin, resonates deeply with the shoe’s bold spirit.
“Tounde is cut from that exact same Reebok Question cloth,” Duke said. “He came here at 15 without speaking a word of English.”
Yessoufou broke California’s all-time high school scoring record. In his lone season at Baylor, he set the freshman scoring record.
Reebok hopes Yessoufou and others will carry the Question to a new generation. With the likes of Acuff and even tennis icon Naomi Osaka honoring his style, Iverson remains intent on keeping his footwear on a forward-thinking trajectory.
“He’s always been clear that the game keeps moving, and he’s never wanted his shoes to be the thing standing still,” Duke said. “I’m not sure there’s a figure in sports who speaks to the ‘right now’ more than Allen does.”
The 30th anniversary of Iverson’s debut sneaker appears aimed more at inspiring the future than celebrating the past.
While the Recoded concept will appear on future takes on retro models, it isn’t the sole focus of upcoming Iverson-inspired Reebok releases.
Duke said the next chapter “isn’t retro at all,” instead delivering something that “takes everything Allen’s line taught us about design and builds something new for today’s game.”
“Retro basketball shoes have largely become expensive and one-dimensional museum pieces you put on the shelf,” Duke said. “We don’t think the Question should be limited to that.”
Ian Stonebrook is a culture, sports, and music writer based in Austin, TX. For a clever second line, say what up or find him on a basketball court.