Which ‘Succession’ actor takes the Emmy?

I’m battening down the hatches — whatever exactly hatches are ... do I even have hatches? I’ve never considered the question, but then, there’s never been a tropical storm headed my way in all the years I’ve been alive. So it’s time to learn new things!

So, yes, I’m going to find these hatches before the weekend and batten them down real good before the winds pick up. And maybe dig into an ice cream sundae too. I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope’s Friday newsletter. Let’s look at the week’s news.

All the drama from the Emmy drama categories

Are all those great moments, big and small, from the final, glorious season of “Succession” — the grief, the backstabbing, the ludicrously capacious bags, the thick and chewy earlobes, the off-the-rack, Reagan-with-tweaks funerals, the “eldest boy” staring off into the Hudson River — still burned in your brain?

Or have they faded, like the cosmic epiphanies you collected from the last time you tripped on mushrooms, the images now faint like the cross-veins on a dragonfly’s wings, the very same dragonfly that you felt at one with just moments ago and ... (OK. I’m digressing here. Sorry.)

If it’s the latter, A) I understand and B) just imagine how you’ll feel when you try to gather together your “Succession” flashbacks when the Emmys are handed out sometime next year — provided they are actually handed out next year. Fox has set Jan. 15 as the date for the ceremony, but that still feels like a sunburst of optimism given that studios and streamers remain adamant in their desire to cool out on their $500 million super yachts and deny artists a fair share of the profits.

Still, Emmy voting began this week, which means I’m required to weigh in on the questions that are consuming Television Academy members’ minds right now — well, other than how they might be paying their rent and health insurance premiums. If you want to know all the drama in this year’s Emmys’ drama categories, including which of the three nominated lead actors from “Succession” will win, I’ve got you covered with this column.

Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin in “Succession.”

(Claudette Barius / HBO)

Jessica Chastain knows she talks too much. And she’s OK with it

“We can talk until 3 a.m.,” Jessica Chastain says, smiling. It’s a warm, mid-July evening and, looking at the clock, it’s either 30 minutes or three hours and change before the actors union goes on strike. Is it Eastern Time or Pacific Time? We’re not sure. But we do know that tomorrow morning, per SAG-AFTRA guidelines, Chastain won’t be able to talk to me about her work, so we’re extending our conversation via Zoom at this late hour. Her kids are in bed. All’s quiet in her New York-adjacent home. This is, as she says, her “last hurrah,” so she’s letting it all hang out.

“I just know the actors can’t give in,” Chastain says. “They just can’t. If they do — especially what I’ve read about background artists — then they’re really writing themselves out of the industry in the future.”

It wasn’t all that long ago, Chastain remembers, that she was driving around Los Angeles in her beat-up Honda Civic, reading for every role she could find and living off the residuals she’d get from doing TV pilots or a guest spot on “Law & Order.”

“I don’t know what I’d have done without that residual money,” she says, not to mention the notes she’d get from casting directors on how she could improve. (The industry has moved mostly to self-taped auditions, a point of contention in the current labor strike.)

Was there any particular note that helped her in her career journey?

“I do recall someone showing me a Backstage article where a casting director was talking about their early days starting out, saying, ‘I remember Jessica Chastain coming in and she had like five auditions that day and she was all sweaty and her hair was kind of all over the place and she did a really good job.’” Chastain laughs. “I mean, I didn’t book it. And now I understand that I didn’t book it for a long time because I was sweaty and my hair was all over the place and I was stopping at gas stations to change my clothes and quickly memorize my lines ... you know, trying to do as much as I could.”

I could go on. It was a good conversation. Perhaps the last one I’ll have on record with an actor this year? At the rate these labor negotiations are going, you never know ... though there is some reason for optimism.

Jessica Chastain earned an Emmy nod for her portrayal of Tammy Wynette in “George & Tammy.”

(Jesse Dittmar / For The Times)

Have Americans forgotten how to behave?

That’s what my pal Mary McNamara contends in this column chronicling an array of public misdemeanors — throwing cheese at live performers, making TikToks in the middle of a movie, melting down on airplanes — that she says can no longer be blamed on being quarantined during the pandemic.

I can’t argue with anything Mary writes, but as I told her in a Slack message, polite society has been crumbling for quite some time, which, yes, makes me sound like an old-timer (batten down the hatches!). But I wrote about all this six years ago, specifically about how many moviegoers can no longer distinguish the difference between the theater and their living room. This was shortly after I went to see a matinee showing of Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” and contended with a woman changing a toddler’s diaper right as Catherine Keener was about to send Daniel Kaluuya to the Sunken Place.

Makes you never want to leave the comfort of your home ... which we won’t be able to do shortly anyway because — I don’t know if you’ve heard — there’s a hurricane coming! Stay safe, friends.

Have we forgotten how to behave in public?

(Jim Cooke / Los Angeles Times; photo: Getty Images)