Beverly Hills was abuzz with the atmosphere of celebrity.
This Thursday, it was from the 2024 Sentinel Awards, an annual show presented by the Hollywood, Health and Society and the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center.
On the red carpet, honorees from shows like “The Simpsons” and “Grey’s Anatomy” boasted both excellent looks and words of wisdom. Actors, honorees and showrunners expressed their reverence for the late Norman Lear, their experiences in the industry and how television is a vehicle for social change.
On advice to young creatives
“At the end of the day, if you have a story in your brain that you can tell your friends and everybody leans in, you need to tell it, you need to just buckle down. You’re in LA, you’re at USC, one of the best schools in the country. You just need to do it.”
— Janine Barrois, honoree and "The Big Cigar" showrunner
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to make what you think of as insurmountable mistakes. Don’t be afraid to be scared, and keep going. Everybody’s scared. My advice is to have ambitions that are not just about being famous and rich, but about telling stories that resonate and matter.”
— Jon Robin Baitz, honoree and "Feud: Capote vs The Swans" executive producer
“I think so for me, like on the actors side, there’s so much rejection. People always say, you get over it. It doesn’t not hurt but you recover more quickly. And just because somebody said, you know, you’re not really right for it doesn’t mean anything about you. It’s really not about you. God knows what happened to them, or they have this vision in their head, and you don’t happen to fit it, so you’re not right for that thing. It’s incredibly hard to hang on to your sense of self, to say you’re going to keep pursuing the dream, when it seems like nobody wants to invite you to the party. I would say I’ve been lucky enough to be quite successful, but nobody’s seen all the things I didn’t get. There’s a f*ck ton of those.”
— Yeardley Smith, “The Simpsons” actress
The television medium as a powerful agent of representation
I think that in television you invite these characters and these stories into your homes. I think that it’s quite a different experience than getting up off the couch and going to the movie theater and it feels very distant. Where I think that television feels very tangible and you develop a personal relationship with the characters that you watch. And I think that so I think that the power lies within that intimacy. And I think that it’s probably the most impactful way to kind of get your message across.”
— Mark Indelicato, “Hacks” actor
“I mean, it’s a huge medium. We have an audience of, you know, 10 million viewers like every episode. So it’s important to have exposure. It’s important to show Latinos in a positive light. And also showing that, you know, we’re not perfect, we have flaws as well. We’re just human like everybody else. And so, you know, I hope that, you know, our shows, I feel that our shows are for everybody, it’s not just for Latinos.”
— Debby Wolfe, honoree and “Lopez v Lopez” creator
“I think it’s a perfect medium because it’s right in your home. You can, you don’t have to go out, you don’t pay anything, it’s right there and it can slip, you can slip these messages and you, you’re not making a choice to like, oh, I want to go see this message movie. You’ve already fallen in love with these characters or you hate them but you want to follow them and so they can, they can bring you in without you making a conscious decision. And also, you know, television is extraordinary because you don’t have to build a story into two hours. You can take, you can go into all the intricacies of it.”
— Amy Aquino
Representation, diversity and politics in television
“It’s no longer monochromatic. It’s no longer one thing. It’s no longer lies about what American life is. It no longer pretends that certain people are invisible people get to see themselves and their various stories”
— Jon Robin Baitz, honoree and “Feud: Capote vs The Swans” executive producer
A good story comes out of some kind of controversy and conflict. We’re going to get into topics that are real in the world, you know, and if it feels too political, the reason why it’s political is because people disagree on it, and there’s different ways to look at it. We have our viewpoint on it [...] that’s the gig, you know, stories come from real life and real life has for better, for worse. Politics is a part of politics that is trying to figure out a way to make real life work better for you.”
— Jason George, “Grey’s Anatomy” actor
Norman Lear’s legacy
“Norman Lear was a pioneer in bringing real social issues and real people into entertainment television. When he first went into television, the toughest issue on a comedy was mom burnt the roast and the boss is coming. And Norman in his shows tackled issues like abortion, homosexuality, rape, cancer and tackled them in a way which people saw look like their own home, their own lives.”
— Martin Kaplan, Norman Lear Center director
“He was amazing. We met when he was 94, I think. Still shark as a tack. Vitall, creative, had his fingerprints and imprint all over that show. He helped birth that show and what it became. To get to go to work every day and see Norman Lear, I would get goosebumps. Then he became like a dear friend and family member. I’d see the hat, get excited, hang out with him. I’d always want to ask him stories. I miss him dearly.”
— Todd Grinell, “One Day at a Time” actor