TV Talk: Pittsburgh natives Billy Porter, Andy Warhol get streaming biographies

It’s a banner week for Pittsburgh natives in the arts with new streaming biographies of artist Andy Warhol and actor/singer/director Billy Porter on tap.

Warhol is featured in Netflix’s six-hour “The Andy Warhol Diaries” documentary series, streaming next Wednesday, and Porter is profiled in a season-two episode of Apple TV+’s “Dear…,” which streams Friday, and features one celebrity per episode reading letters from fans about the impact the famous person made on their life. Porter’s cousin Alicia Holt wrote one of the letters and talks about her work with the URA’s Avenues of Hope project.

“We’re all searching for connection and to be visible in some way,” Porter said Tuesday, a day before completing the final sound mix on his feature film directorial debut.

“Anything’s Possible” (formerly “What If”) that filmed in Pittsburgh last summer and is expected to be released later this year.

“Learn how to see yourself first so that others can see you is a bit of my message, because that’s what I had to do,” Porter said.

In his “Dear…” episode, Porter describes his youth in Pittsburgh, trying to be masculine enough to fit in and ultimately realizing he didn’t need to conform to “somebody else’s idea of what I should be. When I let that go, I set myself free and won the Tony and the Grammy.”

Porter shot scenes for “Anything’s Possible” at Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum and co-hosted a benefit for the museum last fall in New York. Porter said he finds inspiration in Warhol’s work and their shared hometown.

“He was a visual artist and I don’t do that at all, but what I did get from him was his dedication to his craft and the fact that he was from Pittsburgh and was changing the world,” Porter said. “The idea that he came up with and predicted social media – that’s so profound. He really understood the human condition, the human psyche, what makes human beings tick.”

Executive produced by Porter’s “Pose” boss Ryan Murphy, “The Andy Warhol Diaries” is based on the artist’s recollections that were published in 1989. The program recreates Warhol’s voice using an artificial intelligence program melded with a performance by actor Bill Irwin (“Law Order: SVU”). AI for this use would be controversial for others, but perhaps not for Warhol, who stated during his lifetime that he’d like to be a machine. The New York-based Andy Warhol Foundation gave its blessing to the audio recreation employed by director Andrew Rossi (“Page One: Inside the New York Times”).

“He was very invested in this idea of becoming a separate identity or avatar,” Rossi said in a Zoom interview Monday. “And he also took self-portraits throughout his life. … The diaries are in their own way a self-portrait but through words. To take them to the next level as an auditory experience would honor his artistic practice and the foundation was enthusiastic to do it.”

Rossi, who filmed in Pittsburgh for a few days in 2020 and again in 2021, said his goal with the series is to draw a bridge from Warhol’s personal life to the artwork he created in the 10 years covered by the diaries, 1976-87.

“[That art] actually has not been discussed, certainly in documentaries, but even in the art history [realm], as much as everything [he made] in the 1960s,” Rossi said. “There was this sense that the ‘60s was his prime moment and that in the late ‘70s and ‘80s he was a has-been and he wasn’t making important art. But in fact, when you take a queer lens and you apply that to the work … all these new layers of meaning emerge in his artwork.”

Pittsburgh plays a significant role in the first episode as part of Warhol’s origin story, which includes visits to the Andy Warhol Museum on the North Shore and interviews with the museum’s curator, Jessica Beck, and director, Patrick Moore.

“Andys birth in Pittsburgh and the challenges he experienced growing up in a very modest neighborhood and going to the Byzantine Catholic church that his mother Julia took him to … is essential to understanding how Andy felt like an outsider and how he used art as his pathway to connect with other young people that he knew in his neighborhood and as a ladder to success,” Rossi said. “The iconostasis in the St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church is remarkably resonant with the way that he presents other icons like Jackie O, and Marilyn and Liz Taylor … You can see how his dedication to his artistic practice really was the way that he wanted to become someone new and also emerge from a world which, when he was born in 1928, was incredibly homophobic and was segregated.”

‘Joe vs. Carole’

It’s also a big week for fictionalized re-tellings of stories viewers may already have seen in other forms.

Hulu’s “The Dropout,” now streaming, tells the story of Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried) and Theranos as seen in HBO documentary “The Inventor.” NBC’s limited series “The Thing About Pam” (10 p.m. Tuesday) stars Renee Zellweger as a woman involved in a murder scheme, a story previously told on NBC’s “Dateline.”

Peacock’s “Joe vs. Carole,” now streaming, retells the story of Netflix’s “Tiger King” in dramatized form starring John Cameron Mitchell (“Shrill”) as Joe Exotic and “Saturday Night Live” regular Kate McKinnon as Carole Baskin. Those are both excellent pieces of casting – as is Kyle MacLachlan as Baskin’s husband, Howard — and while McKinnon brings some humor to her portrayal of Carole, she doesn’t go over the top.

Through its first two (of eight) episodes, “Joe vs. Carole” is competently made and entertaining enough but having already sat through the first season of Netflix’s bloated “Tiger King,” “Joe vs. Carole” can’t help but feel like a rerun of something I already saw.

In an era of more than 500 original series premiering across TV, cable and streaming, why re-watch a fictionalized remake of something so recent that doesn’t appear to offer many new insights? My advice: Pick and choose. If you already saw the documentary these series are based on, then watch the one you’re less familiar with.

‘Picard’

The second season of Paramount+’s ‘Star Trek: Picard,” now streaming, gets off to a busy start as the first two episodes must reconnect the characters from season one and send them on a new time-traveling adventure put in motion by frequent Picard (Patrick Stewart) adversary Q (John DeLancie).

These new episodes have a bouncier tone, thanks largely to the humor of Alison Pill’s Dr. Agnes Jurati. Time-travel back to 2024 Earth may also offer some lighter moments, similar to “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” although after three episodes it’s too soon to say if that will come to fruition.

A primary theme is around Picard’s personal life: Why has he chosen to be alone? The welcome return of Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) challenges Picard to become introspective in a direct but warm way that’s far more effective than a bevy of flashback scenes.

“The only thing you risked was your life. There’s worse things than being dead; you know that better than anybody,” Guinan tells Picard, referencing when he was assimilated by the Borg, which comes into play this season.

Season one of “Picard” was generally underwhelming. So far season two feels more promising now that character introductions are largely out of the way and the whole team shares a goal.

Channel surfing

Season four of Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone” will begin streaming March 28 on Peacock. … Starz renewed “Hightown” for a third season. … Marvel’s “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist,” “The Defenders,” “The Punisher” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” will be on Disney+ March 16 along with enhanced parental controls. … DirecTV dropped Russian state media outlet RT America and Pittsburgh native Dennis Miller ended his show, “Dennis Miller + One,” which aired on RT America. … WQED Multimedia was one of 12 public media stations selected by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to participate in a grant program to create content by, with, and for tween and teen audiences with each outlet receiving a $15,000 grant. WQED will use its share for the “Building Bridges and Bridging the Gap” project, which incorporates Steeltown Film Academy into WQED with two learning labs for youth media makers to collaborate with adult producers.