Mr. Stevens Goes to Hollywood

CC Magazine’s Tim Stevens ’03 explains how he took a totally linear path to arrive fashionably late to the 29th Critics’ Choice Awards.

By Tim Stevens '03

he 29th Critics’ Choice Awards began at 4 p.m. Pacific Time on Jan. 14. This was my first awards show, and I had intended to make the best of it. My plan was to arrive around 2:30 or 3 and dive into the pre-show cocktails and mingling. Instead, I walked through the door about 75 minutes late. I was “just” a member of the Critics’ Choice Association, the body that nominates and votes for the awards, and I was pulling some diva stuff that even Joan Crawford in her prime wouldn’t have tried. But it wasn’t my plan, I promise.

It all started weeks earlier with a green and white insulated bag emblazoned with AppleTV+’s Lessons in Chemistry logo. Filled with various objects that conjured memories of the show—a jar of pasta sauce, cracked green rocks glasses, a notebook with graphing paper—it was the first For Your Consideration (FYC) package I received since joining the Critics’ Choice Association in February of 2023.

FYC packages commonly precede Awards season, sent to a home address as a way of reminding critics of a TV series or film they may have loved months earlier but forgotten about in the nonstop deluge of the new. It’s the showbiz equivalent of the “just circling back on this” email you gently send your beleaguered colleagues when a due date is looming and you haven’t spoken to them about it in weeks. It was a fun novelty, something that made my kids repeatedly ask, “But why do they care about you, Dad?” and left my wife, ever the Budget Analyst, shaking her head at how much the shipping must have cost.

It wasn’t the first thing I’d ever received from a show. Only weeks earlier, in fact, I’d gotten a package from Ted Lasso. It was something of a thank you for covering them from the first episode of Season 1 through the last episode of Season 3 for The Spool, where I now work as the TV editor. Yes, I was one of those people urging everyone to watch the series as another wave of COVID swept across the United States late in the summer of 2020. You’re welcome.

However, the occasional small token of thanks I’d received could not prepare me for the tidal wave of FYC packages. At one point in November, I’d received multiple boxes a day filled with candied apples, blankets or movie poster puzzles. My son, well- versed in brand identification thanks to YouTube and my failings as a parent, would occasionally highlight a particular box. “Dad, I saw those cookies on MrBeast. They’re supposed to be good. But SUPER expensive.” Friends, he was right. The cookies were delicious, and when I looked them up online, they did indeed boast quite the price tag.

We began to enact a ritual whenever we had visitors. After the usual “hellos” and “how are yous,” the kids would guide our guests to the corner of our living room to show off the ever-increasing pile of FYC swag. By Christmas, it felt like the mound was bullying our comparatively small circle of presents around the tree.

Even more exciting, though, was that the season also gave me an opportunity to interview Phil Dunster, the actor who plays superstar footballer Jamie Tartt on Ted Lasso. Yes, working for CC Magazine has given me great opportunities to interview some amazing people. I got to talk to H. Jon Benjamin ’88, for goodness sake! (And Lee Eisenberg ’99, which I strongly encourage you to read more about on page 18.) But this was a celebrity interview that I didn’t need the College to facilitate. And, believe it or not, I made the guy laugh.

Of course, it didn’t really all start with that green and white swag bag.

No, it all started the way I imagine all the other TV and film critics began their careers—by majoring in psychology, then working in mental health, then going to grad school and working for more than a decade as a therapist only to ditch it all to write full time. Can you conceive of a more direct career path? Because I certainly cannot. Clearly.

Of course, that might say more about me than anything else, given how many people encouraged me to write over the years. Ben Morse ’04 invited me to write for him at a small wrestling and comic book fan site and then proceeded to drag me alongside him to a larger fan site, to Wizard Magazine, and then, finally, to Marvel.com over about 13 years. The late Leslie Lombino brought me onto a new site, her baby, and let me write screeds against the likes of bathroom bills in Connecticut back in the early 2000s. Finally, CC Magazine’s own Amy Martin looked at a resume filled with “Lead Clinician” and “Freelance Film Critic” and decided I could offer you all something worth reading.

If I’m honest, my writing career had actually already begun during my time at Conn, even if it took a couple of decades for me to realize it. First, Professor Janis Solomon of the then barely nascent Film Department took me aside and said of one of my papers, “You are good at this. You should do more of it.” Then, The College Voice brought me on and let me write movie reviews, even as I became first the assistant news editor, then news editor and, finally, editor-in-chief. The likes of Rob Knake ’01, Luke McClure Johnson ’02 and Coley Ward ’03 disagreed with nearly every review I wrote, but they encouraged me to keep going.

If I’m honest, my writing career had actually already begun during my time at Conn, even if it took a couple of decades for me to realize it.

Tim Stevens '03

Later, I’d write and direct a play in my senior year. Immediately after seeing it, my stepdad, Roy, found me and said, “So, you should be a writer.” Months later, my dad would more or less echo the sentiment, telling me I had his and my stepmom Diane’s support if I wanted to try. I largely ignored them, although now I claim I just took about 18 years to consider their opinions.

All those starts led to me accepting the invitation to join my fellow CCA members and a raft of show business types at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California. The plan was simple. I’d arrive in Los Angeles before noon, head to my hotel and be in my tux on my way to the hangar well before the show’s start. Even if it took me two hours to get dressed, I’d still have plenty of time.

Ah, but the best laid plans of mice and men.

First, my flight left a little late. Then, after we landed in Atlanta, where I was to grab my connecting flight to LAX, we were delayed waiting for a gate. When we got a gate, it took every bit of 20 minutes to deplane. Then came the dagger.

Our new gate was in Terminal F. My next flight was in Terminal A. It was to depart in 15 minutes, and I was as far away from it as I could be while still in the Atlanta airport. I didn’t make it.

Initially, the airline put me on a later flight that would land in LAX just late enough to ensure I’d miss every minute of the show. However, through my incredible powers of negotiation—mostly saying please and conveying how broken I felt with some nomination-worthy facial expressions—they agreed to put me on standby for an earlier flight. Somehow, despite that flight being full and not even being the first on the standby list, I got a seat. I could breathe easy again. I’d miss most of the cocktail time but still arrive before the show began.

Man makes plans; God, well, she laughs.

Luggage and airport shuttles combined to ensure I didn’t even arrive at my hotel before 4 p.m. Too annoyed and delirious to feel shame—I’d now been up for 19 hours after three hours of sleep—I decided to press on. Ultimately, I walked into the backstage area at about 5:15. I immediately hit the bar, followed by the sundae bar. It’s incredible what a beverage and ice cream can do for frazzled nerves.

After that, it was great. The food was tasty, the venue cool, the intermingling of critics, publicists, actors, directors and writers surprisingly low-key and not at all panic-inducing. Despite all the nonsense, it was worth arriving fashionably late to the Critics’ Choice Awards.

I’d love to tell you that when I saw Phil Dunster backstage, he immediately recognized me and embraced me while declaring I was his favorite interviewer. Alas, I cannot. I saw him, but he was on the phone and then hustled onstage to present. So, I guess the possibility that I’m his favorite interviewer hasn’t been disproven, at least.

Instead, I’ll give you this tidbit. As the evening wound down, a publicist approached me. “Hey, I’m Vladimir,” he cheerfully declared, slapping me on the back.

“Tim,” I replied, smiling.

“Tim, you look good. The purple vest works for you. I had to come over and say you look like a man who knows what he’s doing.”

For a moment, I was seized by the wild desire to tell him exactly how little I knew what I was doing and how close I came to missing the whole show. Or telling him I’d honed the “I know what I’m doing here” look wandering around entirely too many TNEs in Cro. Instead, I complimented his pocket square and we compared notes on the evening.

Mr. Stevens had arrived (eventually) in Hollywood. Next time, he’ll book an earlier flight.

Illustration by Felipe Sobreiro