For New York Magazine’s first annual “Culturati 50 Issue,” we surveyed Lorde, Parker Posey, Lola Tung, and other culture-makers who have shaped entertainment this year on what they watched, read, and listened to in 2025. See the full survey results here.
Rachel Zegler became the people’s princess — or maybe their First Lady — this year, starring as Eva Perón in Evita on the West End. Her stunning performance of the showstopper “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” each night from a balcony to outside passersby turned the pedestrians of London into Perón’s beloved Argentines. Andrew Lloyd Webber has since promised that “it won’t be the last time,” Zegler sings the song, “if I’ve got anything to do with it.” New York, get your balconies ready.
In This Issue
Introducing the Culturati 50
Read the Culturati 50’s ‘Year in Culture’ Lists
1.
What were your favorite movies of the year?
Honey, Don’t! I’m blessed whenever one of my favorite directors makes a new movie. I’m the president of the Margaret Qualley fan club and the No. 1 Aubrey Plaza defender. She was one of the first recurring series regular Latinas I saw on a TV show when I was a kid. Parks and Recreation was very formative to me as an actor and a comedian. Since then, every film choice she’s made as an actor and as a producer has been so smart. Whether that’s on purpose or she’s just doing things that she really wants to do and is passionate about, I find it really admirable.
Sinners. I did something I never do: I went in completely blind. I saw it super-late in the game because I was in London and I was working. It was one of those things where me and the boys in Evita were like, “Let’s just go to the Curzon in our neighborhood as soon as we can.” We couldn’t find seats together so we each had an individual experience in different parts of the theater. I had no idea that it was about vampires. So when that plot started forming I was like, What is going on? I loved the use of folklore vampires rather than what they’ve become in the Zeitgeist.
The Phoenician Scheme. As someone who has deeply enjoyed every Anderson film ever, this one combined the humor of The Royal Tenenbaums and the charm of Moonrise Kingdom in a way that warmed my heart and sincerely tickled me. Michael Cera forever.
2.
Best TV shows?
The White Lotus. Everything on The White Lotus makes me uncomfortable. That’s why I like the show so much. Sundays were my day off and then I would have to go into work on Mondays and I’d have to use somebody else’s Sky player, because HBO Max isn’t a thing in London. It usually ended up being in someone else’s dressing room between shows.
The Studio. I don’t think people understand just how accurate some of that show is. I was thrilled that it took home so much at the Emmys this year.
Shrinking. I know this is a celebrated show, but I don’t hear nearly enough people talking about it. Jessica Williams and Harrison Ford have one of my favorite dynamics on television.
I watch a lot of Colbert and Saturday Night Live. I will miss you Ego Nwodim. I will miss you so much.
3.
The comfort show you couldn’t stop watching?
I rewatch Gilmore Girls and How I Met Your Mother an unhealthy amount. I stayed onstage for a year straight going from Romeo + Juliet to Evita, and I realized that I couldn’t focus on a book before bed. I couldn’t watch new TV shows or movies before bed. I needed something that was going to calm me down and help me zone out. And when I’m feeling anxious, Gilmore Girls has such a good cozy, calm me down vibe. With How I Met Your Mother, it’s just something I know the back of my hand. I’ve seen it so many times. It’s embarrassing. I start straight from the beginning every time I finish it.
4.
Favorite albums or songs?
I listen to music when I’m getting ready. I’m also a commuter; on the train, I just plug in the headphones and listen to something. Addison, by Addison Rae, and Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend came out in the midst of a bunch of stuff that we were doing for Evita and my Palladium concert. Addison is one hell of a debut full-length album. I’m so proud of her! “Fame Is a Gun” is 100 percent going to be on my Spotify Wrapped this year. And Sabrina’s “Nobody’s Son” is a mandatory listening experience.
Mayhem, Lady Gaga. There’s never been a Gaga album I didn’t enjoy. I was there for Chromatica, I was there for ARTPOP, I was there for Joanne. This album brought me back to the incredible experience of hearing every new release of hers for the first time when I was a teenager.
Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead, Ariana Grande. Genuinely one of the best extended-edition albums released in recent years. “Past Life,” “Hampstead”… Ari always knows how to tear at the heartstrings. I’m forever impressed by her production expertise, her evolution of lyricism, and the vocal gymnastics only she can pull off.
Not For Lack of Trying, dodie. An artist who never fails to amaze me. An exceptional lyricist with even more brilliant ears. I love the way dodie hears the scale.
My truth is, I cannot listen to Evita. The other day, I had to listen through the album track by track because they just finished mixing it before it goes out, and I was like, “This is torture.” You’re listening to something you used to do eight times a week, which is hard because I have muscle memory. I involuntarily start thinking about when my next water break is and it’s like, “Relax, Rachel. You’re in the backseat of an Uber coming home from the airport.”
5.
The books you couldn’t put down?
The Year of Magical Thinking. I’ve read three or four times now. I find grief to be such a profound emotion to revisit when I’m acting. It’s just one of those things that I find everybody’s grieving something and it can be part of characterwork. Most of the characters that I’ve played onscreen and onstage, they’ve always been either grieving a person or grieving who they used to be or, in Evita, she was grieving the inability to have more years. And I feel like that’s a really, really specific type of grief.
Didion’s got just such a way of making it feel like fiction despite the fact that she was there. And it’s really beautiful. I love how in The White Album she goes on these amazing tangents about her house in L.A., and I could just read pages and pages and pages of her talking about architecture. It’s something that I don’t think many authors can capture today and definitely not something that you can write about today’s world and still be as captivating as it was for all of these different Didion pieces.
Other book highlights:
• Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney
• Let Me Tell You What I Mean, by Joan Didion
• Sunrise on the Reaping, by Suzanne Collins
• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami*(* indicates a reread)
6.
Plays or musicals that stuck with you?
Sunset Blvd. I’m kind of gutted that I’ll never see it again. I saw it on Broadway toward the end because I was going to see my Evita co-star Diego Andres Rodriguez in it and I wanted to see Nicole Scherzinger. Nicole was not feeling super-well and texted me for seven days straight after apologizing. I was like, “Nobody knew you weren’t feeling well. You’re the only person who’s sitting here criticizing your own performance.” If I could experience that again for the first time, it would just be amazing. I could just see what Jamie Lloyd had done to amplify all that makes Nicole wonderful. And as a lead, it’s the only thing you could ever want out of your relationship with your director. It becomes this mutually beneficial relationship of “I’m going to accentuate what makes you great, and you are going to do the same for me.” Tom Francis and Nicole in Sunset brought Jamie’s work to such a beautiful level where people were loving it commercially in a way that they never had before here in the States.
Other theater highlights:
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame in concert in London
• Goodnight, and Good Luck on Broadway
• Oh, Mary! on Broadway
• Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway
7.
How about podcasts?
I’ve never been a podcast girl. When I’m stressed, I open my old Stardew Valley file and check up on my farm.
8.
The best performance in a movie, TV show, and/or at the theater?
• Michael Cera as Bjorn in The Phoenician Scheme.
• Ben Joyce as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in concert.
• Diego Andres Rodriguez as Che in Evita on the West End (and I saw it very up close).
• Julio Monge as Compay in Buena Vista Social Club on Broadway.
• Georgina Onuorah as Lulu in Shucked at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
9.
The most underrated work of art of the year?
The Spell or the Dream, a public art piece at London’s Somerset House by Tai Shani. I always tend to stumble upon Somerset House. It’s like a big open courtyard and it’s gorgeous. I was waiting for a friend to get out of a meeting and I was like, I’ll just walk around. And there was this huge glass coffin with what appeared to be a sleeping but breathing, giant blue woman inside. Her chest was rising and falling. I could not comprehend what was in front of my face. I didn’t even take a picture. I just stood there and stared at it, circled it once, and was like, I’m uncomfortable. I was like, Why? And there was nobody there. I was alone with this giant blue breathing woman in a glass coffin.
I was like Snow White is following me. It was supposed to be like a Sleeping Beauty homage. But there was something just about like a woman alone … It made me feel glad that I was there with her.
10.
Most memorable concert?
The Mayhem Ball. I saw Lady Gaga at the O2 and it changed my life. I hadn’t seen her live since Joanne. I was not able to go to Chromatica which is one of the top ten heartbreaks of my life. At Mayhem, I was on the floor next to the catwalk, and she walked right by me during “Vanish Into You.” No one will ever match the live showmanship of Lady Gaga. During “How Bad Do U Want Me,” when she takes her makeup off, I was like “I did that in Evita!” I was watching it and I was like, “My nachos.”
More concert highlights:
• Sabrina Carpenter at Hyde Park. Watching Clairo open was the cherry on top of an already amazing evening from Sabrina.
• Jeff Goldblum at the London Palladium. My friend Ddodie was his guest and I got to watch them play the clarinet and sing with Jeff Goldblum on piano. Unbelievable evening.
• Charli XCX and Clairo at Coachella. I watched it from the comfort of my home on the YouTube livestreams. Bernie Sanders introduced Clairo and my friend Noa (who’s in the band Shelly) came out for the set as well. It was kinda life-changing.
11.
The one thing you couldn’t stop talking about or recommending to others?
Going to see Starlight Express on the West End.
11.
Best movie-theater experience?
Without a doubt, Sinners.
Rapid-Fire Round
Everyone who saw Weapons said it was about something but no one could agree on what. If you had to choose one, what would you say Weapons was “about”?
⬜ School shootings
⬜ Witchcraft
⬜ Addiction
⬜ Nothing
☑️ Other: I Still Haven’t Seen It, Please Don’t Be Mad at Me
Was there a song of the summer this year?
☑️ Yes: “Manchild,” by Sabrina Carpenter; “Fame Is a Gun,” by Addison Rae; and quite literally anything by Olivia Dean would be up there. It might be crazy of me to say “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” but that was certainly mine. The definitive version of the song will always be the live one. I actually don’t even care how I sound on it because listening to myself is torture. I recorded it in the studio before we ever staged it. It hadn’t been staged yet. I didn’t know what we were going to do because we hadn’t gotten clearance from the Westminster Council to do the balcony opera and have the full fat version, which is what we called it, where we had the sound being pumped out into the street as well. It transformed into something a lot more emotional with the amount of people that showed up every day. I still can’t get over it.
⬜ No
Did Mark S. make the right call when he ran off with Helly in the Severance finale?
⬜ Yes
⬜ No
☑️ Other: Answering this could get me canceled no matter how I respond. I have to plead the Fifth.
Which plotline on The White Lotus made you more uncomfortable?
⬜ The incest bros
⬜ Sam Rockwell’s monologue
☑️ Other: Am I allowed to say both? Because … both. Definitely both.
Favorite cameo on The Studio?
⬜ Zoë Kravitz
⬜ Ron Howard
⬜ Anthony Mackie
⬜ Olivia Wilde
⬜ Zac Efron
⬜ Sarah Polley
☑️ Martin Scorsese: I love when Scorsese acts in things. Oftentimes, it doesn’t translate when a director decides to act, but he comes from such a genuine place. This one just stuck the landing.
Do you own a Labubu?
⬜ Yes
☑️ No: Absolutely not.
Which streaming service do you value the most?
⬜ HBO
⬜ Apple
⬜ Disney
⬜ Criterion
⬜ Netflix
⬜ YouTube
☑️ Other: I need HBO to come to England because I’ve really been struggling. I’m also a Netflix gal mainly because of Gilmore Girls.
Best award-season speech?
⬜ Timothée Chalamet at the SAG Awards (“I want to be one of the greats”)
☑️ Hannah Einbinder at the Emmys (“Go Birds, fuck ICE, free Palestine”)
⬜ Kieran Culkin at the Oscars (“I will give you four when you win an Oscar”)
⬜ Chappell Roan at the Grammys (labels should “offer a livable wage and health care”)
⬜Demi Moore at the Golden Globes (“I do belong”)
Best award-show host?
☑️ Conan O’Brien: Conan O’Brien’s one of the greatest of all time when it comes to hosting. I was there for the Oscars this year, so getting to see it up close and personal was amazing. I was sitting next to Amy Poehler, and I find that if people can make her laugh then it is a really good time. She has such a great laugh and personality. I had the best time with her that night.
⬜ Nikki Glaser
⬜ Cynthia Erivo
⬜ Nate Bargatze
⬜ Trevor Noah
What was the cultural moment that fascinated you the most this year?
⬜ Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl
⬜ SNL50
⬜ Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement
☑️ The Coldplay kiss-cam
☑️ Other: Plus everyone crying saying good-bye to TikTok. (I don’t have the app … Why were they crying?)
The social-media app you used most frequently?
⬜ X
⬜ Bluesky
⬜ Facebook
☑️ Instagram, I guess. But I think we should throw them all away?
⬜ TikTok
⬜ None, I quit social media