Touché! A WME Assistant Jabs His Way to Paris
What’s the difference between a Hollywood agent and an Olympic fencer? The fencer salutes his opponents after stabbing them in the back. Other than that, the skills required — steely nerves, killer instincts, ruthless ambition — are remarkably similar. No one knows that better than Pascual Di Tella, a 28-year-old WME assistant currently in Paris preparing to parry as a member of the Argentinian Olympic fencing team. “You have to be super self-driven in fencing,” he tells Rambling Reporter. “Because if you don’t train or work out, the only person negatively affected is you. It’s the same with agenting. You build your own business. Nobody is holding you accountable but you.” Di Tella, as it happens, comes from a long line of Olympians: His father fenced for Argentina in 1988 and 1992, while his mother competed in Alpine skiing those same years. Even his grandmother went after gold in Alpine skiing, in the 1960 and 1964 Games. Pascual’s own interest in sword play started when he was 14 while growing up in Argentina (after a few formative years in Boston), and he honed his skills while studying at Duke. He started assisting at WME two years ago, working in the Latin Music department, and says that his bosses have been more than supportive about his side gig as a fencer. “They had a little celebration for me when I qualified,” he says. “No cake, but croissants, to keep it to a theme.” In September, after he gets back from Paris — presumably with some medals dangling from his neck — he’ll be starting in WME’s agent trainee program. — ERIC MERCADO
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Stephen Sondheim Auction Literally Turns Lead Into Gold
How much would you pay for a pencil? Not just any pencil, mind you, but a Blackwing 602? And not just any 602, but one that once belonged to the late great Stephen Sondheim? At an auction at Doyle’s in Manhattan last month, one anonymous bidder purchased 32 of the coveted cult writing implements — the full complement of Sondheim’s stash at the time of his death in 2021 — for $200 a piece, spending a total of $6,400. Of course, as every pencil aficionado knows, even 602s that weren’t once owned by the composer of West Side Story can be pricey. Since Blackwing discontinued them in 1998, collectors have been shelling out as much as $70 on eBay to own the same type of pencil that Chuck Jones used to draw Bugs Bunny, and that John Williams and Quincy Jones used to scribble their masterpieces. Sondheim was such a 602 nut, he started hoarding them shortly before they were discontinued, back when they cost a mere $6 a dozen. Still, they weren’t the biggest sellers at Doyle’s Sondheim auction, where hundreds of attendees — some wearing Sondheim T-shirts and at least one with a Sondheim tattoo — crammed the floor to bid on everything from the maestro’s old jigsaw puzzles to fireplace andirons. One purchaser ponied up a whopping $52,000 for an otherwise nondescript dictionary and thesaurus set. As for the 602s, Doyle’s Peter Costanzo says he hopes “they are preserved as relics of Sondheim’s career,” although he suspects the buyers may have other intentions. “Maybe they are hoping that his spirit flows through his pencils.” — ANDY LEWIS
How Tunde Adebimpe Stole a Scene From a Tornado
There’s lots to love about Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters reboot. It has Glen Powell’s high-wattage smile, some terrifying moments of tornado destruction and a soundtrack loaded with outlaw country tunes including a version of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” recorded by Charley Crockett. But perhaps the most crowd-pleasing moment, at least judging from the laughs it’s been getting in early screenings, is a scene-stealing turn by TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe, playing a tornado-chasing “weather weenie” named Dexter. Facing a terrifying, pattern-shifting tornado, when his character should be in fear for his life, Adebimpe instead explodes with a wildly gleeful … well, go see the movie if you’re curious. Adebimpe, who’ll soon be starring opposite Jude Law in the Jon Watts-helmed Star Wars: Skeleton Crew , and who just wrapped a one-man show of his paintings at L.A.’s Gross Gallery, tells Rambling Reporter that he was thrilled with the audience reaction at the premiere. “You’ve done the line so many times and you know what it’s leading to — then it’s, ‘Oh yes! This is funny!’ ” The 49-year-old musician also told THR that his first solo record is in the can, and TV on the Radio, who have not performed live since March 2019, could be making an announcement about dates “in a while.” — JORDAN HOFFMAN
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This story first appeared in the July 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe .
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