If you use Google Photos, you’ve probably experienced the app’s “assistant” feature taking the liberty of creating suggested collages, stories or mini-movies out of your pictures.

If you’re like most people, you usually ignore these suggestions.

If you’re a cat lover, however, you may be getting a suggestion soon that you definitely won’t want to ignore. That’s because Google may be making you a “Meow Movie.”

“I got a notification on my phone last night,” writer Courtney Gillette told HuffPost in an email. “It was from my Google Photos app, and it said, ‘Your Meow Movie is ready.’” The notification included a happy cat face emoji, she said.

A “Meow Movie” is, well, what you might expect. And the soundtrack is pretty top-notch, so turn up the volume.

Gillette was psyched. “Who doesn’t like an excuse to look at a digital flipbook of photos of their cat?” she said.

The “star” of Gillette’s video is Sappho, who as a kitten was abandoned on the eve of Hurricane Sandy and rescued by a “saintly woman.” Gillette later adopted Sappho through Facebook. The two supporting feline cast members, Rufus and Domino, were abandoned in a flower bed and adopted by Gillette’s partner, Emily.

Gillette’s not the only person to receive a Meow Movie in the past day.

Apparently, there are at least two different songs your video might feature.

Google did not immediately reply to a request for comment about Meow Movies.

We cannot find a scrap of evidence they existed before this week. If you received a Meow Movie before, please let us know. And you can let us know if you received one this week, because honestly, we can’t watch enough of these things.

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Activists are banding together to help make this Mother’s Day special for as many incarcerated black women across the country as possible.

In the week leading up to the holiday, Black Lives Matter, Color of Change and a dozen other racial and criminal justice organizations are leading a charge to help bail out black moms. Their collective effort is part of a campaign called National Mama’s Bail Out Day, which aims to provide all incarcerated black women ― including those who identify as queer, trans, young, elder and immigrant ― who are unable to afford bail an opportunity to spend the special day with their families.

“No one — whether they’re a birth mother, an aunt, or a teacher — should have to spend Mother’s Day in a cell just because they can’t afford bail,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color Of Change, in a statement sent to HuffPost. “For the first time ever, we’re sending that message through a national, coordinated day of action, awareness, and kindness, building on our efforts to fuel decarceration.”

“Money bail and the industry that profits from it has long been destroying our communities,” Robinson added, “so this Mother’s Day Black people across the country are going to reunite our families and demand an end to that system.”

Throughout the week, organizations in over a dozen cities ― including Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, New York City and St. Petersburg, Florida ― will work with public defenders, community members, churches and other spiritual institutions to raise money to help bail out black mothers. They will also provide helpful resources to those released and host teach-ins that highlight the impact destructive bail practices can have on black families.

“Our corrupt criminal justice system forces innocent people who pose no threat to purchase their freedom,” Ruth Jeannoel, a black mother and community organizer, says in a video on the campaign’s site. “The costs are devastating. Women oftentimes lose their homes, jobs or even children just to be found innocent. Some women like Sandra Bland have even lost their lives.”

According to the campaign’s site, more than 700,000 people are incarcerated each day because they cannot afford bail and more than $9 billion is spent on men and women who are behind bars but have not yet been convicted of a crime.

The statistics around incarcerated women are also staggering. The site states that the number of incarcerated women has increased 700 percent since 1980. It also reports that black and transgender women are both disproportionately represented; black women are twice as likely to be put in jail than white women and 1 in 5 transgender women have spent time behind bars.

“Our mamas don’t deserve this. Our mothers are not disposable. Our mothers deserve restorative justice, healing and reconciliation,” Jeannoel says in the video. “Some of them have made mistakes. Some of them get caught up in the system despite their best efforts. All of them deserve to be home.”

When we, black women and black mamas, are taken from our communities, we all suffer.”

Mothers account for around 8 in 10 incarcerated women, and a large number have either never been convicted of a crime or have been accused of minor offenses and are unable to post bail, according to the campaign’s site. In court systems around the U.S., people arrested even on minor charges are required to pay bail to get out of jail before trial, regardless of whether they are considered a public safety or flight risk. When defendants can’t afford their freedom, they must either turn to a commercial bail-bondsman ― which typically charges a non-refundable premium of 10 percent of the total bail ― or languish behind bars.

The consequences of being stuck in jail before trial can be brutal. Defendants can lose their jobs or access to benefits or housing. They can fall behind on payments. Or they can simply be cut off from their families. These pitfalls affect all defendants, even if they’re not guilty or they never end up going to trial. Pretrial incarceration has been found to increase the odds of future incarceration. In many cases, it effectively pressures defendants to plead guilty to get out of jail, even if they didn’t commit the crime.

“We must demand and fight for the ending of money bail and destructive policies that keep putting us in cages and separating us from our communities,” says Mary Hooks, the co-director for Southerners on New Ground, an organization partnering with the campaign. “We are the ones who take care of and hold down our families, chosen and biological. When we, black women and black mamas, are taken from our communities, we all suffer.”

Nick Wing contributed to this report.

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We’re two weeks in, and summer blockbuster season is already a journey. Case in point: One week you get “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” the next you get “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.” 

Because every weekend between the start of May and the end of August offers a hopeful box-office bonanza, not every movie can be an event. Which brings us to Friday’s wide releases, “King Arthur” and “Snatched.” Both would like to outpace “Guardians” as the largest moneymaker, but the reviews currently pouring in won’t help. This weekend’s forecasts expect “Guardians” to gross at least twice that of “Snatched” and “King Arthur.” 

On top of all that, Hollywood analysts are reportedly now expecting a steep dip in overall revenue this summer as audiences grow bored of relentless franchises and reboots. In keeping, it’s important for a film like “Snatched,” an original with two name-brand stars, to find an audience. Maybe the Mother’s Day crowd will help, but as of now, this seems to spell more bad news for mainsteam Hollywood trends.

Below are snippets of what critics are saying.

“King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”

Charlie Hunnam plays the titular British hero in yet another King Arthur reboot. Directed by Guy Ritchie, “Legend of the Sword” turns the classic story of Excalibur, Camelot and Bedivere into bloated action fantasy. 

“The film rattles along exhilaratingly, if sometimes intermittently, like a fairground rollercoaster that occasionally stops and makes you get out and walk for a few minutes before letting you back on.” ― Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Though this movie ostensibly celebrates the spirit of adventure and openness to experience, it takes no risks and blazes no trails. It’s ultimately as complacent, self-absorbed and clueless as its heroine, and not always in an especially amusing way.” ― A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“Lauded actress and boundary-busting comedian Goldie Hawn hasn’t appeared in a film in over a decade, let alone starred in one, so her return to the big screen should be considered a very big deal. Too bad that the Oscar-winning actress’ first project in 15 years isn’t just a misfire, but one that commits the unforgivable sin of not allowing Hawn to inhabit her stature as a great comedic performer.” ― Kate Erbland, IndieWire

“Emily’s first-world oblivion and Linda’s bad knees hardly bode well for survival, and the plot pitches and weaves like a drunk lemur. But as Snatched’s blonde-leading-the-blonde farce careens on, it stumbles into moments of deranged inspiration, lifted by loopy cameos (Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes, a mute Joan Cusack) and Hawn’s dizzy, undiminished charisma.” ― Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

“The film is exactly what you expect, which is not a rave or a pan but just a truth: Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn are a mom and daughter who get kidnapped in South America. Hijinks ensue, many of which are funny. Some are not.” ― Kevin Fallon, The Daily Beast

“What we get out of the ultimate product is a watered-down version of Schumer’s shtick, well-known from her Comedy Central show and stand-up, and Hawn looking completely out of place the entire time.” ― Jason Guerrasio, Business Insider

“’Snatched,’ more about victimhood than women running their own show, is funny here and there, but in ways that make the bulk of the formulaic material all the more frustrating.” ― Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

“The film doesn’t attempt to invent the wheel so much as provide a solid foundation on which to play out a female-centric comedic caper that is less focused on romance and more on family bonding. It’s rude, crude and earns its R-rating, but it’s anchored in a cheerful goofiness that pokes fun at its own premise while making sure to note that its specific plot doesn’t intend to impugn an entire people.” ― Scott Mendelson, Forbes

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When actor Mickey Rowe found out he had been cast as the leading character in “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” the news brought tears to his eyes.

Earning a spot in a production of the Tony Award–winning play based on Mark Haddon’s 2003 murder-mystery novel of the same name was a life-changing accomplishment in itself. But even more remarkably, Rowe was cast in the role of Christopher, a 15-year-old with autism spectrum disorder. Having been diagnosed with autism at age 21, Rowe is one of the first actors with autism to play a character with autism on a major professional stage ― and the very first to play Christopher in the critically-acclaimed show set to open this fall at New York’s Syracuse Stage, an achievement the Broadway production was never able to pull off.

In 2016, the Ruderman Family Foundation published a report examining onscreen visibility for characters with disabilities. The foundation found that less than 1 percent of all television shows depict characters with disabilities, despite the fact that 1 in 5 Americans experience them. On top of that, 95 percent of actors playing characters with disabilities do not have disabilities themselves.

On TV, in film and onstage, non-disabled actors have been emphatically rewarded for taking on the “challenge” of playing characters with disabilities ― or, as The Guardian’s Frances Ryan called it, “cripping up.” From Lennie Small in “Of Mice and Men” to Laura Wingfield in “The Glass Menagerie,” the few characters who do represent disabled experiences are rarely played by actors with direct experience with the subject matter. 

While conversations about diversity and representation onstage ― primarily having to do with race and gender ― have become more mainstream, actors with disabilities are still waiting to tell their own stories, to have their lives amount to more than a plot device. Critics have certainly spoken out against the lack of disabilities representation onscreen and onstage. Christopher Shinn, a playwright who had a below-the-knee amputation, wrote a powerful piece for The Atlantic about why “pop culture is more interested in disability as a metaphor than in disability as something that happens to real people.”

He continued:

I may not have been much bothered by any of this until my own disability asserted itself. But now I know that the physical pain and challenges that come in the wake of disability, alongside the insensitivity and lack of understanding one encounters, are profound experiences that cannot be truly known until they are endured. Perhaps the worst feeling is when people avert their eyes. Even someone gawking is better than their looking away.

In an email to HuffPost, Rowe explained how living with autism not only prepared him for his role as Christopher, but his life as an actor. “Autistics use scripts every day,” he wrote. “We use scripting for daily situations that we can predict the outcome of, and stick to those scripts. My job as an autistic is to make you believe that I am coming up with words on the spot, that this is spontaneous, the first time the conversation has ever happened in my life; this is also my job on stage as an actor.”

Rowe, who has previously performed at venues including the Seattle Shakespeare Company, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, the Ashland New Plays Festival and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, hopes to one day be a company member at the beloved Oregon Shakespeare Festival. While these experiences have been indispensable, Rowe says the more menial challenges of everyday life have equipped him for success onstage.

“As an autistic, I have felt vulnerable my entire life,” he said. “To be vulnerable on stage is no biggie.”

Check out our full interview with Rowe, the new star of “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” co-produced by Indiana Repertory Theatre, below:

What drew you to acting as a kid? Do you recall a specific actor, performance or film that spurred your desire to perform?

I always visited the Seattle Children’s Theatre as a kid and then the Oregon Shakespeare Festival after that. Those two places really gave me the theatre bug. My goal is to be a company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

I saw that you were also drawn to the circus arts growing up. What appealed to you specifically about this field?

When doing circus skills I get to dive and tumble and juggle and do really physical things and a lot of autistic people are a lot more comfortable when being physical like that. I also get to be very physical like that on stage often, so doing a show like “Curious Incident,” which has lots of physicality, makes me feel very comfortable.

You learned you were on the autism spectrum when you were 21. What was your immediate reaction to the diagnosis?

It was such a relief because it was something that explained my whole life and all the things that were difficult or different about me. There was a name for it, and a lot of other people who thought, understood and acted like I did.

When you first read Curious Incident, the novel, how did you feel about it?

I really connected with Christopher on so many levels. To give one example Christopher says, “I really like little spaces… as long as there’s no one else in them with me. Sometimes when I want to be on my own I go into the airing cupboard, slide in next to the boiler, and pull the door closed behind me, and sit there and think for hours, and it makes me feel very calm.”

When I was a kid I had a wooden trunk I kept my magic tricks in, and I would often sit inside of it with the lid closed for hours until my mom would make me get out, because she was worried about how much air might be left inside.

As an actor with autism, how does it feel to consistently see roles centered on disabilities be played by actors without disabilities?

There is an old joke: “What’s the surest way to win an Oscar (Tony, Emmy, etc.)? Have a non-disabled person play a disabled character.” Only it’s not really a joke. There is so much misinformation and so many stereotypes around autism because we nearly always learn about autism from others instead of going straight to the source and learning about autism from autistic adults.

Ideally someone with a disability could play any role, and not have that role be about disability. A wheelchair user could play Hamlet and not ever mention the wheelchair, or someone who is legally blind and autistic like I am could play Puck. But until we see that happening, the least we can do is give disabled people a voice to represent our own communities in a way that is more about honesty and less about stereotypes.

You mentioned memorizing scripts before going on auditions, because you are legally blind. Are there other exercises, routines or elements of being a professional actor with autism that others might not know?

Not really. In both rehearsal and performance, [those are] my safe zones. Where I feel in my element. During lunch breaks or out on the street, that’s where I feel much less comfortable and use autistic tricks like wearing headphones and sunglasses. 

The email you sent me beautifully describes how you feel more comfortable performing a script than interacting with strangers. Do you think your autism has made you a stronger actor by requiring you to incorporate so many elements of acting into your everyday life?

I would certainly hope so. And I think so, yes. Being autistic I get to practice acting every minute of every day.

How did you feel when you found out you got the role of Christopher?

I am so honored to get to represent my community and the character of Christopher at the incredible and beautiful Indiana Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage. I was not expecting it and almost cried with joy when I got the “yes” email.

Why, in your opinion, is it important that the arts represent individuals with disabilities, not only through telling their stories but representing them as artists onstage?

The young actors in this country who have a disability need to see positive role models who will tell them that if you are different, if you access the world differently, if you need special accommodations, then theatre needs you! The world needs you. I think theater should make everyone feel less alone. It should show you your hopes and dreams both failed and realized. Everyone should be able to go to the theatre or turn on their TV and see somebody like them, someone who thinks like them. Everyone should also definitely be able to go to the theatre and see someone who thinks very differently than they do.

Since you are one the first actors with autism to play a character with autism, do you feel like a role model for younger actors?

I have had a number of young autistic actors reaching out to me on Facebook to tell me how amazing it is to hear from someone who has experienced such similar things to themselves.

How do you hope to see the theater scene change in the next five years?

I would love to see us talk about disability more like we talk about other types of diversity. As another beautiful color in the tapestry of this country. Right now, people often feel shame around disability and don’t know how to talk about it, so we just don’t talk about it at all, or hire all non-disabled actors to work on shows about disability. Instead we might see disabled people as our co-workers and collaborators. As professionals.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

“Curious Incident” is co-produced by Indiana Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage and directed by Risa Brainin. It runs Sept. 19 through Nov. 12. Tickets are available at irtlive.com and syracusestage.org.

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Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it. – Marcel Duchamp

The artist Beatrice Wood once tried to patiently explain to Emmy “Galka” Scheyer (1889-1945)—a German-born emigrée whose lifetime mission was to popularize modern art in the United States—that Scheyer would be invited to more social events in Los Angeles if she just wouldn’t shout so much.“ Galka, look, dear… you dominate,” Wood advised, “And I think that’s why you’re not always invited.”

“Well, why shouldn’t I shout?” Scheyer countered: “I’m more intelligent than them! I know everything! Of course I’m going to shout! Nothing’s going to stop me! I have something to give and they should know it.”

The exhibition “Maven of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in California,” on view at the Norton Simon Museum through September 25th, 2017, more than validates Scheyer’s point: she did indeed have a great deal to give. The roughly 500 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculptures left in her estate—originally deeded to UCLA—transformed the fledgling Pasadena Art Institute, which received them in 1953, into the Pasadena Art Museum. That museum, after a decade of notable exhibits and lingering financial challenges, was in turn absorbed by the Norton Simon Museum in the mid- 1970s.

“In a quirk of art history,” comments writer/curator Victoria Dailey, “one of the greatest collections of works by German, Russian and Swiss modern artists wound up in an unlikely spot: Pasadena.”

The Blue Four Galka Scheyer Collection at the Norton Simon Museum is familiar to most Southern California museum-goers, but Scheyer herself is ripe for rediscovery. Although over 100 of her letters to the “Blue Four” (Jawlensky, Klee, Feininger and Kandinsky) have been published there is no official biography of Scheyer yet available. To help bring Scheyer’s persona into the gallery, Gloria Willams Sander, the curator and organizer of “Maven” has designed the exhibition to include ephemera—including glass slides, brochures and correspondence—as well as some rarely seen works that offer telling insights into Scheyer’s life and milleu. One detail that stands out: Scheyer’s crisply-designed brochures for the “Blue Four” look like they were designed yesterday, not 90 years ago.

Victoria Dailey, who will be speaking about Scheyer on Saturday, May 13th, has studied Scheyer’s dynamism and social connections: “Yes, Galka was part of the Schindler-Neutra crowd, who were, at the time, the ’cool crowd’ of Los Angeles: architects, artists, musicians, raconteurs, bon vivants and bohemians. Galka even lived for a time at the Schindler house, and studied architecture with Schindler during 1927.”

In Peter Krasnow’s 1927 watercolor, “Recalling Happy Memories,”—given to Scheyer by the artist as a gift—Scheyer lectures to a fashionable crowd in Schindler’s King’s Road living room, holding a modern painting in one hand and a baton in the other. “Her voice was so strident,” Beatrice Wood recalled, “and her manner so intense it was abrasive. Yet, she was so alive in a room, and scintillating, that no one else counted.” Lyonel Feininger, one of the “Blue Four” artists, addressed one of his many letters to her “Dear Little Tornado.”

Of course, in an era when modern art was seen by most as repellent or crazy, it took a brilliant, hard-driving speaker to convince even sophisticated people that modern art was worth their cash or attention. A Stanford professor who heard her lecture in 1926 said that “…she made her hearers understand something of the serious aims of even this ultra-modern art because she showed that it is closely related to all modernism in which we live, and that it contains elements essential to our growth.” A raconteur par excellence, in 1929 Scheyer charged members of the Oakland Art Gallery an astonishing $250 to attend her 500 slide lecture series “From Prehistoric Art to the Blue Four.”

Jake Zeitlin (1902-87), a Los Angeles bookseller, once told an interviewer that Scheyer had approached him sometime in the 1930s with a “Blue Four” painting and said, “Jake, why don’t you come up and buy one of those paintings. It will cost you $300, and you can pay $10 a month.” Zeitlin was not interested: “I thought, I was not going to be stuck with those things. So she never stuck me with one of those great paintings, and the only man who really supported her in those days was Walter Arensberg.”

Scheyer’s connection to Walter and Louise Arensberg, early and important collectors of Duchamp whose Hollywood soirées were, in the recollection of one artist’s wife, “…an inconceivable orgy of sexuality, jazz and alcohol” is just one of many social contacts that deserves further examination. So do Scheyer’s interactions with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, who she cajoled into helping organize a 1931 “Blue Four” exhibition in Mexico.

Although “Maven of Modernism” features the works of many well-known artists—including Alexander Archipenko, László Moholy-Nagy, Emil Nolde, and Pablo Picasso—there are some welcome surprises from relatively unknown artists. One of them is an attenuated nude by Edward Hagedorn (1902-1982), a reclusive draftsman and printmaker who Scheyer met in the late 1920s in the Bay Area. Scheyer reportedly wanted to add Hagedorn to the “Blue Four,”—which would have then become the “Blue Five”—an offer he apparently declined.

Adding pathos to Scheyer’s accomplishments is that fact that she never wavered from her support for modern art during some of the Twentieth Century’s darkest challenges including the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler. During lean years she taught children’s art classes—first in Berkeley and later in Los Angeles—which kept her afloat when art dealing and lecturing would not pay the bills. Scheyer, who was Jewish, must have also been deeply affected by the death of her mother in Germany: she took her own life when alerted that the Nazis were coming for her.

Although Scheyer was often assertive, loud and even impolite in social situations, those who got to know her personally saw a very different side. Asked about Scheyer’s apparent rudeness, Beatrice Wood replied: “…I got over it and realized what a beautiful person she was inside. This absolute devotion to art. This great generosity to art. She was just a wonderful person.”

Maven of Modernism: Galka Scheyer in California

April 7, 2017 – September 25, 2017

The Norton Simon Museum

411 W. Colorado Boulevard

Pasadena, CA 91105-1825

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If Stephen King ― inventor of gutter clowns, ghostly twins and blood-smeared teens ― is feeling spooked, you know something’s amiss.

Wednesday, on the tails of President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI director James Comey, the writer tweeted, “Donald Trump: A remarkable combination of unhinged and dumb as dirt. Time to start talking impeachment. Really. Enough is enough.”

King has been tweeting about Trump and his administration since November, tenaciously criticizing the abuse of the phrase “fake news,” and somberly voicing his concern about the future of health care.

He’s even thrown in a few dad jokes. 

King, whose books have been adapted into some of the stalwarts of 1980s and ‘90s cinema, is seeing a resurgence in 2017, when several of his stories will be turned into movies or shows. This summer, “The Dark Tower” will be released on-screen, and an adaptation of his short story “The Mist” will air on Spike. This fall, an update to “It” will premiere.

But King ― for whom self-promotion is unnecessary at this point ― devotes most of his time on social media not to the advertisement of these projects, but to his mini-takedowns of Trump.

Of course, King is among a bevy of celebrities and writers using their platforms to speak out against the current administration. Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, has compared the state of America to her own fictional Gilead, where women’s dominion over their own bodies was swiftly usurped. At Literary Hub, famous writers have used the site’s platform to promote open letters ― one addressed broadly to American voters before the election, and one, more recently, to The New York Times, addressing its choice to hire Bret Stephens, a reporter who questions the crisis of climate change. 

Other authors have weighed in on whether their roles as writers have changed since November. Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You, told HuffPost, “When you’re fighting intolerance and hatred — as we appear to be ― spreading empathy is itself a form of fighting.”

So, King’s not alone in his acts of dissension ― but he’s voicing concern in his uniquely Kingsian way, with cheesy jokes, horror references and occasional bald sincerity. 

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When it came to selling his beloved 1996 Suzuki Vitara, Eugene Romanovsky went full-on Hollywood.

The Israel-based visual effects artist, from Latvia, created an action movie-style trailer to promote the 21-year-old vehicle.

Via some wizard editing, he made it seem as if his “best friend for 10 years” was driving alongside dinosaurs, down snow-capped mountains and on clifftops.

He even placed it in a scene from “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

Romanovsky posted the breathtaking 2-minute promo to YouTube on April 12. It went viral this week, and has now garnered more than 3.2 million views.

Dozens of people from around the world inquired about buying the Suzuki, said Romanovsky, but none lived in Israel.

“The funny thing is, the person who bought it didn’t see the movie. He saw the car on the street,” he told Israel21C.

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Since its debut in 2011, “Homeland” has captured the attention of a wide audience ― around 5.5 million viewers per week across all platforms, to be exact. Nearly 2 million people, including the future king and queen of England, tuned in to watch the shocking Season 6 finale, which saw the loss of a beloved character in an unexpected twist.

But these days, plot twists are getting harder to pull off. It’s not as easy to surprise the political-drama audience, as we’re living in a world where a former reality star is president of the United States and human rights are being threatened.

But if there’s anything actor Rupert Friend wants “Homeland” viewers to walk away with, it’s a sense of curiosity about what real-life scenarios the show is actually presenting. (Err, a lot.)

“I would say there are those of us who read the news and keep up with what’s going on, but there are those of us who don’t, and that’s OK if they don’t want to. Maybe they like watching an entertaining TV show, and that show informs them of things which might shock them, might interest them or might astound them, which they can then go and research and discover, ‘Oh, crap. That’s actually true. These people are being gassed with this horrific thing. Government does work this way. Corruption does exist.’ So, in a sense, the more spotlights we can turn on the way the world is actually working, the better,” the British actor, who plays black ops agent Peter Quinn on the show, told HuffPost.

He continued, “Entertainment is absolutely an incredible fireball way of reaching frankly more people than straight-up news, at least in the first instance and then people can then go and do their own research and explore further.” 

“Homeland” tends to mirror reality, sometimes inadvertently. Friend joked that he’s pretty sure the showrunners didn’t “make a deal with the devil” or “get a crystal ball” to see the future. Rather, Alex Gansa and co. “are exploring the show from the point of view of the characters and also looking at what’s going on in the world.”

Frequently, the situations and topics covered on the Showtime series reflect actual headlines. And, most grotesquely, those parallels included recent events involving chemical warfare.

It’s not the news, it’s not something that’s distant or far away, it’s real, it’s happening today.
Rupert Friend

Near the end of Season 5, Quinn was given a lethal dose of sarin gas by the Plötzensee Prison terrorists, who were testing it for a far deadlier attack in Berlin. The effects kicked in within seconds, and Quinn began convulsing before collapsing to the floor. Although his fate was uncertain by the Season 5 finale, Quinn returned for Season 6, but his physical and mental capabilities were tragically impacted. The writers might have taken a bit of inspiration from the Assad regime’s August 2013 sarin nerve gas attack near Damascus, which killed more than 1,400, for their storyline in 2015. But it’s sickening to think that after viewers witnessed the torture Quinn endured, more news stories on gas raids in Syria surfaced. Just last month, at least 70 people ― 10 of them children ― were killed in a suspected chemical attack in the northwestern province of Idlib.

“It’s very hard because you’re exposed to the fact that this is not a made-up story. We’re not inventing this. There are human beings ― men, women and children ― in the world who are being gassed,” Friend told HuffPost. “If you do the research, and obviously I did, into the effects of sarin gas – and that’s just one of a multitude of deadly chemical weapons – it is breathtakingly troubling to consider that anybody would inflict that kind of suffering on their fellow man. It’s not the news, it’s not something that’s distant or far away, it’s real, it’s happening today. And I suppose if we can bring any kind of attention to it that the news isn’t already doing, that’s a good thing.”

Friend went on, “It’s definitely a dark world to explore, but I think it’s a necessary one, because the alternative would be to turn a blind eye and that just doesn’t work.”

Peter Quinn’s personality shifted a bit this season as he struggled to cope with his condition following the exposure to sarin, which left him with a noticeable limp, immobility to one side of his body and severely impaired speech. “He didn’t have the ability to differentiate,” Friend said, “and my heart bled for him on that because what a terrifying place to live in.”

Friend prepared for the role through immense research; he spoke with veterans and doctors, as well as many individuals who personally experienced what Quinn faced in Season 6. His performance this season was riveting and has rightfully earned him some Emmy buzz. 

“There are people all over the world who have had strokes and are recovered and been damaged by them; there are people who have been victims of chemical warfare attacks; there are people who have aphasia; and there are people with semi-lateral paraseizures,” he said. “All of the conditions are true and I wanted to honor them rather than try to make it a guess.”

Despite Quinn’s mental and physical impairments, he was still partly the assassin with the “killer instincts” fans came to love. You see this in Season 6, when he suspects Carrie is being watched, and when he finally reveals the black ops team that had it out for her client Sekou Bah.

“The fascinating thing about playing someone for years who has then undergone such a drastic change is all of that work ― all of those thought processes and the past life and the physical capabilities ― it’s all in there, and then you are adding in other circumstantial things he underwent,” Friend explained to HuffPost. “Allowing that kind of agency that he had ― which was so terrifying and efficient and deadly ― to peek back through, sort of like the sun through the clouds, is part of the thrill of getting to play somebody as complicated and, to me, empathetic as Peter Quinn.”

After five years on the Showtime series, Friend said goodbye to Quinn in a scene that culminated with his redemption and death. He sacrificed his own life to save President-elect Elizabeth Keane (Elizabeth Marvel) and Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), driving them to safety while being shot at by officers. 

“This is a soldier. He’s a patriot and, first and foremost, a patriot defends and believes in their country and the country’s chief, who at the time was in the back of his car. So, there’s no choice to be made, there’s only America first, really, for him,” Friend said of his character’s sacrifice. (Turns out, though, he gave up his life for a “distinctly un-American” president, per F. Murray Abraham’s Dar Adal.)

Friend is proud to have been a part of a show that’s highlighted the physical, psychological and spiritual fallout veterans face post-war. “To have the hero of a show be differently abled and struggling with neurolinguistic misfirings, as well as having had a stroke after being woken from a coma, and still be an exciting, thrilling, heroic guy to follow through a story was brave and I salute it,” the actor said. 

With two seasons of “Homeland” left, Friend can see it going any which way, but hopes Max (Maury Sterling) “solves the world’s problems with a single algorithm, which he sells to the highest bidder and then goes to live on a desert island. On the desert island, Saul [Mandy Patinkin] can tend the bar.”

Friend never watched the “Homeland” seasons he was in. When asked if he’d start bingeing the series now that his character is gone, he concluded, “For me, maybe ‘Homeland’ died with Quinn.”

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Diehard sneaker heads, it’s time to eat your feet.

Yujia Hu, a Chinese chef born in Italy, is mixing his style on the streets with his style at the cutting board by turning onigiri ― Japanese rice balls ― into designer sneakers.

The 28-year-old chef told Self magazine last week that his laced-up creations combine his passions for the NBA and pop culture. Before he turned to footwear, Hu made basketball players, iconic actors and famous characters into edible works of art.

“I’ve always been a big fan of NBA, so I started creating onigiris representing my favorite basketball players,” Hu told the magazine. 

He shares photos of his work on his Instagram account, where he has rice versions of Isaiah Thomas of the Boston Celtics, Gandalf from “Lord of the Rings” and 2Pac.

Hu, who left art school at age 18 to train with a master sushi chef, uses sushi rice as his base for the figurines, then adds dried nori, raw fish, avocado or seaweed salad to fill in the details. Each piece can take up 30 minutes to create. 

If you want to taste Hu’s fish-layered footwear, you’re out of luck. Hu owns the restaurant Sakana Sushi in Milan, where he’s also head chef, but he doesn’t serve his rice creations to customers.

However, he does share his artwork on Facebook Instagram. He’s even shared instructions on the best way to eat his onigiri.

And while Hu’s “shoe-shis” have been some of his most popular onigiri creations, his Instagram account is filled with famous faces.

Hu is very specific about which shoes he’ll recreate in rice.

According to Sole Collector, a sneaker blog, the shoes Hu has created include Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 V2, Air Jordan 1s, and Supreme x Nike Air More Uptempo.

Want a virtual taste of Hu’s shoe-shi and other edible artwork? Check out his onigiri creations below.

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