NEED TO KNOW
Zoë Kravitz is okay leaving some ’90s trends behind.
The actress stars opposite Austin Butler in Caught Stealing, a crime caper from director Darren Aronofsky that takes place in 1998 New York City.
Kravitz, 36, says it was “so fun” revisiting the bygone decade, as she and Butler, 34, got nostalgic in an interview with PEOPLE, listing things they miss from the ’90s, from answering machines to VHS tapes.
“Even just being in the apartment [on set] and seeing the Nintendo 64 on top of the TV. We had the GoldenEye , I saw that,” says Butler, who also misses “not having cell phones” all the time.
Kravitz says of her prop from the film, “Or my cell phone was that Nokia brick thing.” He adds, “You had a big old thing, yeah.”
“[I’m] really nostalgic for that time,” says Kravitz. “Then also the fashion, all that stuff’s so cool. New York City and the grunge. … It’s a good time.”
Niko Tavernise
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But what’s one thing they’d prefer to leave in the ’90s? After some thought, Kravitz says, “Super homophobic jokes on mainstream television. If you watch Friends now you’re like, ‘Whoa, that’s….’ ”
“Wow, even in Friends?” asks Butler. Says Kravitz, “Oh, so much in Friends. Like, things that aren’t punchlines are punchlines. It’s wild. So maybe that? We can keep that there.”
“That’s crazy,” says Butler. “Yeah, keep that in the ’90s!”
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The creatives behind Friends, the mega-popular NBC sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, have previously addressed how some storylines and jokes did not age well in the decades since.
Co-creator Marta Kauffman admitted to USA Today in 2019 that “every time I watch an episode, there’s something I wish I could have changed. All the time. Like, how did we leave that joke in there? Or, really, that storyline? That’s what we went with?”
David Schwimmer, who played Ross, defended the show in 2020, telling The Guardian, “The truth is also that show was groundbreaking in its time for the way in which it handled so casually sex, protected sex, gay marriage and relationships. The pilot of the show was my character’s wife left him for a woman and there was a gay wedding, of my ex and her wife, that I attended.”
“I feel that a lot of the problem today in so many areas is that so little is taken in context. You have to look at it from the point of view of what the show was trying to do at the time,” Schwimmer, 58, added at the time. “I’m the first person to say that maybe something was inappropriate or insensitive, but I feel like my barometer was pretty good at that time.”
Caught Stealing is in theaters now.
