Ms. Rachel, John Turturro, Luis Guzman and The Kid Mero are among the entertainment names on Mamdani’s inaugural committee.
New York City’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has lined up a slate of familiar names to Hollywood for his inaugural committee, with a massive New Year’s Day block party planned to be held by City Hall.
As is tradition, Mamdani will be sworn in as mayor in Times Square, just minutes after the ball has dropped to welcome the new year. Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York attorney general Letitia James will swear him in.
But New Year’s Day will also have an “Inauguration for a New Era Block Party,” with Mamdani lining up many of his Hollywood heavy-hitters to serve on the inaugural committee.
While the committee includes its fair share of politicians, civic leaders and local dignitaries, it also includes a number of people from the world of entertainment, many of whom supported Mamdani during his campaign.
Among the members of the committee are Ms. Rachel, the YouTube and Netflix star who has become a driving force in preschool programming; Wednesday actor and producer Luis Guzman; Severance actor and filmmaker John Turturro; actress and activist Cynthia Nixon; actor and playwright Cole Escola; actor and writer Julio Torres; actor Kal Penn; writer and comedian The Kid Mero; A24 executive Sara’o Bery; musician Sonny Rollins; and novelist Colton Whitehead.
Mamdani, of course, is Hollywood royalty himself. As the son of filmmaker Mira Nair, he has been surrounded by the trappings of the entertainment business from a young age.
“What I love so much about Zohran is that he embraces the multiplicity of our lives in the most natural way — this mosaic that is our city but that no one has seen until this young man came along,” Nair told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month. “It’s the theme of ‘who is considered marginal.’ That is the question I have asked all my life and in all my films. And now he’s asking it on the biggest stage.”
The block party is planned for 1 p.m. on New Year’s Day on Broadway, stretching from Liberty Street up to City Hall. Mamdani smartly leveraged social platforms like TikTok and YouTube as he ran his surprise mayoral campaign and collaborated with creators and stars with a presence on those platforms to be ubiquitous, while also utilizing more traditional forms of media like TV and mailers.
Many politicians have taken to copying his direct-to-camera appeals, with more mixed success.
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