Wheel of Fortune co-host Vanna White recently opened up about how she spent her holidays and revealed what she’s been binge-watching over the past few weeks. While speaking with TV Insider, White shared that the No. 1 show on her current binge list is The Queen’s Gambit, Netflix’s hit drama series about the world of competitive chess. White then went on to mention The Crown, as something she binged recently as well.
Next, White added that she is “a big HGTV fan,” as well, implying that she’s been watching a lot of the network in her down time. “There’s some good stuff on,” she said, also revealing that she recently watched the holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and was planning to watch Elf and possibly Home Alone. She explained that having her kids home for the holidays made it so that they were eager to watch some classic Christmas films together.
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White isn’t the only one who’s been watching The Queen’s Gambit, as the series came out of 2020 as one of the most popular and talked-about shows of the year. Based on Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel of the same name, the story follows chess prodigy, Beth Harmon — played by Anya Taylor-Joy — as she grows from being an orphan with a keen eye for the game into a young woman with the talent to defeat the best chess players in the world. Set in the ’50 and ’60s, The Queen’s Gambit takes viewers on an intense and heartbreaking journey through Beth’s life as she hones her skill and navigates the confusion that adulthood brings without stable guidance.
In December, series co-creator, Scott Frank, sat down for an interview with NPR’s Fresh Air and shared what it was about the story that drew him to want to adapt it for television. “Well, the novel is fantastic. And it reads – it’s a real page-turner, and it almost reads like a thriller in many ways,” he said, then going on to praise the way Beth is written. “She’s such a fascinating character.”
Frank added, “Even if you don’t know a wit about chess, you can’t put the book down. And for some reason, when I read it, bizarrely, I thought it was cinematic. Even though it was about chess, it just felt like a movie to me. And I could see it, and I could see her. And so it really became – it sort of became mine in a way because I’d always been fascinated since my very first script, ‘Little Man Tate,’ with sort of the cost of genius. And this felt like the ultimate expression of that theme.” The Queen’s Gambit is currently available to stream on Netflix.
