The Last Act: Performing Ageing and Celebrity in the TV Series The Kominsky Method

Population ageing has reshaped contemporary Western societies and transformed the media landscape. While older individuals have historically faced underrepresentation or stereotyping in media, streaming platforms and prestige television have increasingly embraced complex narratives of later life, deploying ageing celebrity icons as central cultural resources. This article brings together celebrity studies, television studies, and media/platform studies to analyze how the Netflix original series The Kominsky Method (2018–2021) negotiates the dynamics of age, fame, and media history. Drawing on a dual qualitative methodology combining thematic analysis and visual narrative analysis across all 22 episodes, the study investigates how the show leverages the friction between real-world star images and fictional characters. The analysis reveals how the series exposes the physical realities of biological decay, demystifies celebrity labor within the entertainment industry, and activates audience cultural memory through intertextual nostalgia. Ultimately, the paper demonstrates how streaming platforms transform post-stardom vulnerabilities into lucrative, globally circulating prestige content.