Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew have named a new tree after Leonardo DiCaprio.
The tree has been named Uvariopsis dicaprio, and lives in the Cameroon forest. Scientists decided to name it after DiCaprio on account of his ongoing work to help prevent deforestation.
DiCaprio has vocally supported protestors trying to prevent the deforestation of the Ebo Forest, which is home to many endangered species of animals.
Uvariopsis dicaprio is the first plant new to science to be officially named by Kew scientists in 2022.
Elsewhere, Kate Winslet has said she “couldn’t stop crying” when she reunited with DiCaprio recently after three years apart.
Speaking about the reunion to The Guardian, Winslet said: “I couldn’t stop crying. I’ve known him for half my life! It’s not as if I’ve found myself in New York or he’s been in London and there’s been a chance to have dinner or grab a coffee and catch-up.”
Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew have named a new tree after Leonardo DiCaprio.
The tree has been named Uvariopsis dicaprio, and lives in the Cameroon forest. Scientists decided to name it after DiCaprio on account of his ongoing work to help prevent deforestation.
DiCaprio has vocally supported protestors trying to prevent the deforestation of the Ebo Forest, which is home to many endangered species of animals.
Uvariopsis dicaprio is the first plant new to science to be officially named by Kew scientists in 2022.
Elsewhere, Kate Winslet has said she “couldn’t stop crying” when she reunited with DiCaprio recently after three years apart.
Speaking about the reunion to The Guardian, Winslet said: “I couldn’t stop crying. I’ve known him for half my life! It’s not as if I’ve found myself in New York or he’s been in London and there’s been a chance to have dinner or grab a coffee and catch-up.”
“I was doing a fight scene and it was on a marble floor. I misjudged,” Chastain recalled on The Late Late Show. “I had fallen and hit my head. I misjudged the distance. I heard a crack. That might be why I am the way I am today.”
She continued: “Everyone stopped and looked scared, and I was a bit stunned, like, I don’t know what is happening.”
Chastain went on to say that she received a bruise on her head, which her stunt double had to push back in.
“I did a couple more takes because, you know, I don’t give up easy, and then I went to the hospital,” she said.
Chastain recently made headlines for defending Succession star Jeremy Strong following a divisive profile interview.
Following the interview, Chastain, who starred opposite Strong in Zero Dark Thirty and Molly’s Game, defended the actor on Twitter in light of suggestions that he’s hard to work with. “I’ve known Jeremy Strong for 20 years and worked with him on two films. He’s a lovely person. Very inspiring and passionate about his work,” she wrote.
“The profile that came out on him was incredibly one-sided. Don’t believe everything you read folks. Snark sells but maybe it’s time we move beyond it.”
Peter Bogdanovich, the actor and Oscar-nominated director behind Paper Moon and The Last Picture Show, has died.
The 82-year-old passed away in his home, it has been confirmed to Deadline. Bogdanovich had an acting career that spanned over 60 years. He had an ongoing role in The Sopranos as Dr. Melfi’s therapist, Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, and worked with reputable filmmakers such as Noah Baumbach and Agnès Varda.
However, his work behind the camera was more prolific. His sophomore film as a director, The Last Picture Show, earned him two Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Shortly after, he made Barbara Streisand-fronted screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon, which saw its star Tatum O’Neal become the youngest actor to win Best Lead Actress, at just 10 years old.
Additionally, Bogdanovich upheld a productive career as a film critic and author, and wrote books on Orson Welles, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock.
Key Hollywood figures have taken to social media to pay homage to the filmmaker.
“He was a dear friend and a champion of Cinema. He birthed masterpieces as a director and was a most genial human,” tweeted Guillermo del Toro. “He single-handedly interviewed and enshrined the lives and work of more classic filmmakers than almost anyone else in his generation.”
“Peter Bogdanovich loved the movies. Making them, watching them, analyzing them, talking all night long about them,” wrote screenwriter Larry Karaszewski. “Paper Moon and What’s Up Doc? are two of the most entertaining films of all time. Put on an ascot and watch them tonight.”
Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, who broke international ground as the enchantingly gobby Michelle in Irish comedy Derry Girls, is ready to be taken seriously. The 29-year-old, a Derry native herself, next appears on screen in Channel 4’s prison drama Screw, as a new guard on an all-male prison block. “I liked this idea of a young woman going into an untrusted environment and not being intimidated by it,” O’Donnell says of her character Rose from her home in Derry.
The actor is far less raucous than the shots-swigging, hemline-hitching Michelle, but she is just as energetic, at first apologising in case the room she’s Zooming in from seems messy (it’s not), and then chatting excitedly throughout our conversation. She’s back in town to wrap up the third and final season of Derry Girls, a career highpoint that she finds “really sad and heartbreaking,” but one that also hails new beginnings.
The cast of Channel 4 prison drama ‘Screw’. CREDIT: Channel 4
Screw was a conscious shift away from Derry Girls – a chance for O’Donnell to play it straight alongside an all-new cast and crew. “I was actively looking for something like this so I can show people what I can do,” she says. Through Rose, we see inside prison life with all its complex politics and corruption, as well as the camaraderie between inmates and (sometimes) employees. The show was written by Killing Evescribe Rob Williams, who drew on his own experiences of working and volunteering in prisons in order to bring the script its authenticity. “It was important for Rob to stay honest, which is why you don’t see the prisons as all being evil and horrible, and all the prison officers are noble,” says O’Donnell. Additionally, she spoke with real life guards to get detailed accounts of their day-to-day work. “We learned about the physicality of the job, like how you would stand if there was an argument, which way you face, all of the intricacies that you wouldn’t have a clue about.”
O’Donnell’s relationship with acting stems from childhood. “I don’t even remember making the decision,” she says. “I just remember it’s where I was happiest.” She would spend her spare time building worlds for herself and dressing up in costumes. “I would make up these performances and dances and go, ‘these are brilliant!’ when they obviously weren’t,” she laughs. She loved American shows like Sister Sister, and listened to Destiny’s Child’s ‘The Writing’s On The Wall’ and Christina Aguilera’s ‘Stripped’ on heavy rotation. “I went through a period of thinking that if I could just grow up in America, that would save everything,” she says. “You get this idea of what life is like there through TV, where it just looks like everybody’s having fun and is really happy.” As a working-class girl living in a Northern Irish city, O’Donnell worried about breaking into the industry. She took random jobs and saved up money, while immersing herself in Derry’s arts scene. “I feel like creativity seems to rise up wherever there’s been sadness or conflict as a coping mechanism,” she says.
Jamie-Lee O’Donnell (left) in ‘Derry Girls’. CREDIT: Alamy
O’Donnell began to audition for school plays, and scoured the local paper for theatre workshops. She would land her first acting job in 2012, in university drama 6 Degrees, which ran from 2012 to 2015 on Irish network RTE. It would be on a touring production of a play called I Told my Mum I Was Going On An R.E. Trip however, that she received a phone call that would change her life. The casting agent for Derry Girls wanted her to come to London the following morning for a chemistry read. “I loved the script, especially because it was about Derry,” she remembers. “But I obviously never imagined at the time that it would become as big as it is.”
The first day on set brought with it a “cacophony of excitement,” O’Donnell remembers. The core cast – who play a gang of hopeless high schoolers coming of age amid the Troubles during the 1990s – became instant friends. “I remember Nicola [Coughlan] saying on the day: ‘Can you imagine if people dress up as us for Halloween?’” she says. “Now I get sent photos all the time from hen parties and even stag parties of people dressed as Michelle.”
‘Derry Girls’, immortalised in a mural outside Badger’s Bar in Derry. CREDIT: Alamy
The show was an instant hit, with a second series ordered shortly after the pilot had aired on Channel 4. It has gone on to become the channel’s most successful sitcom since Father Ted, and the girls (and token boy) are now immortalised in mural form on the wall of Badger’s Bar in Derry. O’Donnell has a catalogue of iconic Michelle moments that she holds dear to her heart, but her favourite scene from the show takes place in the closing moments of the first series, in which the girls (and boy) are taking part in a cringeworthy dance routine during the school’s talent contest. The routine is cut together with shots of the older cast at home, watching the news coverage of the 1998 Omagh bombing in horror. “From what I understand that was what it was like for older and younger generations on both sides,” she says. “To be a part of that scene was so special to me.”
O’Donnell can’t reveal much about the upcoming season, she does promise a new level of maturity from Michelle and her drama peers. “I think that it’s nice to note that we are growing up slightly, it’s a nice thing to end on,” she says. “Of course, there’s still loads of absolute madness.” She also likes that the show maintains a sense of realism. “You have to remember that these are working-class girls,” she says. “They don’t have money for adventures. The way that Lisa [McGee, the show’s creator and writer] keeps them true to their backgrounds is genius.”
The show is due to wrap a few days after our mid-December chat. Screw is next on the cards for O’Donnell, and then she’s set for the big screen in Irish horrorUnwelcome opposite Douglas Booth and Hannah John-Kamen. “I absolutely loved it,” she says of the physically demanding shoot, which sees her facing off against a batch of murderous goblins. She’s also writing, although she’s not quite ready to take the leap and pitch what she’s got so far. “It’s weird. I find it more vulnerable and scarier to show people your writing as opposed to your acting,” she says. Then, there’s the production company that she hopes to start in the future, to help rising actors from challenging backgrounds. “When I was coming up as an actor, even when I was going to Irish roles, I was advised to pick a different accent because mine was so strong,” she remembers. “It made me sad because in my head I [thought I] wasn’t good enough.” Now the script has flipped, with casting directors telling her to keep her accent, no matter what country they’re based in. It seems the world has finally opened up for this working-class Destiny’s Child fan from Derry.
‘Screw’ debuts tonight (January 6) on Channel 4 at 9pm and is available on All 4
Russell T Davies, whose drama It’s A Sin has topped multiple Best Show polls in 2021, has challenged the cliché of “nice” gay characters.
Davies, who will soon take over as the new showrunner of Doctor Who, has said that he tends to write faults into his characters, such as It’s A Sin‘s lead Ritchie, played by Olly Alexander.
“His selfishness, and the fact that he thinks he’s so clever he can talk his way out of any situation. That’s me. All his worst faults are mine,” he told The Guardian when asked if he saw himself in Ritchie.
He continued: “People often say my lead characters are unlikable, and I think, well, I’m doing that on purpose, because we often are. Likeable is very easy to write, isn’t it?
“There’s often a feeling that the gay character should be the nice character. And I’m like, nobody worries about Tony Soprano, do they? But gay people have to be nice! I love ignoring that.”
At the time of its launch, it was confirmed that the five-part series set the record for Channel 4’s most-binged new TV box set on All 4.
Also earlier this year, Davies revealed that an additional flatmate and further story arcs were lined up had the show been allowed to run for longer.
“It could’ve been eight episodes long, and there would’ve been an extra flatmate, and he would’ve had adventures,” he said on Damian Barr’s Literary Salon. “But I was offered four episodes, and that’s fine. Everything that I would’ve done kind of compacted inwards.”
The preview was first shown as a post-credits sequence for Spider-Man: No Way Home, and has now been made publicly available.
The film is directed by Sam Raimi, and will see Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange venture further into the ever looming multiverse and undo the damage that was caused in the latest Spider-Man film.
The trailer also sees Strange pay a visit to Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff following the events of her spin-off show WandaVision.
Benedict Wong as Wong, Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the villainous Karl Mordo will all return for the second film. The sequel will also see the introduction of Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez, best known as Marvel character Miss America.
Watch the trailer in full below:
Earlier this year, Wong shared some insight into working with Raimi on the set of the film.
“I like throwing alts, and he likes them, so we just have a bit of a laugh,” he told Collider. “I just throw anything at the wall, and sometimes it will fall down and sometimes it’ll stick. It’s amazing, the creative process.”
Elsewhere in the MCU, a sequel to Spider-Man: No Way Homeis “actively” in the works, Marvel boss Kevin Fiege has confirmed.
“Amy and I and Disney and Sony are talking about – yes, we’re actively beginning to develop where the story heads next, which I only say outright because I don’t want fans to go through any separation trauma like what happened after Far From Home,” Feige told The New York Times. “That will not be occurring this time.”
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness will be released in cinemas on May 6, 2022.
Nicole Kidman has opened up about age discrimination in the film industry, saying that women over 40 stand no chance of continuing their acting careers.
The actor reflected upon getting older in Hollywood in a recent interview to promote her new movie Being The Ricardos.
“There’s a consensus in the industry that as a female actor, at about 40, you’re done,” Kidman told Dujour.
“I never sat in a chair and heard someone say, ‘You’re past your due date,’” Kidman added, “But I’ve had times where you’re turned down and the door is shut on you. It’s definitely changing and moving.”
During the interview Kidman also said that “you’ve got to have a thick skin” when it comes to acting.
Ahead of the release of Being The Ricardos, she came up against criticism from Lucille Ball fans, who believed that she failed to authentically embody the famed comedy star.
However, the film’s director Aaron Sorkin stood the casting choice. “The fact of the matter is when Nicole, as Lucille Ball, plays Lucy Ricardo, I think she does an incredible job of mimicking Lucy,” Sorkin told The Hollywood Reporter.
He added: “Finding an actress who looked like Lucille Ball wasn’t important to me, especially because I was excited by the idea that Lucille Ball doesn’t look like Lucille Ball — and that every time we’re seeing Lucille Ball not as Lucy Ricardo, she should both literally and metaphorically let her hair down.”
The show, which is yet to receive an official release date, features early in the trailer, with footage showing stars Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke and a huge dragon’s head.
The 10-episode series is set 300 years before the timeline of Game Of Thrones and follows the House Targaryen up to a bloody civil war called the Dance of Dragons, which threatens to end the Targaryen reign.
The showcase also includes a first-look at Westworld season four. The footage shows Thandiwe Newton’s Maeve, plus a terrified Caleb (Aaron Paul) being watched by the Man in Black (Ed Harris).
Earlier this year, the show’s co-creator revealed that “new worlds” are going to be explored in the upcoming season of the hit sci-fi.
“You’re going to see some new worlds that I think are really fun,” Lisa Joy, who has worked on the show since it premiered in 2016, said on Deadline‘s Hero Nation podcast.
Watch the HBO and HBO Marx preview trailer below:
Elsewhere, a sneak peak at the world’s only Game Of Thrones Studio Tour in Northern Ireland has been released.
Fans of the HBO show, which ran from 2011 to 2019 across eight seasons, can visit the 110,000 square foot studio tour in County Down, one of the show’s original filming locations, from February 2022.
The tour promises to take visitors “behind the scenes of The Seven Kingdoms and beyond,” according to the tour’s website. Fans will be able to walk through sets including Winterfell, the throne room in Dragonstone, Cersei’s courtyard in King’s Landing and the mess room in Castle Black, and the hope is that the tour will welcome up to 600,000 visitors a year.
A new trailer has been released for Disney‘s Death On The Nile, which still stars Armie Hammer in spite of multiple accusations of sexual and emotional abuse made against him.
The Agatha Christie adaptation is the latest directorial effort from Kenneth Branagh, and sees Hammer star opposite Branagh, Gal Gadot, Tom Bateman and Letitia Wright.
He plays Simon Doyle, husband to Gadot’s moneyed Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle. Watch the newly-released trailer below.
Allegations against Hammer first surfaced in early 2021, when social media allegations caused him to drop out of shooting Shotgun Wedding opposite Jennifer Lopez.
Further accusations followed, and in March, when the actor was accused of rape by a woman named Effie, who said she “thought that [Hammer] was going to kill me”.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney considered several options when the accusations broke regarding Hammer, which included reshooting the movie with a new star who could replace Hammer’s character, according to a source.
However, it was claimed that this option wasn’t feasible for a film of this scale, because of the pandemic and the ensemble cast. Gathering all the actors back together would have been near-to-impossible due to COVID.
The distributor’s decision to commit to a full theatrical release, according to THR, is to honour the large cast and crew involved in the film, a source said.
Death On The Nile is due to hit cinemas on February 11.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
