7 d. ago ‘When medieval times return, I’ll be ready’: Bella Ramsey on friendship, fashion and The Last of Us

The young actor’s life has been transformed since they landed the lead role in what turned out to be a TV phenomenon. As the much-anticipated second season begins, they discuss growing up in the glare of fameBella Ramsey self-recorded their audition tape for The Last of Us at their parents’ home in Leicestershire and sent it off more in hope than expectation. Ramsey, who was 17 at the time, had never played the post-apocalyptic zombie video game on which the new TV series was based, but knew it was a big deal: released in 2013, it had sold more than 20m copies. It would later emerge that Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the show’s creators, looked seriously at more than 100 actors for the role of Ellie, the sassy and quirky but also complicated and vicious American protagonist of The Last of Us. “Yeah, I’ve been told,” says Ramsey with a wry smile.When Ramsey got the first callback from Mazin and Druckmann, they joined the Zoom from their childhood bedroom. “I’ve gotten very used to ...

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9 d. ago Millennials rejoice as Clueless star set to reprise lead role in TV reboot

Fans are wondering who else from the original film might appear in the new series

Politics

1 week ago Peter Andre fans all ask the same question as Aussie singer plays Jamaican gangster in odd new film trailer

The low-budget comedy marks the Mysterious Girl hit-maker’s first lead role on the big screen

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1 week ago ‘We were all in it together’: Jacob Elordi on his wartime epic The Narrow Road to the Deep North

The Saltburn and Priscilla star talks about his first Australian lead role and the physical costs of playing a PoW on the Burma-Thailand railway Get our weekend culture and lifestyle emailTo everyone except fans of the teen drama Euphoria, Jacob Elordi’s star seemed to explode from nowhere two years ago. In 2023, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn revealed to global audiences the breadth of the young Queenslander’s range – a tormented and controlling Elvis in one vehicle, a charmingly selfish young British aristocrat in the other. They also certified him as a bona fide celebrity and sex symbol – the kind that can inspire lookalike contests.Australians might be forgiven for not knowing the 27-year-old actor is one of us: aside from a handful of small roles (including his feature film debut, aged 17 in Stephan Elliott’s Swinging Safari – “I think I said two words, probably ‘shag me’,” he says) – he’s mostly played Americans and Brits.Sign up for the fun stuff wit...

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2 w. ago Your Friends & Neighbours review – Jon Hamm’s fun new drama is like The White Lotus back from holiday

Taking his first lead in a prestige TV drama since Mad Men, the actor is brilliant. He is on suave, nuanced form in a very funny show – which could use a little more bite You can understand why it might take an actor a while to tackle another dramatic lead role on television when their first was a life-changing, career-defining part in a critically acclaimed landmark TV drama that ran for eight superlative seasons. But it is 10 years since Mad Men ended and only now is Jon Hamm re-entering the fray. He has mostly been busy with comedy roles in the intervening years. Now, he returns to the type of part that made his name: era-specific masculinity under siege from a prestige production bent on feeding us our own horrors back to us in chunks. This time it is about the fall from grace of a New York hedge fund manager, Andrew Cooper – think a modern, misogyny-lite Don Draper, but one who loves his kids and really is who he says he is.The opening scene has Cooper coming to on a marble flo...

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2 w. ago Minecraft Movie fans 'torn' after realising different star was in

The Minecraft Movie has been a huge hit at the box office, but fans have been left split after realising an iconic actor who was initially cast in the lead role

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3 w. ago Filmmaker uses AI to 'bring his late mum back to life' starring her in lead role

Tony Cane-Honeysett, 69, a filmmaker, has created a documentary about his mum, who died nine years ago, by using an unpublished book she wrote and her own artificially generated voice

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3 w. ago Huge EastEnders star taking break from soap after bagging lead role in brand new show

The 62-year-old first appeared on the soap in 1988, but left in 1900 after her character supposedly got killed off during childbirth.

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3 w. ago Good Night, and Good Luck review – George Clooney’s Broadway debut never quite lands

Winter Garden Theatre, New YorkThe actor-director brings his 2005 drama to the stage, now playing the lead role, but while it’s timely and nicely staged, it feels stiffTime has been kind to Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney’s sincere dramatization of the broadcaster Edward R Murrow’s on-air tangles with Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Sleek, slim and reverent, the 2005 film recalled a time of both cultural panic and promise, before American attention splintered and television’s road forked toward cable news. In its own era, the movie played in implicit contrast to mainstream media’s failure to interrogate the Bush administration’s dubious justifications for the Iraq war. In 2025, well now, as in 1953, the lies run rampant. But in Clooney’s stark black-and-white drama, truth prevails.Wouldn’t that be nice. The ongoing lurch away from due process casts both a haunting pall and a self-congratulatory glow over New York’s Winter Garden Theatre, where Clooney leads a profici...

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3 w. ago Adolescence star Owen Cooper, 15, lifts the lid on his 'mad' return to school after taking on lead role in hit Netflix show

The 15-year-old break-out star was just 13 when he landed the role of Jamie Miller, a schoolboy accused of brutally murdering a female classmate.

Culture

3 w. ago Adolescence star Owen Cooper, 15, lifts the lid on his 'mad' return to school after taking on lead role in hit Netflix show

The 15-year-old break-out star was just 13 when he landed the role of Jamie Miller, a schoolboy accused of brutally murdering a female classmate.

Culture

3 w. ago Elon Musk reportedly to step down from lead Trump role as service limit nears

Insiders say Musk will leave soon, when 130-day cap on government service expires but ‘Doge’ team set to continueElon Musk’s polarizing stint slashing and bashing federal bureaucracy will probably soon end, with the world’s richest person’s government service hitting its legal limit in the coming weeks.“He’s got a big company to run at some point he’s going to be going back,” Donald Trump told reporters on Monday. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Jack Grealish Whatsapp group with Tottenham star as links emerge after Pep Guardiola 'dig'

Jack Grealish's minimal role for Manchester City this season could lead to a move away from the Citizens for the £100million man as one club could prove attractive thanks to one player in particular

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4 w. ago Death In Paradise future revealed for DI Mervin Wilson after family twist

DI Mervin Wilson joined the Death In Paradise team this year as Don Gilet signed up for the lead role in the BBC detective drama - but will he stay?

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