7 d. ago Mark Bonnar: ‘I wanted to be a historian, then a drummer, and then I just wanted to be employed’ | Q&A

The actor on how an aside about sex became big news, getting let off for weed, and crying at advertsBorn in Edinburgh, Mark Bonnar, 56, studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In 2017, he won a best actor Bafta Scotland for his role in Unforgotten, and his other TV work spans Line of Duty, Catastrophe and the Netflix series Department Q, which is released in May. His films include Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, Operation Mincemeat and Last Breath, which is out now. He is married to actor Lucy Gaskell, has two children and lives in Hertfordshire.What is your greatest fear? That we’re all going to hell in a handcart and Trump is driving. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago ‘An intellectual stuck in a Batman suit’: readers remember the genius of Val Kilmer

Guardian readers recall encounters with a brilliant actor who was kind, generous and much more than a heart-throb• Val Kilmer, star of Top Gun and The Doors, dies aged 65• An ethereally handsome actor who evolved into droll self-awareness• A life in picturesI worked as a dialogue coach on Oliver Stone’s Alexander in 2003. Val was playing Alexander’s father, Philip II of Macedon. Oliver wanted the Macedonians to have Celtic accents in contrast to the Greeks, who looked down on the Macedonians, as the English have only too frequently done to neighbours of the UK. We were prepping in Morocco and I had been working for a while with Val on his Irish accent when my 95-year-old mother died and I had to leave for a couple of days for her funeral. During my absence, Val had to go home for a short while. When I returned I opened my hotel room door to find it awash with beautiful white roses. Val had sent them before he left, leaving a note of condolence and both his personal phone numbers so ...

Politics

9 d. ago Amazon, OnlyFans creator and crypto company bid for TikTok as deadline looms

Zoop, a startup run by OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely, reportedly partnered with a cryptocurrency company to make a late-stage bid

Events

9 d. ago ‘Dead white men are what I’m legitimately interested in’: film’s foremost podcaster on resurrecting the classics

Karina Longworth, the host of You Must Remember This, on why people patronise Scorsese and Coppola, and her new season of late-career curios by the likes of Minnelli, Wilder and Hitchcock‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” So runs the most famous line from John Ford’s elegiac 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The 44-year-old historian Karina Longworth has other ideas. The former LA Weekly film critic launched her podcast, You Must Remember This, in 2014, setting out to tell “the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century”, as she puts it in the show’s introduction. Its title is lifted from the jazz standard As Time Goes By (“You must remember this / A kiss is still a kiss ”) as featured in Casablanca. Hearing that wistful, timeworn lyric, it is easy to overlook the imperative hiding in plain sight. With each fastidiously researched and gloriously entertaining episode, Longworth seems to be telling us: you must remember this. To not do s...

Events

1 week ago Final day of Amazon Spring Sale sees 'iconic' GHD hair straighteners reduced to £99

If you're after a salon sleek look or bouncy curls that look salon sculpted, you'll want to own a pair of these.

Economics

2 w. ago How to build on planets: space architect Sebastian Aristotelis...Tech & Science Daily podcast

Fans of the 2015 Ridley Scott film The Martian might enjoy this one

Events

2 w. ago ‘I was surprised how common it is’: the director of Sebastian on his controversial film about an author who enters sex work

In Sebastian, a writer sells his body to provide material for his debut novel, then doesn’t give the night job up. Mikko Mäkelä explains what inspired his film – and remembers his cinematic sexual awakeningGrowing up in a small Finnish town close to the Russian border, Mikko Mäkelä knew he was gay from the age of 11. “I think I was happy until then,” says the shy 36-year-old, whose slippery second film Sebastian is about to be released. Isolated he may have been, but at least the young Mäkelä had movies. Alone in his room, he watched queer gems such as Mysterious Skin, Presque Rien and Beautiful Thing, keeping the volume low in case his parents heard. Then a trip to the cinema to see Brokeback Mountain changed everything.“When I got home, they asked me, ‘Did you like that film?’ They had read about it and wanted to make sure I wasn’t like the characters. That was the night I ended up coming out to them.” He didn’t stay in Finland much longer, movingNottingham to attend university. “...

Culture

3 w. ago Hans Zimmer says childhood trauma ‘poured out’ while composing The Lion King

In 1995, Zimmer won the Academy Award for best original score for the movie.

Events

3 w. ago Ridley Scott's 'best ever film' hardly anyone has heard of is now on Amazon Prime

The Last Duel made its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2021 and was directed by Ridley Scott and co-written by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Nicole Holofcener

Politics

3 w. ago Ridley Scott's 'best ever film' nobody remembers finally available on Amazon Prime

The Last Duel has been dubbed Ridley Scott's 'best film in years' by critics, with some even comparing it to Gladiator, despite the fact that almost no one has seen it

Politics

3 w. ago Check your Fire TV stick now for free upgrade that matches Sky

Amazon has finally introduced this feature that Sky TV users have enjoyed for ages

Events