The Cumbre Vieja volcano continues to wreak havoc on the Canary island of La Palma. The eruption has continued for more than a month and is yet to show any sign of easing
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Trainspotting: behind the scenes by Danny Boyle, Ewan McGregor, Irvine Welsh and more
The bust-up with Harvey Weinstein, Irvine Welsh’s verdict on the script (‘too effete’), the problem with the excrement scene … the cast and crew relive the making of the classic 1996 film
Continue reading...James Michael Tyler, who played Gunther in Friends, dies aged 59
Tributes pour in for ‘seventh friend’ who revealed he had stage 4 prostate cancer in 2021
James Michael Tyler, most famous for playing Gunther, the manager of Central Perk in the hit sitcom Friends, has died aged 59.
In an interview with NBC in June 2021, Tyler announced that he had stage 4 prostate cancer, which was diagnosed in 2018.
Continue reading...Ed Sheeran self-isolates after testing positive for Covid-19
Singer, whose new album = is out on Friday, says he is cancelling in-person commitments
Ed Sheeran has announced on his Instagram page that he has tested positive for Covid-19 and is self-isolating.
In the post he said: “It means that I’m now unable to plough ahead with any in-person commitments for now, so I’ll be doing as many of my planned interviews/performances I can from my house.”
Continue reading...Vigil held for Halyna Hutchins as ‘super unsafe’ conditions on Baldwin film set under scrutiny
Friends and family pay tribute to the cinematographer as some attendees at vigil call for better safety protocols
Safety procedures on the New Mexico set of the movie Rust were under increasing scrutiny on Sunday as colleagues, friends and family paid tribute to the cinematographer shot dead by the actor Alec Baldwin in what appeared to be an accidental misfire.
A vigil for Halyna Hutchins, the 42-year-old director of photography killed after Baldwin was handed a loaded revolver by the western’s production crew, took place in Albuquerque attended by industry professionals including a number of Hollywood actors including Jon Hamm and John Slattery, who are filming projects nearby.
Continue reading...Succession star Kieran Culkin: ‘Just be unlikable, it’s fun’
The actor talks to his friend Edgar Wright about rooting for Roman, his ambition to move to London and why he’d like to have a crack at being Angela Lansbury
New York-born actor Kieran Culkin, 39, made his film debut at the age of eight, alongside his elder brother Macaulay in Home Alone. While still a child he also had roles in Father of the Bride, The Mighty and The Cider House Rules. He later appeared in Music of the Heart, Igby Goes Down and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs the World. He now stars as Roman Roy in HBO drama Succession, which returned to Sky Atlantic last week, a role for which he’s been Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated.
One of the many reasons I love Succession is that I always think I’m watching “Evil Kieran”…
[Laughs] That’s good to know. Roman might be the most acerbic of the Roy siblings but I still root for him and am willing him to step up. That’s true for a lot of the characters. I really feel it with Tom [Wambsgans, played by Matthew Macfadyen]. I desperately want him to tell Shiv to go fuck herself and show the family his true self but Tom never does, he just rolls over. It’s so deliciously dissatisfying.
Diana Rigg remembered: ‘Ma didn’t suffer fools: she exploded them at 50 paces’
Rachael Stirling recalls her mother’s last months – and remembers her enormous sense of fun, whether pulling pranks on stage or dancing until dawn on her 80th birthday
When Ma found her cancer was malignant, all the theatres went dark.
“Normally, when one gets bad news like this, one becomes the focus of attention, but in a pandemic, no one gives a fuck!”
Continue reading...Risen from the ashes: mural painted using ash marks Brazil’s wildfire tragedy
‘Artivist’ Thiago Mundano used ash from Amazon fires to paint a towering monument to Brazil’s firefighters in São Paulo
Continue reading...Mummy’s older than we thought: new find could rewrite history
Discovery of nobleman Khuwy shows that Egyptians were using advanced embalming methods 1,000 years before assumed date
The ancient Egyptians were carrying out sophisticated mummifications of their dead 1,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence which could lead to a rewriting of the history books.
The preserved body of a high-ranking nobleman called Khuwy, discovered in 2019, has been found to be far older than assumed and is, in fact, one of the oldest Egyptian mummies ever discovered. It has been dated to the Old Kingdom, proving that mummification techniques some 4,000 years ago were highly advanced.
Continue reading...Crew on Baldwin film raised prop gun concerns before fatal shooting
Text message warning of ‘super-unsafe’ conditions was later followed by a walkout by camera operators
A picture of chaos and concern on the set of Alec Baldwin’s new western, Rust, has emerged from fresh accounts of the lead-up to the fatal shooting during filming on Thursday.
Only days into the three-week production schedule, new reports suggest that a worker had been so worried about weapon safety he had sent a text message to his manager warning of “super-unsafe” conditions.
Continue reading...Alec Baldwin: Taking back control … until tragedy struck
The actor’s turbulent life has rarely been out of the headlines. Now he faces a new crisis after a tragic accident on set
Alec Baldwin was the tough screen face of blue-collar America in the 1990s. And it suited him. His best early roles were gritty ones in brutal films such as Miami Blues, or the screen adaptation of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, where he gave a showstopping performance that won him many fans. Baldwin had the manner and look of an ordinary man who wanted to survive at all costs.
Now, in the saddest of media storms, following the accidental shooting of a colleague on the set of his latest movie, the actor will need every ounce of the self-preserving grit he once accessed so easily on film.
Continue reading...‘We planted a seed’: the Afghan artists who painted for freedom
The Taliban has whitewashed Kabul’s political murals – and those who created them have fled into exile
Negina Azimi felt shock and fear like never before when she heard that Taliban fighters had entered Kabul on 15 August. As an outspoken female artist in Afghanistan, she knew they would come for her.
“We heard reports that the Taliban might raid houses. I was scared because I live in a very central neighbourhood and every room in my house is adorned with the kind of art the Taliban won’t approve of,” she says, referring to paintings that feature messages about women’s empowerment and are critical of the Taliban’s atrocities.
Negina Azimi, who is now in a refugee camp in Albania with others of the ArtLords collective. They are now planning an exhibition
Continue reading...‘You can sense Selim the Grim’s anger’: portraits of Ottoman sultans go on show
Set of six copies of portraits first produced in 1579 in Venice are going up for auction in London next week
They were powerful rulers of perhaps the mightiest empire the world has ever seen, and their portraits oiled the wheels of diplomacy. Six sultans of the Ottoman empire, which spanned more than six centuries and dominated a great swathe of the world, gaze out beneath magnificent, bulbous turbans, a symbol of their wealth and status.
An original set of 14 portraits was produced in Venice in 1579, and copies were made later. The only surviving intact set is in Munich, but a set of six goes on display at Christie’s in London this weekend before being sold at auction on 28 October.
Continue reading...‘Secret piety’: new show reveals Andy Warhol’s Catholic roots
Known for his wild parties and proud queerness, he went to church, met the pope and prayed daily with his mother
He is celebrated for his Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s Soup prints, legendary parties, proud queerness and worship of celebrity.
But Andy Warhol was raised by a devout Catholic mother with whom he prayed daily throughout the two decades in which they shared a New York home. The wild prince of pop art went to church, met the pope and financed his nephew’s studies to become a priest.
Continue reading...The not so cursed child: did Harry Potter mark the end of troubled young actors?
As we reach the 20th anniversary of the magical British blockbusters, the real magic lies in the way its young stars have stayed on the rails – unlike many before them
There are many magical things about the Harry Potter film series, which marks its 20th anniversary this month with a re-release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps the most miraculous one, though, is that its three stars – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – are still alive, apparently content, and not noticeably addicted to class A drugs.
Each continued acting, occasionally even starring in bona fide hits: Radcliffe in The Woman in Black; Watson, who is also a UN women goodwill ambassador, in Beauty and the Beast. Grint, star of the M Night Shyamalan series Servant, also became a father last year – his partner is another former child actor, Georgia Groome of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging – and celebrated by joining Instagram. Even there, he has shown a characteristic level-headedness by posting a mere six times in 11 months.
Continue reading...Alec Baldwin kills woman by firing prop gun on film set of Rust
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins airlifted to hospital, where she died, while director Joel Souza also injured
Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on a movie set in an accident that killed the film’s director of photography and injured its director, authorities in New Mexico have said.
A statement from the Santa Fe Sheriff’s office said Baldwin, who is acting in and producing the film Rust, had fired the prop gun in an incident on Thursday.
Continue reading...Countdown to ecstasy: how music is being used in healing psychedelic trips
Jon Hopkins timed his upcoming album to the length of a ketamine high, while apps are using AI music to tailor drug experiences. Welcome to a techno-chemical new frontier
Two hundred psychedelic enthusiasts have converged in Austin, Texas for a “ceremonial concert” on the autumn equinox. People sprawl on yoga mats around a circular stage as staffers pace the candlelit warehouse, jingling bells and spritzing essential oils. While psychedelic drugs are prohibited, some attenders seem in an altered state, lying on their backs and breathing heavily as rumbles of bass from Jon Hopkins’ upcoming album, Music for Psychedelic Therapy, shakes the hushed space.
This is the first time Hopkins – known for acclaimed solo electronic albums as well as production for Coldplay and Brian Eno – has played his new record in public, and the crowd is visibly moved. As recordings of spiritual guru Ram Dass’s teachings fill the room on the final song, the woman next to me begins silently weeping.
Continue reading...Elton John: ‘I can still explode at any moment. I just have terrible feelings about myself’
Despite a dodgy hip, the superstar remains youthful thanks to pop star friends like Dua Lipa – but is still struggling with anger and childhood trauma. He explains how fatherhood is making him a better man
A good illustration of Elton John in 2021 is how, last week, he scored the eighth UK No 1 single of his career and also had his right hip replaced. The 74-year-old certainly has his frailties – “my left hip is the hip of a two-year-old, and my right hip is the hip of a 92-year-old” – but is youthful in other ways. His enormously enjoyable and varied new album, The Lockdown Sessions, may feature a range of boomer-pleasing names, such as Eddie Vedder, Glen Campbell and two A-list Stevies (Wonder and Nicks), but there are also plenty of pop artists that could feasibly incite a TikTok dance craze: Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X, Rina Sawayama. One song pairs John with country singer Jimmie Allen over a drum’n’bass beat; another is interspersed with raps from Young Thug and Nicki Minaj.
“Watching Young Thug freestyle was just amazing!” he enthuses over a video call, self-isolating the day before his operation, dressed in collared, lapelled pyjamas over a rugby top. Oil paintings of 19th-century figures flank him in the background. “I hate it when people knock rap and hip-hop – when you actually go in the studio and watch Young Thug in front of a microphone, it’s an incredible thing.” He’d had dinner with Lipa, who duets with him on their No 1 single Cold Heart, a few nights before; he rings up Olly Alexander of Years & Years, who covered Pet Shop Boys’ It’s a Sin with him, “a couple of times a fortnight. I feel an empathy with these people. I’ve got the enthusiasm of an 18-year-old, and enthusiasm keeps me going.”
Continue reading...Ai Weiwei on the death of Diane Weyermann: ‘Like a bridge of hope washed away in the storm’
The artist and film-maker remembers the pioneering documentary producer behind films such as RBG, The Square and An Inconvenient Truth, who has died aged 66
Diane has left. When someone close passes away, we feel that a part of ourselves left together with them. A part of our understanding of the world, a link in our interpersonal network, our previous value judgment and actions in the past have all been misplaced because of the passing of a close friend.
This sense of misplacement is sometimes very strong and clear, almost like the lack of a lit candle on the shore of a river or a pile of extinguished charcoal in cold weather. We cannot envisage it before people disappear from our life. When they do disappear, we suddenly become aware of the fact that the light and warmth, which vanished with their passing, are lost for ever. They are irreplaceable and will never return. No matter what happens in the future, whatever is lost is lost for ever.
Continue reading...Self Esteem: Prioritise Pleasure review – Britain’s funniest, frankest pop star drums out her demons
(Fiction)
The sound of an artist coming into her own, Rebecca Taylor’s remarkable second album as Self Esteem mixes the intimate and conversational with the unabashedly dramatic
Throughout Prioritise Pleasure, her second album as Self Esteem, Rebecca Taylor searches for a feeling she can rely on. Her stomach and heart seldom align. A callous lover makes her doubt herself. “Casual” texts from an ex evidently conceal ulterior motives. She has to check out emotionally in order to climax from a zipless fuck. Marriage and babies don’t appeal, yet other people’s still make her insecure. Even the nostalgia induced by a warm summer’s day can trick her into self-sabotage.
Pacing these shifting sands is exhausting. But simply by defining them, and acknowledging how normal it is for these contradictory states to coexist (especially in the lives of women, contorted by diet culture and dating), Taylor establishes a sturdy sense of common ground – one on which the makings of a stellar pop second act are taking shape.
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