The famous costume, worn by Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi, was sold alongside a miniature aircraft used in A New Hope that fetched $1.6m
Princess Leia’s famous gold bikini worn by the late Carrie Fisher in Star Wars has sold at auction for $175,000 (£136,000, A$266,000).
The costume, made famous from the 1983 film Return of the Jedi when Fisher’s character wore it while chained to Jabba the Hutt’s throne, was bought at a sale by Heritage Auctions on Friday in the US.
Continue reading...Star Wars actor says he believes actors should be free to ‘do anything you want to do’, in a discussion about Laurence Olivier’s performance in Othello
Billy Dee Williams has said that actors should be able to perform in blackface, with the Star Wars actor revealing that he believes, “If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do”.
Speaking to Bill Maher on the Club Random podcast, the 87-year-old actor recalled laughing while watching the 1965 film Othello, where the titular character played by Laurence Olivier is in blackface. Williams said he thought the performance was “really interesting”.
Continue reading...The films he produced or greenlit won more than 50 Oscars and 150 nominations
Alan Ladd Jr, the Oscar-winning producer and studio boss who as a 20th Century Fox executive greenlit Star Wars, has died. He was 84.
Ladd died Wednesday, his daughter Amanda Ladd-Jones, who directed the documentary Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies, wrote in a Facebook post. No cause of death was given.
Continue reading...The actor, who broke through in 1983 playing a welder who dreamed of being a dancer, reflects on a life of activism, why gen Z give her hope and joining the Star Wars universe
Jennifer Beals is talking to me by Zoom from … “Do I have to say?” she asks. Not really, I tell her. “I can tell you there’s a blizzard outside and it’s really beautiful.” Her reticence, which lasts about 30 seconds, is because she is in New York, filming a yet to be announced new season of Law & Order. You could imagine her taking a friend’s secret to the grave; she is very cagey about where she lives, tending to call herself “nomadic” and describing her home as “the middle of nowhere” (in reality, somewhere near Los Angeles). Commercial discretion, though? Not so much.
It is creepy to go on about how young actors still look, as though that were a goal in itself, but Beals, 58, is so unchanged – since she first played Bette in The L Word in 2004; since Devil in a Blue Dress in 1995 – that my brain thinks it is making a mistake. She definitely, positively starred in Flashdance in 1983, her breakthrough role after a tiny part in My Bodyguard three years earlier, yet that can’t be right – it was 40 years ago! It is like walking past someone you think you knew at school, then realising that it can’t be them because this person is 21.
Continue reading...He played some of the most memorable characters of all time on The Muppet Show and Sesame Street - then became a brilliant comedy director. What is he most proud of?
I ask Frank Oz if he feels like the Paul McCartney to Jim Henson’s John Lennon, the one left behind to carry the flame after his revered creative partner suddenly and shockingly died. Oz takes a deep breath and turns his head to the side, thinking.
If you grew up in the 1970s and 80s, your childhood was shaped by Henson and Oz and their work with the Muppets, just as the kids who grew up in the 50s and 60s did so in the shadow of Lennon and McCartney. Even if you weren’t a devoted fan of the Muppets themselves, you couldn’t help but take in their influence osmotically, what with The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, the Muppets movies and Labyrinth swirling in the atmosphere. I was pretty much raised on the Muppets, just as I now raise my own kids on them, and I cannot remember a time when Henson and Oz’s creations were not stamped in my mind’s eye.
Continue reading...Long after two people have gone their separate ways, some partings still rankle. Readers reflect on the beloved items they left behind
Even though my breakup was amicable, I felt a lot of guilt – so when I moved out I said: “Keep it all.” But, in the years since, there have been a few items of kitchenware that I wish I’d held on to: a Le Creuset casserole dish, my favourite mug, a digital cooking thermometer, the plastic bowl attachment for my stick blender (the blender itself I retained at her insistence, but I forgot all the accessories that came with it). There never seemed like a good time to ask for any of it back – I hope she’s at least getting some use out of them. Anonymous, Australia
Continue reading...Jeremy Bulloch, who has died aged 75, was a busy character actor who staked a claim for cinematic immortality by playing the inscrutable Boba Fett in the Star Wars films. A masked, enigmatic bounty hunter with a jet pack and distinctive costume design, Boba Fett debuted in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), capturing and carbon-freezing Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in order to convey him to the slug-like paymaster Jabba the Hutt.
Despite relatively limited screen time and dialogue (his few lines were post-dubbed by the American actor Jason Wingreen), both Bulloch and Boba Fett became much loved contributors to the franchise and he reprised the role in Return of the Jedi (1983). In the eventual Star Wars prequels Boba Fett was played by the child actor Daniel Logan, and so Bulloch was instead hired to play the spaceship pilot Captain Colton in the third of them, Revenge of the Sith (2005).
Continue reading...English performer played bounty hunter Boba Fett in original trilogy
Star Wars actor Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett in the original films, has died aged 75.
The English actor died in hospital on Thursday from “health complications following his many years living with Parkinson’s disease”, according to his agent.
Continue reading...Hayden Christensen returns as Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini-series, while Chadwick Boseman won’t be replaced for Black Panther sequel
Disney has unveiled a huge slew of new projects for the next decade at an investor event.
Speaking on Thursday, Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy announced that the new Star Wars film, Rogue Squadron, will be directed by Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins – the first time a female director has taken charge of one of the franchise films.
Continue reading...Former weightlifter and actor best known for playing Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies has died, his agent has said
David “Dave” Prowse, the actor best known for playing Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died at the age of 85, his agent has said.
Agent Thomas Bowington said: “It’s with great regret and heart-wrenching sadness for us and million of fans around the world, to announce that our client Dave Prowse MBE has passed away at the age of 85.”
Continue reading...British actor, who played former stormtrooper Finn, says the process had changed him and made him ‘angry’
The British actor John Boyega has criticised the treatment of non-white characters in the latest Star Wars films, saying they were marketed as important elements in the franchise but were ultimately “pushed to the side”.
In an interview published by GQ magazine on Wednesday, Boyega expressed bitterness over how his role as stormtrooper Finn faded in the latter episodes of the trilogy which concluded with The Rise of Skywalker in 2019.
Continue reading...The Star Wars actor expanded on his defiance of racist social media users in an Instagram Live video
John Boyega has been praised for a series of uncompromising social media posts speaking out about racism in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.
Boyega’s initial Tweet, “I really fucking hate racists”, currently has 1.3m likes, but came in for criticism for his hard-hitting tone and use of an expletive.
Continue reading...It started as an online prank, but Jediism now claims more UK adherents than Scientology. But is it a religion, a philosophy – or just a joke?
In the middle of a field in South Carolina, Alethea Thompson closed her eyes and attempted to sense her way forward. Thompson, now 35, had spent years trying to find a spiritual home and had decided to try something new. This exercise was meant to teach her to “to trust in your ability to sense things and know that you’re not going to fall, you’re not going to get hurt,” she says. And was part of her training to become a Jedi.
After 12 years with the Force Academy, an online community that provides educational courses on Jediism, Thompson is today a Jedi master. She explains that the Force Academy and most Jedi organisations don’t prescribe strict rituals: there are no requirements on diet or clothing and no mass-style services. Jedis do, however, follow a code of ethics that centres on resisting negative emotions and promoting peace. They also believe in the Force – the ubiquitous energy field described in the Star Wars movies – and mindfulness is central to their belief system. “The foundation of who we are is meditation,” says Thompson. “I will meditate for about 30 minutes, but it’s not always the same kind of meditation. So, I don’t sit there all the time and just hum. Meditation comes in many forms and that’s what I try to teach in the community.”
Continue reading...Disney removes clip to avoid censor giving film higher age rating
A scene showing a lesbian kiss has been cut from the Singaporean version of the Star Wars film The Rise of Skywalker.
The country’s media regulatory body said Disney removed the clip to avoid the film being given a higher age rating. It is PG13, which means parental guidance is advised for children under 13.
Continue reading...The man inside Star Wars’ Wookiee suit may not have been instantly recognisable, but his skills helped lay the groundwork for current blockbuster movies
Like Anthony Daniels in the gold shell of C3PO, or Dave Prowse in the cloak and mask of Darth Vader, Peter Mayhew, who played the lovable but formidable Star Wars Wookiee Chewbacca, did not achieve the face recognition that actors usually yearn for, and an acting career was not in any case what Mayhew particularly wanted before George Lucas chose him for Star Wars. But it was Mayhew’s destiny to become known and adored by a passionate connoisseur fanbase, his charm and good nature made him loved by his colleagues and his actual presence did make itself felt in hundreds of fan conventions over the decades. These fan conventions themselves evolved as a new phenomenon, a kind of auxiliary theatrical platform for franchise movies alongside cinema, TV and the web.
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