Bookmakers aren’t imagining her chances of securing an EE Rising Star Bafta next week – Daryl McCormack and Naomi Ackie are top tips – but it would be foolish to discount Aimee Lou Wood, who is having a ‘moment’.
Wood, 29, a RADA graduate from Stockport, starred opposite Bill Nighy in the critically acclaimed Living. And, from next week, she will be playing Sally Bowles in cabaret in the West End.
Oh, and she got a Bafta already, for playing Aimee Gibbs in the Netflix series Sex Education.
“I just want to put Amy Lou’s essence in a bottle and spray it around,” says Liz Carlsen, who produced Living. “She has such a joy and spirit, you feel it right away. Bill Nighy loved working with her.”
Bookies can’t imagine her chances of getting an EE Rising Star Bafta next week but they would be foolish to discount Aimee Lou Wood
Ms Wood, 29, a RADA graduate from Stockport, lit up opposite Bill Nighy in the critically acclaimed Living
Ms. Wood has already earned a Bafta, for playing Aimee Gibbs in the Netflix series Sex Education.
“Unfortunately for her, people only saw her in comedies,” adds Carlsen, who saw Wood on stage in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. But I can tell you that she is an amazing serious actress.
Deb joins a widow (and a dog) in a final farewell to his friend, Beck
Johnny Depp’s late fellowship with British guitar legend Jeff Beck was so meaningful to both men that Depp was the only other person in attendance when Beck’s wife Sandra said her final goodbyes to him last Saturday.
Beck, 78, died suddenly in January after contracting bacterial meningitis. His funeral was held last Friday and his burial could be revealed the following day in an unusual ‘green’ ceremony in the gardens of his home in Wadhurst, East Sussex.
His widow, Sandra, and their dogs, Buddy and Deb, shared this moment. The 59-year-old actor is understood to be staying in Wadhurst after the funeral.
Friends say he idolizes Sandra and her relationship with Jeff. I was told, “There was real love between the two men, and Johnny admired him and his talent.”
Johnny Depp’s late fellowship with British guitar legend Jeff Beck was very meaningful to both men
Beck, 78, died suddenly in January after contracting bacterial meningitis. His funeral took place last Friday (pictured with his wife, Sandra).
Depp spent a lot of lockdown in the couple’s home, and in the run-up to his disastrous High Court proceedings, when he sued a newspaper as a ‘wife-beater’ after the breakdown of his marriage to actress Amber Heard.
He and Beck also released an album last year, and went on a short tour of Europe and America.
The actor supported Sandra at Beck’s funeral, and arrived with her at St Mary’s Church in Piddington, Sutton. (There was no sign of London lawyer Joel Rich, with whom he had a romantic relationship last year, and whose friends believe they broke up some time ago.)
‘It was always Jeff’s desire that Johnny find someone good to him, a soulmate, the way Sandra was his soulmate,’ says a friend. They used to talk about it a lot.
The funeral was more star-studded than initially reported, and reclusive singer Kate Bush was among those in the church. Others include Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, friends from their days on Jeff Beck’s set, cast Depp and Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Bob Geldof, and Beck’s best friend Peter Richardson, who created The Comic Strip Presents.
Singers Joss Stone, Imelda May and Beth Orton performed alongside the local choir.
Depp and Beck met in 2014 in Tokyo, when the Pirates Of The Caribbean star was making a movie and the legendary guitarist was on tour. Deb knocked on Beck’s hotel room door and introduced himself.
Why michelle marvel
Michelle Pfeiffer, 64, reprises her role as Janet van Dyne in the upcoming Marvel blockbuster Antman And The Wasp: Quantumania.
She had to train to handle a lot of action sequences as Janet, who spent 30 years wasted in the Quantum Realm.
Pfeiffer called prep “a lot of fun.” “I love doing that kind of thing.” I loved that Janet is kind of a badass. Michael Douglas, who plays her on-screen husband Hank Pym, commented that he was “in awe of my amazing wife Janet – and what a wonderful look she has been in those 30 years she’s been in the Quantum Realm”.
The 78-year-old actress continued to speculate about “what she must have been eating and drinking, and what else she was doing there.”
The film premieres in the UK next week.
Meghan and Prince Harry dropped many bombs in their six-part documentary on Netflix this year — and almost as many interesting hints. One was the warm way the Duchess of Sussex referred to her old website, The Tig. “It wasn’t just a hobby, it was a really successful business,” she said of the site, which is supposedly named after one of her favorite red wines, Tignanello.
The Duchess of Sussex (pictured) dropped almost as many bombshells in her six-part Netflix documentary as so many interesting hints. One is the warm way she referred to her old website, The Tig.
It could be revealed that her trademark application for The Tig will be “publicated to opposition” next week – the final hurdle before approval is granted in about six weeks. She created the site, which covered food, travel, fashion, beauty and health, in 2014, but shut it down in 2017, shortly before announcing her engagement to Harry.
Spokespeople for Meghan did not comment when asked if she plans to relaunch it now that she is out of the royal family.
Take over the world with the power of a real girl
The Power — a sci-fi novel about women who discover they have the power to unleash electricity from their fingers — was a literary sensation in 2016. It’s now been turned into a prestige drama series by Prime Video, with actress Toni Collette in the lead role as Mayor Margot Cleary .
Croatian actress Zrinka Kveticic plays Tatyana Moskalev, the former first lady of Moldova who takes control of the country and remakes it into a matriarchal state. She may be familiar to British viewers because she won an Olivier Award ten years ago for her performance in the musical Once.
In real life, though, she’s the wife of a footballer – her long-term partner is Nico Kranjer, who played for Portsmouth and Tottenham under Harry Redknapp, as well as for Rangers, Queens Park Rangers. . . and its national side.
The series will start broadcasting on March 31.
Being wild is now a sweat for Emma
Barrie Gower, who created some of the most terrifying monsters on TV — Vecna for Stranger Things and the Night King for Game Of Thrones — got involved in prosthetics on a non-supernatural scale for Matilda the Musical.
Barrie Gower reveals that the inspiration for Emma Thompson’s transformation into Matilda the Musical’s brutal Miss Trunchball came from poet Edith Sitwell
Gower turned Emma Thompson into the movie’s brutal Miss Trunchbull. He told the BAFTA committee that he had provided her with pieces of her jaw, chin, nose and earlobes for the film, which is in contention for Best British Film. “She was completely open to the process,” he said, adding that his inspiration for her look was poet Edith Sitwell.
The transformation took an hour and a half each day, and makeup artist Naomi Dunn explains: “The great thing about Emma is that she doesn’t sweat a lot, so her makeup stayed on really well.”
Channel 4 is safe from a sell-out after several changes in the position of Minister of Culture (and Prime Minister!) – and a protracted political battle. Deadline reports C4 chief executive Alex Mahon spent at least £100,000 a month on lobbying and PR over 18 months to protect the company – £1.8m in all.
Jake Kanter, of Deadline, reveals: “Mahon and her top team are given great advice by two Eds: Ed Richards, the former Ofcom CEO who founded the advisory firm Flint Global; and Ed Williams, head of Edelman, the powerhouse PR agency.
‘One person familiar with Project Orchid, as it was dubbed in-house, Channel 4 paid over £100,000 a month for their outside consultant. ”
You may be a lady now, Rita, but your new song is still missing
You can’t blame her work ethic — or the ongoing global efforts of her PR machine. However, despite the lavish party in Los Angeles, appearance on a chat show in New York, a photo shoot with GQ, a documentary with Louis Theroux, an all-star pop video, and dozens of promotions (including one in a see-through plastic dress in London), ), Rita Ora’s latest single release was clearly a disappointment.
Sources state that You Only Love Me narrowly failed to make the UK Singles Chart top 100 in the past week. An insider said it had about 500,000 streams and dropped out of the top 100 at the end of the week. It takes about seven million streams to be #1, and 1.3 million to make the Top 40 hit. The song has now entered the mid-week charts. . . at No. 64.
Sources state that You Only Love Me narrowly failed to make the UK Singles Chart top 100 in the past week
A veteran industry source says: “Rita has a new deal with BMG and they threw everything at launch. It would easily cost over half a million pounds. At this point BMG will have to make tough decisions about what to do.
Supporters of Ora, a judge on The Masked Singer who recently married Jojo Rabbit filmmaker Taika Waititi, say it’s not uncommon for singles to debut low and then climb. They add that sales are better this week and it’s still on track to reach 400,000 streams.
Some artists have a slow climb in the charts – Lizzo’s Truth Hurts took two years to become a hit.
But that’s not the case with established hitmakers like Harry Styles, who went straight to No. 1 with As It Was, or Miley Cyrus, who did the same with Flowers, and is still No. 1 this week.
During her ten-year career, Ora has had 13 UK top 10 singles and four UK top 10 hits. It never reached those heights in America.
Her video for You Only Love Me sought to capitalize on the interest in her wedding to Waititi, with the singer appearing as the bride. Actresses Kristen Stewart, Lindsay Lohan, and Sharon Stone appear in cameo roles in the video.
