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He has been blessed with a glamorous wife, not to mention a glorious Georgian manor house set in 1,134 acres on the Wiltshire-Dorset border, from where his own brewery supplies the beer for both his London pub and the restaurant on the former airfield he acquired last time. year.
But just when you thought life couldn’t get much sweeter for Guy Ritchie, I can reveal he’ll be poking in his Easter eggs with a particularly satisfied smile – having spent £13million.
That’s the dividend Ritchie, 55, gifted himself in the last financial year, courtesy of Toff Guy Films, the company he founded in 2004 when he married his first wife, Madonna.
At the time, cynics suggested that his career would be a two-hit wonder, limited to his Bafta-winning debut, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and its equally dazzling follow-up, Snatch.
Guy Ritchie and his wife Jacqui Ainsley attend the Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood UK Premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on July 30, 2019 in London
Ritchie’s glorious Georgian manor house sits on 1,134 acres on the Wiltshire-Dorset border, from where his own brewery supplies the beer for both his London pub and the restaurant on the former airfield he acquired last year.
Guy Ritchie with Madonna at the premiere of Snatch in Los Angeles in 2001
His third film, Swept Away, starring Madonna, was released in 2002. It was a disaster, both critically and commercially. So was her fourth, Revolver, three years later, despite having Jason Statham in the lead role.
But his friends felt that there was really only one factor holding Ritchie back: an unfortunate marriage. “I felt like a movie shoot would last longer than a marriage,” one of them recalls, arguing that while Ritchie stayed with Madonna, he was reduced to a desperate supporting role.
‘You can’t really be married to a superstar and do your best. It never works. You just end up being the bag carrier. He knew that once he got rid of those shackles, she would do very well. He is a great talent. I have a great eye for what makes a movie great.
Ritchie and Madonna divorced in 2008, the year in which he was hired, as a second choice, to direct Sherlock Holmes, a huge box office success when it was released the following year, as was its sequel in 2011.
Next month, Ritchie, who married model Jacqui Ainsley in 2015, with whom he has two sons and a daughter, will celebrate the US premiere of his latest film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, just a few weeks after the end from his acclaimed Netflix crime series, The Caballeros, a spin-off of his hit film of the same name.
Remind me, what is Madonna doing these days?
Give James Bond back his license to entertain, pleads Sir Jonathan Pryce, who played a bad guy opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies.
“I think they were trying to keep up with other action adventures like the (Jason) Bourne series,” he says.
Speaking on Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, Pryce adds: “Daniel Craig did a fantastic job, but I’d like a bit of levity back.”
Sir Jonathan Pryce, who played a villain opposite Pierce Brosnan in the 1997 Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (pictured)
Is Hugh in charge? Seinfeld and Grant in comedy clash
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld appears to have found it a challenge directing Hugh Grant in his Netflix film, Unfrosted.
“You should have heard us yelling at each other on set,” Seinfeld says.
‘I told him: ‘You don’t know anything about comedy. You just know how to be witty in a pub. Here in America, we have to laugh a lot.”
He was yelling, ‘I know a lot about comedy!’
Seinfeld explains that he wants every word “exactly as it’s written,” adding, “Hugh Grant was saying, ‘Give me a chance to find it,’ and I was saying, ‘I’ve found it.’ Do it like this”. ” ‘
Unfrosted is about the creation of the breakfast food, Pop-Tart, and is set in the 1960s.
Fiennes: Technology can prevent us from exploring
Sir Ranulph Fiennes has climbed Mount Everest three times (reaching the summit on his third attempt at age 65), but would he have done it if he had been born in this century?
The old Eton scout, who turned 80 this month, maintains that while modern technology makes it “easier to move forward, it’s also easier to go back.”
He explains: ‘We have GPS systems, satellite phones and all kinds of technological innovations that can help us cross the ice, climb the summit, navigate deep sea trenches or whatever the case may be. However, now there is a bigger problem with, in a way, temptation.
Fiennes cut off two of his frozen fingers using a set of jigsaw blades to save himself a £6,000 surgery bill after a trip to the North Pole in 2000.
“What if you feel, say, the effects of frostbite?” he asks. ‘Will you turn to that satellite phone and get it answered, instead of moving on?’
Sir Ranulph Fiennes has climbed Mount Everest three times (reaching the summit on his third attempt at age 65), but would he have done it if he had been born in this century?
Sir Ranulph gives a thumbs up with his injured hand at an event in London in 2003.
Winkleman’s war on train signals
Sophie Winkleman seems to take after Princess Anne when it comes to speaking out.
The actress, who is married to Lord Frederick Windsor, son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, is fed up with the increasingly childish treatment we must endure on public transport.
“I see these stupid subway signs quite often lately,” he says, referring to “the signs that tell me I shouldn’t give money to beggars, so why not if I want to?” – and others ‘telling me I can’t look at people’.
She reflects: ‘What if someone is listening to a deafening, violent video on their phone? Should I decorate them instead?
Sophie, the half-sister of Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman, also dislikes Transport for London signs warning passengers not to “pressure anyone”.
She comments in The Spectator: “Try the Victoria line at 6pm, TfL morons.”
Sophie Winkleman attended a pre-Oscars dinner on February 21, 2015
Sophie Winkleman is married to Prince Michael of Kent’s son, Lord Frederick Windsor (pictured together in November 2023)
When Inigo Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in jail in 2022, there was no indication that his fiancée, former Made In Chelsea star Victoria Baker-Harber, knew of his £80million art scam.
However, in Philbrick’s first interview since his release, he reveals that he told her in 2019: “I may have done illegal things in trying to resolve my untenable situation with artwork jointly owned by multiple parties.”
He adds: ‘She probably didn’t believe me. The whole world knew me as this prodigy art dealer. How could she be any other way?
When Inigo Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in jail in 2022, there was no indication that his fiancée, former Made In Chelsea star Victoria Baker-Harber, knew of his £80million art scam. In the photo: the couple together.
Cruise on mission to see play.
It was Mission: Impossible that Tom Cruise didn’t stand out at the National Theater when he saw The Motive And The Cue recently.
“Tom came to see my show and it was very exciting for everyone,” Mark Gatiss tells me at a party in London.
Gatiss, who plays Sir John Gielgud in the play, adds: “Everyone knew he was there, but he blended in. Then he came backstage and it was brilliant, like a royal visit.”
Gatiss met Cruise through his role in the Mission Impossible films.
Gatiss, who plays Sir John Gielgud in the play, pictured on March 14, 2024.
Tom Cruise was photographed in Whitehall, Parliament Square and Westminster Bridge on March 25 while filming his upcoming Mission Impossible movie in London.