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Daily Mail
23 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Brad Pitt's pretty costar Elizabeth Debicki towers over him on set of his Cliff Booth movie
Brad Pitt 's new leading lady has definitely got a few inches on him. The 61-year-old actor - who cracked a smile earlier this week - was joined by his gorgeous costar Elizabeth Debicki, 34, who towered over him on the Los Angeles set of The Adventures Of Cliff Booth. Elizabeth is four inches taller than her A-list castmate as she is listed at 6feet3 while Brad is reportedly 5feet11. Brad looked every bit the late 1960s hunk as he reprises his Oscar-winning role. He donned a brown suede jacket over light trousers and beige suede heeled boots. The Fight Club actor donned a medium-length dirty blonde wig and sported a mustache. Elizabeth did not wear heeled footwear and instead sported a pair of sandals and still was considerably taller than the leading man. The Australian actress best known for her Emmy Award winning performance as Princess Diana in The Crown wore all white including suit and top. Her long blonde locks were worn down in a middle-part as she accentuated her natural looks with complementary make-up. Brad's latest project is a sequel to 2019's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film - which featured Sydney Sweeney, Mikey Madison, Austin Butler, and Margaret Qualley who were all up-and-comers at the time - starred Pitt as Cliff, a stuntman for the Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio). DiCaprio is not listed as a cast member on the show's IMDb page, which describes the plot as showcasing 'more of Cliff Booth's backstory in his new role as a Hollywood fixer.' Tarantino previously fleshed out the character beyond how he's portrayed in the film with a novelization of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood that he wrote. While the upcoming film will focus on Cliff, Pitt clarified last month that the project was 'not really a sequel but an episode' featuring the character. The Australian actress best known for her Emmy Award winning performance as Princess Diana in The Crown (she is seen in September 2024) 'This is something Quentin Tarantino wrote. It's an episode, not really a sequel, but an episode of the character from Once Upon A Time,' he told Deadline. 'But he didn't want to direct it at this point, and my friend David Fincher, our friend, I say our mutual friend, David Fincher stepped in to direct it,' Pitt explained. 'So we're doing that for Netflix and we're gonna start in July, it should be really fun. It should be good fun.' In addition to Pitt, the cast consists of Elizabeth Debicki, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Carla Gugino, Scott Caan and JB Tadena. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood earned numerous awards and nominations, including multiple Oscar nods.
Daily Mail
23 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Married hotel CEO kissed and molested terrified female manager at Justin Timberlake concert, lawsuit alleges
A married hotel CEO in Michigan allegedly groped and kissed a female employee during a company outing to a Justin Timberlake concert. Asad Malik, the CEO of the Amerilodge Group, which owns and manages multiple hotel chains in the Midwest, has been accused of sexual harassment, assault, and battery by his former employee, Stephanie Starling. Starling alleges that while at the concert in February, Malik told her that he wanted a kiss, adding, 'bet it would be a good kiss too. Probably later tonight.' Starling nervously laughed in response to the unwanted attention, but Malik allegedly kept pursuing her. The CEO later came up to her, standing silently, and allegedly told her that he was 'just looking at her lips' and thinking of the kiss, according to the lawsuit. In reaction to the stunning comments, Starling quickly found her supervisor and general manager, pleading with them not to leave her side to avoid being alone with Malik. However, later that night, she found herself seated next to Malik after he squeezed into a booth to be next to her. Malik then 'slid his hand under her right thigh and touched her butt,' according to the lawsuit. Starling was terrified after the encounter and was 'noticeably trembling in fear' while she tried to eat. Starling escaped the situation by excusing herself to go to the bathroom. When the show began and the group went to their seats, Malik allegedly attempted to get Starling to sit next to him. When Starling's general manager sat with her instead, Malik was 'visibly angry with the situation,' the lawsuit states. While in the bathroom during the concert, she called her father in tears, begging him not to call the police. Her general manager and supervisor overheard the phone call and told her they were planning on reporting Malik's behavior. When the group returned to a nearby hotel after the show, Malik allegedly said he needed to talk to her and asked her to get in his vehicle. He then allegedly drove to a dark area and told her it was 'time for that kiss.' Starling rejected the advances, which made Malik agitated, and he pressed her about why she wouldn't kiss him. She demanded to be taken back to the hotel and threatened to walk back to the snow if he didn't drive her. When she returned to work at the Marriott in Bay City, Starling notified HR and was told that a third party would investigate her accusations. Starling met with an attorney virtually to explain what happened, but alleges that the company never followed up about her complaint. While she continued working, she noticed coworkers were gossiping about the investigation. Starling called her supervisor, crying, and soon after noticed that her company email was revoked. She was then instructed to submit an official resignation letter, despite having informed HR that she had no intention of quitting. Not even a month after the concert, she received an email that HR was 'upholding her resignation.' She was later informed that the third-party investigation couldn't substantiate her claims. Starling's attorney, Jack Shulz, told Daily Mail that he sees the comparisons between her story and the viral video of the Astronomer CEO Andrew Byron and his HR chief, Kristin Cabot. 'Although a lot of the focus is the comparison to the deplorable acts of this CEO and that of the Astronomer CEO at the Coldplay, a harder look should be given to the acts of the two human resources departments, which are present themselves as being neutral and having open doors to employees,' he said. 'Here, Starling and others immediately reported the incident, HR acted to protect the company, and she was terminated for speaking up. Both cases demonstrate that HR is in bed with the company---literally and figuratively.' Starling told the Detroit Free Press that she was offered a settlement payment, calling it 'hush money.' 'You're not going to put a price tag on me, she added. 'I do have the balls to speak up — and it's not okay.' The company stated in a filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that Malik denied the claims, and no one witnessed the alleged assault.
Times
23 minutes ago
- Times
From cry faces to aubergines, why emojis are an art form
Put your 'wow face' on. Up to 92 per cent of us use emojis — in texts, emails, social media and virtual meetings. An estimated ten billion are sent around the world every day. And this autumn a new iOS update is expected to expand that lexicon to 3,954 unique characters — this time including an orca, a trombone and a treasure chest. It's easy to dismiss these blobby little symbols as frivolous. But not if you visit Japan House in west London, past the Edo-period furniture and books on Hokusai. A new exhibition, Pictograms: Iconic Japanese Designs, charts the development of ideogram-based communication — from ancient bone carvings to the graphics found on toilets and maps. The global emergency exit sign, in its familiar green, was designed by Yukio Ota in 1979 — making it one of the most widely exhibited works of art on the planet. But it is Shigetaka Kurita's influential 1999 Emoji set (e meaning 'picture', and moji meaning 'character') that has arguably had the richest cultural imprint. The 176-character collection, first published for a mobile phone company, was designed to enable users to add an emotional context to messages. 'Even if the text is negative, adding a heart emoji (❤️) will [ensure] it is interpreted positively,' Kurita tells me. Many of today's emoji originated in this set. The sparkles symbol (✨), intended to express 'novelty and excitement', is one of several that took inspiration from manga comics. Others include the swollen vein 'x' (💢) and the sweat droplet (💧) — conveying rage and nervousness. Only five facial expressions appeared in the original set, with the designs for glee, anger, sadness, shock and dizziness inspired by early, symbol-based textspeak. It was a decade before the rest of the world caught on. In 2010, 722 emoji were officially adopted onto iPhone and Android operating systems as smartphone use accelerated. In 2015 the 'face with tears of joy' (😂) emoji was named the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year; a year later, Kurita's creations were acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art. • What do these emojis mean? From sex to self-harm, youth slang decoded Once a global language, emoji became the subject of cultural battles — over racial and sexual inclusivity, as well as regional foods. Once limited to pizza slices and sushi, emoji embraced the taco (🌮) after lobbying by the US fast food chain Taco Bell. In 2015 the #PaellaEmoji campaign gained traction on Twitter, but the resulting design sparked so much outrage from Spanish netizens over its 'inauthentic' ingredients (mussels and shrimps) that it was redesigned (🥘) a few months later. Jennifer Daniel, a former graphics editor at The New York Times, is now chair of Unicode's Emoji Standard and Research Working Group and responsible for nuanced contemporary emoji such as the 'smiling teary face'. She describes the design process as 'deeply academic' — keeping her 'serious face' on even when talking about the new 'hairy creature' emoji. (Other new entries this year include a 'fight cloud' inspired by comic books, and a 'distorted face' that recalls the fish-eye lens.) 'Legends of these hairy creatures exist all over the world,' Daniel explains. 'There's the Sasquatch and Bigfoot in North America, but then there's the Yowie in Australia and the Yeren in China.' It's also a metaphor. 'It symbolises outsider status, or something that's elusive. It could insinuate that something's fictional. Or it could be taken literally — like, not shaving.' • Machiavellian traits and narcissism: what your emojis say about you This helps to explain how the meanings of some designs have shifted. The clenched fist, raised palm and fingers-in-a-V-sign emojis (✊✋✌️) from Kurita's original set were intended to represent the game rock, paper, scissors, but are more commonly understood to mean 'solidarity', 'stop', and 'peace' today. The tendency to imbue symbols with new meanings is well documented. The purple heart emoji (💜) has been popular among fans of the K-pop group BTS ever since a member coined the phrase 'I purple you' in 2016, as an expression of love and loyalty. Beyoncé fans use the honeybee emoji (🐝) to show allegiance to the 'BeyHive'. Viewers of the Netflix drama Adolescence, about the murder of a schoolgirl, will be aware of a more troubling application. One plot point centres on the misinterpretation of a series of emoji-laden Instagram posts by parents who fail to understand the encoded incel language. In response, the education charity For Working Parents published a 'Periodic Table of Sinister Emojis', among them the hedgehog (neo-Nazi) and the snowman (cocaine). Such concerns follow a long history of moral panic about youth language. But the closing display at Japan House offers a riposte. It shows several ingenious London-focused pictogram ideas made by designers aged 7 to 16. They include fish and chips, Battersea Power Station and a teapot adorned with the Union Jack alongside a slice of Victoria sponge cake — all succinctly expressed in minimalist monochrome on a 40x40cm grid. It's a reminder (party popper emoji) of the creativity that simple symbols — from ancient hieroglyphs to emojis — still Iconic Japanese Designs is at Japan House, London W8, to Nov 9;
