Orcas left trapped in abandoned French marine park four months after closure
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Scottish Sun
4 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Sir Billy Connolly sending ‘love & cuddles' as he issues alarming warning to fans
The comedy legend shared the worrying update with his legions of fans on his official channels. 'BE AWARE' Sir Billy Connolly sending 'love & cuddles' as he issues alarming warning to fans Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) SIR Billy Connolly has warned online scammers are using AI to recreate his voice and likeness in order to extort his fans. The comedy legend, 82, said he had become aware of multiple accounts impersonating him on social media and targeting his followers. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up Fans who follow the comedian's official Facebook page have been sent messages by bogus accounts pretending to be him. They are encouraged to move the conversation over to a private messaging app before being asked to send money to secure merchandise or a meeting with Billy. Billy has insisted he would never engage directly with fans online and said his wife Pamela Stephenson, 75, is also being impersonated online as part of the scam. The Glasgow-born comic said his Facebook page is his only active social media account and warned that scammers can use AI to convince people they are in touch with him. In a statement issued on his official website, Billy said: "Dear friends, I have learned that, unfortunately, online scam artists are targeting my fans and supporters. "They are impersonating me, often reaching out to fans soliciting direct messaging. They create multiple deceptive social media and email accounts, and there could well be criminal intent. "For the protection of all my fans and supporters, please be aware of the following: I NEVER interact directly with fans or supporters, and would never suggest they direct message me, meet me, send me money or purchase goods directly. "I do not sell memberships, fan cards, meetings. I will never suggest meeting personally or ask for personal information. "If you are asked for any of the above, it is a scam. My likeness and the sound of my voice can be created by AI so beware. "My wife Pamela is also being impersonated, but please be aware that neither she nor any of my children have public social media accounts or pages. Sir Billy Connolly honoured with BAFTA Fellowship - BAFTAS 2022 "Please be safe everyone. Love and cuddles, Billy." One of his fans online posted: "I've had no less than 12 scammers message me saying they're Billy Connolly. We all know they aren't, I mean they can barely sound coherent, let alone like someone from Scotland. "As long as they're chatting with me, they aren't stealing money from vulnerable people. There's a special place in hell for scammers." Another follower said she had been contacted by someone pretending to be one of Billy's daughters after she posted a comment on a fan page. Earlier this year it was revealed a scammer had tricked a French woman into believing she was dating Brad Pitt, before persuading her to part with almost £700,000 using AI images and videos. Billy retired from stand-up after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He discovered he had the illness 13 years ago after a doctor spotted him walking strangely through the lobby of a hotel in Los Angeles. He moved to Florida from his previous home in New York after doctors advised him to live in a warmer climate.
Metro
5 hours ago
- Metro
Period drama branded ‘fantastic' streaming on Netflix
The 2023 period drama All The Light We Cannot See is currently streaming on Netflix UK. The limited series tells the story of a blind French teenager Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti) and a German soldier (Louis Hofmann) who attempt to weather the devastation of World War II together. It also stars Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie in supporting roles, as Daniel and Etienne LeBlanc; Marie-Laure's father and uncle, respectively. Based on the Pulitzer prize winning novel by Anthony Doerr, it was picked up for adaptation by Netflix in 2019, with Free Guy filmmaker Shawn Levy attached to direct and Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight on screenplay duties. All four episodes were first added to the streaming service in November 2023, where they remain to this day. Wake up to find news on your TV shows in your inbox every morning with Metro's TV Newsletter. Sign up to our newsletter and then select your show in the link we'll send you so we can get TV news tailored to you. Since its release, viewers have responded to its emotional story and powerful performances from its leading pair. All The Light We Cannot See currently boasts an 81% positive audience score on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with Asha B describing it as 'a show with substance and depth.' Meanwhile, user C W called it 'simply fantastic,' and 'a beautiful piece of storytelling.' 'Excellent series. Ruff also is fantastic and the cinematography is wonderful,' said Bad B. Helen W described it as: 'A beautiful story albeit told without compromise,' adding 'you should watch!' Critics were more divided on the adaptation, contributing to a 28% 'rotten' score,although most praised its production values and cinematography. 'All the Light We Cannot See starts off strong and will keep viewers engaged from the beginning until the very end,' wrote Ready Steady Cut. It's worth watching for Loberti's outstanding performance and the generally impressive production value,' said Paste Magazine, while bemoaning that it 'could have been so much more.' Meanwhile, NPR called it 'worthwhile and heartening.' The show marks the acting debut of Aria Mia Loberti, who is herself, legally blind. 'When you decide, as I did, to open up the casting process to low vision and legally blind contenders for this protagonist, who is herself blind, it's not like you can go the usual route,' director Levy told Town & Country Magazine. 'It's not like the talent agencies have filled their rosters with actors who are blind; it's not a big pool. That's why I opened it up with a global casting search announced in a blitz, and we got hundreds and hundreds of self-tapes from people who just filmed an audition on their laptop or their phone. 'Among those, I noticed one from a young woman named Aria Mia Loberti, and while at that point I didn't know anything about her, I knew that there was something about her that popped,' the Deadpool & Wolverine director added. 'What was difficult was being a first-time actress,' said Loberti of her debut performance. More Trending 'I had never been on a set before and that was the challenge. I brought a lot from my day-to-day life—my ballet training and martial arts training—with me to the stunts. 'I got to do all the stunts except for driving the car. Having Shawn as my guide was amazing and I am grateful to him for believing in me.' View More » All The Light We Cannot See is currently streaming on Netflix UK. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
Telegraph
6 hours ago
- Telegraph
Hollywood star Julie Delpy: ‘I made enemies by saying no to very powerful men'
A soberly dressed British prime minister welcomes the French president on the steps of Downing Street. The leader from across the Channel puts her counterpart in the shade: she's blonde, glamorous, with intense red lipstick and elegant gold earrings. Soon, she is offering subtly cutting advice to her opposite number about the tense way the PM holds her face in the presence of photographers. Their relationship is already strained: in a hot-mic incident, the prime minister has described president Toussaint as a 'handmaiden to the far-Right'. These are the opening moments of Netflix's Hostage, a political thriller in which the two women become entwined in a ransom drama involving the husband of PM Abigail Dalton (Suranne Jones). The actress who plays the French president – the film star Julie Delpy – has just popped up on my Zoom call. I have to ask her, is her Toussaint – who talks of 'listening to my people' and appealing, on immigration, to a 'silent majority who value national identity' – based on Marine Le Pen? Did Delpy observe the National Rally leader while studying for the role? 'No, because I didn't want her to be that; it's a fictional piece and I think it would be weird to…' She halts. 'First of all, Marine Le Pen speaks very bad English; it would have been a very different vibe.' Put-down neatly delivered, she notes: 'She's actually probably less of a Marine Le Pen and more of a Macron that's kind of flirting with the extreme far-Right.' Indeed, the weaponised wardrobe and one-upmanship chime well with the sitting president. Yet there's little of that in the 55-year-old Delpy, whose dress code is more cool professor than power dresser. But she certainly understands Toussaint's hunger to hold on to her role. 'I think for some women, and I'm not even talking in politics, for some women, power is very important. Even in my business, I've seen women fight so hard to get somewhere that they can become more fierce than certain men, because they had to battle twice as hard.' Showbusiness is relentless, to be sure, and Delpy has been part of it since she was a teenager. Her parents were both actors, her father a theatre director, when the great French film director Jean-Luc Godard put her on screen at just 14, capturing her intelligent mien as 'Wise Young Girl' in his 1985 film Détective. Within two years, she was turning heads in Bertrand Tavernier's Beatrice; by her mid-20s, Delpy had starred in Krzysztof Kieslowski's revered Three Colours trilogy, and become internationally adored in the quintessential indie romance Before Sunrise (1995). She played Céline, who steps off a train to explore Vienna with a passenger she's just met, Ethan Hawke's Jesse. 'It wasn't rape, it was manipulation' Her view of the film industry at the time she joined it still shocks. 'Everyone knows, in France, there are people walking around making movies who were openly dating 13-year-olds in the 1980s,' she once stated. Today, she remembers saying it to a French newspaper, how it described a generation of creepy men twisting 1960s ideals of 'sexual liberation'. 'Oh, you know, it's 'sexual freedom', blah, blah, but I was very against it… it wasn't rape, it was manipulation.' For her, as a teenager, the manipulation came in the form of 'flirting letters, love letters. I've received a lot of those, you know. I was constantly getting [them], trying to get me to cave in, when I was 13, 14, 15'. They came from 'mostly directors, by the way, it wasn't producers so much,' she adds. But the predatory tactic was generally the same. 'It was the artist and the 'muse',' she notes, with irony. Being part of that milieu, her parents were wise to it. 'My mom was very, very determined to stop me being a victim of that system. So she taught me, really young, to protect myself. And when I got to the US, I had to navigate the same thing. And I got a few enemies by saying no to very, very, very powerful men. I still had a career, but I did miss a lot of opportunities because I refused to comply.' The pressures she describes are well understood now, in the post- Weinstein era. Delpy has straightforward views about those who abuse their position. On her celebrated countryman Gérard Depardieu, 76, who was convicted in May of sexually assaulting two women on a film in 2021: 'If he's [an abuser], he has to be punished for it,' she says. 'I don't excuse – he's an incredibly talented actor, but, you know, nothing excuses sexual abuse.' 'One of the worst feelings of my life' Delpy, meanwhile, has forged a fascinating career as a writer, director and actress, which includes a role in the so-bad-it's-good An American Werewolf in Paris. Does she regret that one? 'Well, listen, [some] people love that film. So it's really funny every time someone comes up to me and says, 'I love Werewolf'. Even young people. I'm like, 'Why did you even watch this?'' She also starred in two sequels to Richard Linklater's paean to impulsive connection – Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), for both of which she received Academy Award nominations as a co-writer with Linklater and Hawke. She believes she and her co-star deserved script credits for the first film, too. 'We were naive young actors,' she says. 'It was not a tweaking exercise, because I know the difference, so I'm not going to pick that film as my favourite because I don't think it's right.' Not being credited for her work, she says, was 'one of the worst feelings I've had in my life'. Fans still hanker for a fourth film, but Delpy confesses to reservations about how the story was resolved in Before Midnight, with the couple, now married parents, having a volcanic row that ends in rather implausible reconciliation. 'To this day, I don't love that ending,' she says. 'Maybe because I had nothing to do with it. That's an ego thing. But, um, I think the guys kind of did their little ending, and it didn't resonate for me that much.' They have talked about a fourth film, she admits. 'Richard sent us an email, possibly about my character dying of cancer. And I thought about it, and I was like, 'Really?'' She feels the characters represent the study of a relationship over decades, 'and to have her die at 50… It confused me a lot. Because I'd say women have so much to say in their 50s – I was a bit concerned that maybe Richard was not really understanding that.' Is Hollywood dying? The film industry continues to struggle post-Covid lockdowns, with audiences dropping alarmingly for everything but blockbusters and low-budget horror. Is Hollywood dying? 'If films don't survive, it's a huge part of culture that's collapsing,' Delpy warns. She foresees difficult times ahead, though, with new threats emerging. 'When power becomes more overbearing and more controlling, more totalitarian, which is the era we are entering, I think art can be [seen as] a danger, can be a voice that people want to control.' Political events in the US, she explains, are 'really worrisome… We are at that place, I think, where people are concerned that democracy might be in danger, which is never a good thing, no matter what your political views are. 'Those structures are at stake right now in the US. I don't think we're there in France yet. In England, I imagine that there's still a strong democratic system, but it's being eroded.' It's clear she is not aligned with Toussaint's views. 'I believe it's easier to blame immigration than to blame a system falling apart by itself,' she says. It's an effective tactic, she adds. 'It worked 100 years ago. It worked 200 years ago. It's working now.' Did playing Toussaint give her a sense that she would like to influence politics more directly? 'I'm not a very greedy person,' she says, 'and I'm not ready to make compromises, so I'll never be in politics.' Hostage is on Netflix from Thursday August 21
