Dame Helen Mirren warns women against society's 'desire to repress'
Dame Helen Mirren warns there is still a "desire to repress women".
The 79-year-old British actress has revealed her "fear" for women in the United States, especially after the decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade in 2022, overturned in 2022, which left millions in the US without the constitutional right to abortion.
She told WWD: 'My great fear is that with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and what's happening in America in general, you realise that lurking in the back is always this need, this desire to repress women.
'You think of the way women were treated under Stalin, under Hitler. It was 'get back there, have babies, and shut up. Be pretty, be sexy, have babies, and then shut up about everything else'.
'I keep thinking it can't take over, because women have come so far."
The Hollywood veteran isn't fazed by aging, but she wishes she would "live longer" to experience the full impact of change she waited decades for.
She explained: 'The one reason I do wish I was younger is I would like to live longer to see, because I've waited 50 years for the changes to happen that I thought should happen when I was 16 or 17 years old.'
Helen also wants to continue to see change in the film industry, despite acknowledging "a desire to see youth and beauty".
She said: 'There will always be a desire to see youth and beauty on the screen. I mean, I feel the same, quite honestly.
'But I think it's the broadening of the stories that we tell. Casting then follows.
"People are living longer, and as people live longer, they have stories to tell. Between 50 and 100 years old, there are obviously roles for men and women.'
She insisted progress has been made in recent years, with more varied stories being told beyond "a man's eyes".
She added: 'For all of my life, up to like 20 years ago, if I went to the movies, I only ever saw a vision of the world and culture and human relationships and stories and romance and adventure that was seen through a man's eyes.
'Now we're seeing women's view of the world about us. I think it's really surprising a lot of people.
"I think they thought women would just make movies about romance and dogs or something. They are doing amazing, challenging, difficult, shocking stuff. It's great.'
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The Advertiser
14 hours ago
- The Advertiser
David Attenborough's Ocean a wake-up call from the sea
An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday. An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday. An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday. An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday.
Man of Many
15 hours ago
- Man of Many
5 Things We Learned About the Next ‘James Bond' Game: 007 First Light
By Dean Blake - News Published: 7 June 2025 |Last Updated: 5 June 2025 Share Copy Link Readtime: 5 min The Lowdown: 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here. At a time that we've been waiting patiently for any news of when everybody's favourite secret agent will be making his next appearance on the big screen, Sony just went ahead and dropped a trailer for a brand new James Bond game. 007 First Light is a new take on the often reinterpreted character, clearly eschewing the book-and-film series' various canons to present a new origin story: one unique to this much younger version of Bond. Created by IO Interactive, the people behind the incredible Hitman series, 007 First Light looks particularly promising in a industry finally taking licensed games seriously. If you haven't seen the first trailer for the new James Bond game, check it out below. Looks pretty good, right? Well, there's a bit more packed in that 3 minutes that we can tease out with a bit of digging: so here's 5 things we learned about 007 First Light. 1. Bond has a Backstory As a rule, Bond's backstory is usually pretty muddy. He's a secret agent, after all, and tends to keep his history pretty close to his chest. First Light seems to be taking things pretty closely from Ian Fleming's original novels, with Bond joining the secret service following the deaths of his parents after a mountaineering accident. After a few years in the Navy, and a few too many run-ins with authority, Bond is headhunted by MI6 and begins his journey to become the infamous, charismatic agent we all know today. In First Light, we'll see that process play out and, in some ways, will get to determine what kind of agent this version of Bond is. 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive 2. Free-Form Gameplay takes Centre Stage… Now, this may not be a surprise to those of us in the know given IO Interactive's pedigree, but 007 First Light is going to feature open-ended, mission-based gameplay. It's a third-person action-adventure, likely in a similar style to IO's Hitman series, where you'll be dropped into 'breathtaking locations' with a goal to accomplish, and decide yourself how you'll proceed. Is your James Bond a silent assassin, keeping to shadows and eliminating guards as they pass his hiding place? Or is he more of a 'shoot first, sneak later' kind of agent? Or, does he aim to keep the body-count low, using gadgets to infiltrate or his natural British charm to bluff his way past potential encounters? I'd honestly think it was just the kind of overpromising many developers are prone to do at a game's announcement, only to reel it back in as you get closer to release, but this is IO Interactive. If any developer can nail the kind of free-form infiltrating a game like this requires, it's the team behind Hitman. I'm very hopeful. 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive 3. …but Narrative is a Star Player A focus on gameplay doesn't mean the game's story gets thrown to the wayside, though. In First Light, Bond will be tracking down a rogue agent—009, specifically—who, according to MI6, is a master manipulator with an end-game they likely won't see coming. Why send an unproven, unreliable wannabe agent to track down a skilled defector? If 009 is as intelligent as MI6 thinks, they probably know everything the other 00 agents will do to track them down and can avoid them, but Bond is an unknown, a wild card, and likely MI6's best chance at tracking its former agent down. While we don't have much idea of what to expect from the story of 007 First Light, it's clearly going to be a particularly cinematic one, with IO Interactive likely relishing the chance to write a more charismatic and talkative character (no shade to Agent 47, of course). 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive 4. There are a Ton of Classic Bond Goodies in the Trailer Bond has always been tied to real-world products, from his signature appreciation of cars and watches (especially when they're deadly weapons in their own right) to his love of Vesper Martinis, shaken, not stirred. In the 3 minutes and 14 seconds of trailer footage seen so far, we spotted a whole bunch of Omega watches, including an unreleased model, as well as the fact the man himself is driving an Aston Martin again—probably the Aston Martin V8. These are all undoubtedly geared up to the extreme by Q, with Bond seen accidentally kicking off a hidden thruster on a nearby dirt bike with the press of a button, and are likely to play a key role in the new agent's success in tracking down his mark. I honestly can't wait to cruise around in a Bond car, especially if there are hidden machine guns or something. 5. It's Coming in 2026 While we'll be learning more about the game in the coming months, we know it's set for launch in 2026. And, while it was shown at PlayStation's State of Play, and all the focus was on its launch on Sony's platform, 007 First Light is also coming to Xbox Series S/X, Steam, Epic Games, and the newly-released Nintendo Switch 2. 2026 is already looking pretty stacked for great games, with The Duskbloods, Saros, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Nioh 3, Fable, and, obviously, Grand Theft Auto 6 set to launch (not to mention a potential Elder Scrolls 6). Now, we've got one more reason to look forward to next year.
Perth Now
19 hours ago
- Perth Now
David Attenborough's Ocean a wake-up call from the sea
An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday.
