Latest news with #HelenMirren
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The Good Liar: Cat-and-mouse thriller starring Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren
When a veteran conman (Ian McKellen) sets his sights on a wealthy widow (Helen Mirren) as his next victim, he thinks he's found himself an easy mark. As he charms his way into her life, though, it becomes apparent that there is much more going on than meets the eye. With a back story involving events during the dark days of the Second World War, this is a precisely engineered Swiss watch of a thriller. It's nowhere near as cut and dried as it first appears and will keep you guessing until the end - and the two leads are, of course, an absolute delight. The supporting cast includes Russell Tovey and Downton's Jim Carter and the director is Bill Condon, who also directed McKellen in Mr Holmes. (109 minutes)
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Montana Brown reveals the bizarre health routine she swears by to 'aid digestion and reduce inflammation'
Montana Brown has revealed her bizarre health routine she swears by in an Instagram video on Friday. The former Love Island star, 29, said she uses a caster oil pack every night before bed to aid digestion and reduce inflammation. Sharing a video of herself removing the pack, Montana flashed her jaw-dropping abs. Montana captioned the post: 'Why I use a castor oil pack every night before bed? 'aids digestion, keeps my skin hydrated overnight to help with excess skin postpartum, cheap!, supports lymphatic drainage, reduces inflammation'. Montana is not the first celebrity to use the oil. In March 2021, Dame Helen Mirren told her followers on Instagram: 'Things I oil. Not for its laxative properties, but for hair, skin, nails.' The former Love Island star said she uses a caster oil pack every night before bed to aid digestion and reduce inflammation Castor oil is widely known to be an excellent natural remedy for constipation, but can also be used to benefit your hair, skin, and face. And in September last year, Kelsey Parker claimed that castor oil had changed her life and was her 'new best friend'. Kelsey, who was married to Tom Parker from The Wanted, before he tragically lost his battle with brain cancer, raved: 'I want to talk about castor oil. 'I have this organic castor oil which has become my new best friend. I was recommended castor oil by 'The Skin Angel', but basically castor oil has changed my life in such a short period of time. 'I use the castor oil as a moisturiser because I am so dry. At the moment I'm looking all nice and shiny because this is what castor oil does. 'It also promotes hair growth, so your eyelashes will grow, you can put it on your eyebrows. Kelsey added: 'Also, it's an anti-inflammatory, it's also an antioxidant and its anti-fungal.' Earlier this year Montana - who is already a mum to Jude one - welcomed her second child, Miley, with her fiancé Mark O'Connor via a home birth. Earlier this year Montana opened up about the challenges of having a home birth when her baby daughter Miley was breech She opened up about the challenges of having a home birth when her baby daughter Miley was breech. Montana said she was advised by her NHS midwives to give birth in hospital but she insisted she wanted to follow her head and heart and stay at home. The reality star enlisted the help of a private doula for her home birth, who assured her both she and her daughter were safe. Montana shared that her home birth was 'magical' but she had felt really when her waters broke due to Miley being breech, with one of the baby's legs popping out first. However she thanked her 'rock' Mark, doula Emiliana and midwife Heather for relaxing her before Miley 'flew out' two pushes later.
Mint
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Lounge Loves: ‘The Thursday Murder Club', Manna Dey's house and more
I managed to see the trailer of The Thursday Murder Club only recently, some weeks after it was first released. The cast of Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie and Ben Kingsley looks spectacular as four retired senior citizens who turn into unlikely sleuths. While waiting for the film's release in August, I decided to read Richard Osman's novel (2020) of the same name, which has been adapted for the screen. The book does not disappoint. I had been going through a bit of a reading lethargy, and the book has thankfully changed that. This whodunnit has you rooting for these unorthodox detectives. And, perhaps, because I had watched the trailer, I could visualise the cast members speaking to me from the pages. If you want to break the mid-week ennui or simply read something refreshing, this is the novel for you. There is no limit to human absurdity, and the internet, with its tell-all culture, has brought it to our timelines in unique ways. My favourite example of this right now is American musician Luke Holloway's Instagram account (@lewky_), where he has made a series of Reels titled 'Turning Terrible Tinder Conversations into Song'. The videos feature a role-playing Holloway enacting crowd-sourced snatches of texts from dating platforms—the most cringe ones, of course—that he has set to music. There's the one where someone starts a chat by asking 'do you do cocaine', the one where a man basically confesses he's stalking women, and so on. The thing is, the tunes are pretty catchy, and I often find myself humming 'do you do cocaine'. I am not a fan of the Mumbai monsoon. Let everyone sing their praises for all the romance associated with it, but I somehow can't get past the dozen inconveniences that come with the rains. Not being able to dry my clothes in the sun, for instance, or not being able to play a game of tennis on weekends. The rains are yet to fully settle in this year though, so I am really enjoying the sun once in a while, and taking in the sight of my clothes drying in the balcony, or airing my leather shoes that got soaked after a downpour last week. Even the neighbour's dog seems to be happy basking in the sun. The plants are rejoicing as well, showing off in all their green glory. I am not complaining about the monsoons yet. I was walking around this neighbourhood in north Kolkata, when a plaque with an image of singer Manna Dey caught my eye. I can't read Bengali, but surmisedthe house where he was born must be here. I headedinside the quiet and narrow Madan Ghose lane, the light drizzle glistening against the maroon and black tiles. I couldn't find any signboard but saw this stray dog lyingon the front porch (called rowak in Bengali, one where people like to hang out and do adda) of a house. It raised its head, perhaps sensing that I am an outsider/intruder. I promptly took a photo, the brown dog against a background of amber wall, burnt sienna windows and black grille. Later I googled and watched a video, and guess what? That was the very house the singer was born in. Did I tell you my favourite Manna Dey song is Zindagi Kaisi hai Paheli?
Irish Times
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Pierce Brosnan's 11 most memorable movie roles
Pierce Brosnan , self-identified Navan man, will have known, when he signed on for James Bond in 1995, that the role would follow him for the rest of his career. It happened to Sean Connery . It happened to Roger Moore . On the rare occasions George Lazenby enters a conversation, his role in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is inevitably chewed over. Oh, well. There are worse things. That reduction to 'Bond actor' distracts from a busier and better CV than the casual observer might guess, however. Brosnan is back this month as a Dubliner who leaves the Civil Service to paint rain-blasted beaches in a tweedy adaptation of Niall Williams's novel Four Letters of Love. In August you can see him opposite Helen Mirren , Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie as the retired union leader Ron Ritchie in Netflix's take on Richard Osman's hugely popular cosy-crime yarn The Thursday Murder Club . The raised eyes at that last casting – Osmaniacs favoured the likes of Ray Winstone – confirm how people still expect him to stay within the Bond guardrails: debonair, clipped, sophisticated. READ MORE Maybe that is what he does best: variations on and pastiches of the suave casino dweller. Why should he not? Cary Grant was always Cary Grant. There are a few deviations from the Brosnan Type below, but, even there, the sense of who he once was – or pretended to be – remains watermarked into the performance. [ James Bond: 007's best and worst movies, ranked Opens in new window ] To avoid Bond overload, we have gone with Brosnan's 11 most memorable movie roles rather than his 11 best films. 11. Mark Taffin in Taffin Directed by Francis Megahy, 1988 Brosnan is too much of a gent for us to play games with a worst-performances list. If we did, Taffin probably wouldn't be on it anyway. This bizarre action flick transcends all traditional notions of quality. Brosnan, then just emerging from Remington Steele on TV, but not yet signed up to Bond, returned home to play a hardman – the sort Steven Seagal was just beginning to portray – in an Irish action thriller heavy with tasty quips. It's not exactly a good film. Brosnan's not exactly good in it. But there is no denying the cult that has gathered around the thing. Fans know this script backwards. 10. First Irishman in The Long Good Friday Directed by John Mackenzie, 1980 Okay, he is barely in it. But Brosnan's tiny role as an IRA operative – the actor's first in a feature film – is notable for one of the greatest closing scenes from any gangster flick. Bob Hoskins's ambitious hoodlum, leaving the Savoy grill, realises someone unexpected is in the passenger seat of his chauffeured limousine. It is our man Brosnan, and he has a pistol pointed at the geezer's head. The resigned smile that spreads over Hoskins's face as he accepts his doom never fails to chill the bones. Years later we yelled: 'Hey, that was James Bond!' The film itself is a masterpiece. 9. Sam Carmichael in Mamma Mia! Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, 2008 Another controversial one. You wouldn't say what Brosnan was doing counted as singing – his notorious rendition of SOS is atonal to an avant-garde degree – but nobody else could pull off that boyish charm. Complemented perfectly by his rival dads Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth , neither of whom will be confused with Enrico Caruso either. Yes, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is a much better film, but Brosnan doesn't have quite so much to do there. (Anyone who says 'just as well' is forbidden from reading the rest of this article.) 8. Stuart 'Stu' Dunmeyer in Mrs Doubtfire Directed by Chris Columbus, 1993 Inspired casting from Chris Columbus . Who is the last person a self-absorbed jealous nut would want his estranged wife to be dating? Why, the smoothest, most charming man ever to emerge from Co Meath (by way of Louth ). The selection seemed all the wiser when, two years later, Brosnan took over the most glamorous espionage franchise in the business. A reminder the Irishman has a perfect understanding of how a comic foil needs to position himself. 'I kept to my text and he just danced around it,' he later said approvingly of Robin Williams's famous drag turn. 7. Arthur Stieglitz in Black Bag Directed by Steven Soderbergh, 2025 Something was bugging me – in a good way – about Brosnan's performance as an MI6 bigwig in Steven Soderbergh's superbly icy espionage thriller . On the way out of the press screening a colleague solved the mystery for me. 'He's doing King Charles , isn't he?' He does indeed seem to be riffing the current British monarch, and it's an inspired decision. There is that same sense of a man so used to privilege he makes little attempt at ingratiation. 'Quite malevolent in his own way,' Brosnan said of a character (Stieglitz, not the king) who James Bond may have eventually become. 6. Andy Osnard in The Tailor of Panama Directed by John Boorman, 2001 John le Carré was, from his emergence with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, in 1963, always pitched as the rough antidote to Ian Fleming's imperial fantasies. Brosnan was not the first Bond actor to lead a le Carré adaptation: Sean Connery did rugged work in Fred Schepisi's The Russia House, from 1990. But Brosnan was still (just) in the 007 job when he played an MI6 agent abroad for Boorman, and, crucially, the rollicking film – essentially a comedy – seems more committed to deconstructing Fleming's absurd mythologies. An underrated film and performance. 5. Prof Donald Kessler in Mars Attacks! Directed by Tim Burton, 1996 In one of the more unhinged holidays from Bond in that franchise's history – Connery was not still in the job when he made Boorman's Zardoz – Brosnan, with white coat and teeth-clenched pipe, has magnificent fun as a variation on the sharp boffin who turns up to explain imminent threat in science-fiction flicks of the 1950s. The indignities he suffers after the Martians attack scarcely bear thinking about. Apparently, the role was originally intended for Hugh Grant , but he doesn't quite have the straightness of back that Brosnan manages. Just hilarious. 4. Adam Lang in The Ghost Directed by Roman Polanski, 2010 So for which postwar British prime minister might the smooth Brosnan be best suited. Harold Wilson? Hardly. Ted Heath? Even less likely. No, Adam Lang, in this gripping adaptation of a Robert Hughes book (titled The Ghost Writer in the US), is, of course, a variation on Anthony Charles Lynton Blair . 'Am I playing Blair?' he said to me at the time. 'I found it quite humorous that an Irishman was playing a British ex-prime minister. But you could say the same about Bond.' It's an immaculate turn in a film that has much to say about how the UK grovelled (and maybe still does) to its ally across the Atlantic. 3. Julian Noble in The Matador Directed by Richard Shepard, 2005 If anybody had got the mistaken idea that Brosnan takes himself too seriously, they were surely disabused by the scene in The Matador in which, to the sounds of The Cramps' Garbageman, he sashays through a crowded hotel lobby in only black underpants, ankle boots and sunglasses. The hugely enjoyable comedy thriller, featuring our man as a psychologically frayed assassin, won the star endless accolades and a Golden Globe nomination. Roger Ebert called The Matador his best work to date. We don't quite agree (see below), but it confirmed that he had an immaculate understanding of what the camera demands. 2. James Bond in Goldeneye Directed by Martin Campbell, 1995 And here we are. Like Roger Moore, Brosnan had been courted for an earlier induction into the Bond franchise but got waylaid by TV commitments. He finally got the gig just past the age of 40 – and, moving away from Timothy Dalton's tougher 007, reinstituted a little of Moore's comic lounge-lizard suaveness without slipping into the broad comedy of decadent outings such as Octopussy and A View to a Kill. Judi Dench's M, so good she alone survived into the Daniel Craig reboot, famously summed up this incarnation as a 'sexist, misogynist dinosaur'. He would hardly be James Bond if he were not those things. Brosnan returned to 007 three times, but his first outing remained his best. 1. Thomas Crown in The Thomas Crown Affair Directed by John McTiernan, 1999 An immaculate entertainment that, though it received only lukewarm reviews on release, is now firmly installed as one of the great Hollywood remakes. If one were feeling pompous one could read John McTiernan's heist flick as an essay on the unknowability of the dinner-jacketed wraith Brosnan so often plays. Rene Russo, equally good as the insurance investigator seeking to trip up his bored billionaire, never breaks the glossy carapace. Brosnan seems, however, aware there may be little worth discovering about this cipher who rose from nothing to become a different kind of nothing. Norman Jewison's 1968 original with Steve McQueen , though still a bank holiday staple, seemed deadened by its own icy style and held back by McQueen's self-importance. Russo and Brosnan, in contrast, seem to know they are in something close to a comedy. Gorgeous romantic set pieces. Thrilling action sequences. Great use of Nina Simone's Sinner Man. Bubbling under: As oddly familiar Irish republican antagonist to Jackie Chan in The Foreigner (2017). Weathering Barbra Streisand in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996). In Africa for Bruce Beresford in Mister Johnson (1990). Standing up to a volcano in Dante's Peak (1997). Out west with Liam Neeson in Seraphim Falls (2006)
Daily Mail
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Stormzy is saved by Dame Helen Mirren as he nearly suffers a nasty wasp attack in Evian's VIP suite on the final day of Wimbledon
Stormzy was saved by Dame Helen Mirren as he nearly suffered a nasty attack from a rogue wasp at Evian's VIP suite on the final day of Wimbledon. The rapper, 31, was seen watching Sinner defeat his opponent Alcaraz alongside Helen actor Chris Hemsworth during the men's final on Sunday. But during their sunny day in the capital at the iconic sporting event, it was revealed Stormzy had an altercation with a wasp and Helen proved to be his hero. After enjoying their VIP treatment with Evian, Helen, 79, came to the artist's rescue and ensured he did not fall victim to the insect's nasty sting by jumping in front of it. For the outing, Helen looked elegant as she stepped out in a green floral dress which which featured black and white flowers. She layered the dress under a classy white floral cut-out dress jacket and finished her ensemble with nude, sling-back block heels. The actress accessorised her look with a pair of large gold hoops, a chunky ring and a gold watch. Meanwhile Stormzy stepped out in a chic white collared top which he paired with blue trousers and white trainers. Actor Chris, 41, looked classic handsome as he arrived at the match wearing a buttoned down blue shirt. He paired his shirt with a pair of tailored white trousers, a brown belt and dark brown leather loafers. After enjoying a pre-game catch up at the VIP suite, Stormzy and Helen were later seen sat next to one another to watch Jannik Sinner take on Carlos Alcaraz. The final day saw Jannik win his first Wimbledon title after beating Carlos in four sets in the final on Sunday. The final day saw Jannik win his first Wimbledon title after beating Carlos in four sets in the final on Sunday Alcaraz had won the previous two editions of Wimbledon but Sinner prevailed on this occasion, winning 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Jannik his first Wimbledon title, inflicting Alcaraz's first ever defeat in a Grand Slam final and ending the Spaniard's run of five straight victories in their personal duel. Yesterday saw Iga Swiatek thrash Amanda Anisimova in the Women's Singles Final during the popular sporting event, with the Princess Of Wales Kate watching on. The patron of the All England Lawn Tennis Club presented the trophy to Swiatek after she triumphed 6-0 6-0 against American Anisimova on Centre Court. Anisimova broke down in tears after she became the first woman to lose to a double bagel scoreline at SW19 since 1911. A tearful Anisimova, the 13th seed, wiped away tears as she praised Swiatek and said she had 'run out of gas a bit today'. The 23-year-old was playing in her first Wimbledon final and said 'she would never forget this experience'. Anisimova broke down again as she mentioned how her mother had flew in from America this morning to watch her.
