Latest news with #HughGrant
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Starmer has just embarrassed Britain in front of the most powerful man in the world
The gold standard of interaction between British Prime Ministers and US presidents is not, alas, a historical one. It isn't Winston Churchill and FDR signing the Atlantic Charter. It isn't Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan clowning around on golf buggies, preaching the gospel of liberty and showing the Soviets what they were missing. It isn't even Tony Blair's craven poodling to George Bush, the bloody consequences of which remain a by-word of humiliation in both nations. Instead, it is the press conference given by Hugh Grant and Billy Bob Thornton in Love Actually. It is a superb film – Mrs Atkinson rewatches it every Christmas – and the moment at which Grant sticks it to his Yankee equivalent is a personal highlight. After the president has shown him up both politically and romantically, Grant realises he will take no more and stands up for Britain. 'We may be a small country', , he intones, 'but we're a great one too', before listing a set of national achievements up to and including David Beckham's feet. A 'friend who bullies us is no longer a friend'. Audience cheers. Alas, Keir Starmer's meeting with Donald Trump today was about as far from that ringing demonstration of national self-confidence as one could get. The two leaders met at Trump's Turnberry golf course in Scotland, where he is currently holding court like a visiting Oriental potentate. Even if things had previously been remarkably rosy between our puce-faced progressive PM and the resplendent tangerine leader of the free world, this meeting was an exercise in embarrassment. Trump chose to give Starmer unsolicited advice on how to beat Nigel Farage: cut taxes, clamp down on crime, and slash immigration. All common sense, but hardly what Labour backbenchers want to hear. The president also explained how American farmers have been driven to suicide by levies on farmland estates – hardly what the Prime Minister needed following his disastrous, cruel, and fiscally negligible assault on the nation's farmers. Trump also labelled Sadiq Khan a 'nasty person', and claimed the London Mayor was doing 'a terrible job' – rather awkward for Starmer, who pointed out that Khan is a friend of his.
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
It is a truth universally acknowledged that I'm suddenly addicted to period dramas
Whatever you do, don't watch the new Jane Austen documentary on the ABC. It's called Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and it's far too good, leaving you with a hunger for Austen which cannot easily be satisfied. And so you find yourself rewatching the film of Sense and Sensibility, the one with Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, and then one thing leads to another and you've watched every available Austen, and so you find yourself subscribing to BritBox, and soon life has no meaning unless you are hunched in front of the set watching Dame Judy Dench in a bonnet and Julia Sawalha in a hooped skirt. I've heard heroin addicts talk about how it all started. An innocent tug on an acquaintance's 'marijuana cigarette' and, three weeks later, they are sprawled in a Kings Cross gutter with no money and a needle in their arm. Friends, that is my story. It all begins with a moment of appreciation for Hugh Grant's tousled hair and ends with a wayward addict adrift in a sea of Trollope. In the last fortnight, I've watched at least 11 period dramas – all of Austen, then two TV versions of Tom Jones (the older version better than the later), Trollope's The Way We Live Now (excellent, by the way), Cranford, Return to Cranford, and Yet More Cranford. This last one doesn't exist yet, but surely I can dream? Strangely, I used to act superior about 'bonnet dramas'. I spent most of the 1990s falling asleep in front of them. If a drama featured headwear affixed under the chin with a ribbon, I found my eyes fluttering closed. Now, I'm watching so many period dramas that they blur in my memory. No, matter. In a way, they are all the same. They all star Imelda Staunton, Brenda Blethyn, Tom Hollander and Michael Gambon. If one of the characters isn't in it for a scene or two, one assumes the actor is up the road filming The Barchester Chronicles. Andrew Davies is always the writer, which means he's skilled at including all the classic tropes. They all have a cad, a spirited heroine, an interfering aunt, and a scene in which someone is pushed into a pond, puddle, river, moat or lake. There's a puppet show or magic performance, featuring either Tim Curry or Alexei Sayle. The sprawling country house, I'm pretty sure, is always the same. Presumably, the BBC bought it in 1952 and films everything there. If it's Anna Karenina, they'll ship in some scythes and a steaming samovar. Of course, much like the heroin addict, the period drama compulsion soon dominates your life. When every evening is spent in Georgian England, it's hard for every breakfast not to follow.
The Age
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
It is a truth universally acknowledged that I'm suddenly addicted to period dramas
Whatever you do, don't watch the new Jane Austen documentary on the ABC. It's called Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and it's far too good, leaving you with a hunger for Austen which cannot easily be satisfied. And so you find yourself rewatching the film of Sense and Sensibility, the one with Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, and then one thing leads to another and you've watched every available Austen, and so you find yourself subscribing to BritBox, and soon life has no meaning unless you are hunched in front of the set watching Dame Judy Dench in a bonnet and Julia Sawalha in a hooped skirt. I've heard heroin addicts talk about how it all started. An innocent tug on an acquaintance's 'marijuana cigarette' and, three weeks later, they are sprawled in a Kings Cross gutter with no money and a needle in their arm. Friends, that is my story. It all begins with a moment of appreciation for Hugh Grant's tousled hair and ends with a wayward addict adrift in a sea of Trollope. In the last fortnight, I've watched at least 11 period dramas – all of Austen, then two TV versions of Tom Jones (the older version better than the later), Trollope's The Way We Live Now (excellent, by the way), Cranford, Return to Cranford, and Yet More Cranford. This last one doesn't exist yet, but surely I can dream? Strangely, I used to act superior about 'bonnet dramas'. I spent most of the 1990s falling asleep in front of them. If a drama featured headwear affixed under the chin with a ribbon, I found my eyes fluttering closed. Now, I'm watching so many period dramas that they blur in my memory. No, matter. In a way, they are all the same. They all star Imelda Staunton, Brenda Blethyn, Tom Hollander and Michael Gambon. If one of the characters isn't in it for a scene or two, one assumes the actor is up the road filming The Barchester Chronicles. Andrew Davies is always the writer, which means he's skilled at including all the classic tropes. They all have a cad, a spirited heroine, an interfering aunt, and a scene in which someone is pushed into a pond, puddle, river, moat or lake. There's a puppet show or magic performance, featuring either Tim Curry or Alexei Sayle. The sprawling country house, I'm pretty sure, is always the same. Presumably, the BBC bought it in 1952 and films everything there. If it's Anna Karenina, they'll ship in some scythes and a steaming samovar. Of course, much like the heroin addict, the period drama compulsion soon dominates your life. When every evening is spent in Georgian England, it's hard for every breakfast not to follow.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Welsh actor looks unrecognisable almost 30 years after his breakout role in iconic film as he strolls through London - but can YOU guess who it is?
A Welsh-born actor known for his roles in breakthrough films Twin Town and Notting Hill looked unrecognisable out in London on Friday. After his breakthrough, the actor went on to star in The Amazing Spider-Man and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, most recently making an appearance in the House Of The Dragon. He presented Welsh-language television programmes on S4C after leaving school, before making a play for the stage by studying at the Guildhall School Of Music & Drama. The BAFTA-winning actor a low profile as he stepped out in the capital on Friday on a rainy summer's day. For his outing, he wore a simple black t-shirt and grey jeans and trainers, adding a pop of colour with a colourful baseball cap. He appeared to be sporting a recent injury as he could be seen with a black wrist support glove on one hand - but can YOU guess who it is? It's none other than Rhys Ifans, who played the iconic role of Spike in the 1999 film Notting Hill alongside Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Rhys previously revealed how he led a double life of studying in an elitist drama college while breaking off doors to live illegally in around fifteen squats for months at a time. The Welsh actor said he would remove steel doors of empty council properties and change the locks before using them as his accommodation for over four years. The Notting Hill star recalled his 'great life' squatting while studying at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the Nineties, but added he knew it was 'illegal and dangerous'. He told Rob Brydon's podcast: 'I'd been in London a year before I went to drama school. I moved down with a mate of mine. 'For my whole period in drama school I lived in squats. I lived in about fourteen, fifteen different squats. 'It was of course illegal, and I guess looking back, dangerous. But it was a great life. 'It would be council properties, council flats. You take the steel door off in the middle of the night and then as soon as you change the locks put a notice on the door. 'They had to then switch the gas and electricity on and then you could be in it for weeks to months.' He added: 'But it was a constant case of we moved around a lot with a group of lads and girls from Belfast who I'd met at a Cramps gig and we lived together for four or five years moving in and out of different squats of varying degrees of comfort and discomfort. 'In a sense I had this real double life, which was wonderful. 'I had this kind of elitist wonderful life in college and then this extraordinary kind of vagabond existence when I went home each night. 'It was easy to do then. It's nigh on impossible now to break a squat but then it was relatively simple.' In recent years, Rhys has played Fool to Glenda Jackson's King Lear, and Scrooge at the Old Vic. He led the National's Exit The King; and then starred at the Royal Court in Ed Thomas's play On Bear Ridge. It comes after Rod Stewart revealed in 2020 that he wants a movie to be made about his life, following the success of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman - and tapped actor Rhys to play him. Sharing his thoughts on why the Notting Hill star was perfect, he said: 'Yeah, Rhys would be a very good idea. [But] he has got to do something with his barnet.'
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My advice to people who want to write a romance novel? Don't get dumped before you finish it
There is one incredibly important way that the shiny romantic comedy genre differs from the cold and grimy indignities of reality, and it explains the global love affair (pun sadly intended) with the form: the happy ever after. It's obviously not the only difference between reality and romcoms – for example, romantic comedies seem to believe that most women run failed cupcake bakeries, that you can fall in love with someone you hate with a fiery passion, and that most people keep their bras on during sex – but the happy ever after is the defining contrast. For those unfamiliar, the 'happy ever after' is the defining trope of romance narratives over books, TV and film, which posits the insane ideal that once the movie's (brief) romantic conflict has been resolved, the couple in question will be in love together, forever. It's also implied that such is the transformative power of that love, that most of their other problems (failed cupcake bakery, family farm being sold, gangrenous leg) fade into the background as a result. The happy ever after is given to us in a climactic and usually iconic scene that often involves running: Billy Crystal sprinting through the streets of New York to declare his love for Meg Ryan before the ball drops, Hugh Grant driving down one-way London streets to interrupt the press conference to declare his love for Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston inexplicably getting off the plane for David Schwimmer. These scenes have to be huge and dramatic because they have to make us believe that love has overcome all obstacles. It's this certainty that makes romance narratives so compelling – in an uncertain hell-world, at least we can disappear into a make-believe universe where we know love will always triumph. In the real world, obviously love does exist – but we don't get the comforting finality of the credits, which tell us that, for these characters, they will be happily in love forever. We get all the uncertainty of being a disgusting real person who needs antibiotics for their rotting leg wound and a prenup. All the best romantic comedies have a big happy ever after ending – which is why it was so annoying when the only thing left to write in my romcom was the climactic ending, and I got unceremoniously broken up with, out of the blue. There's nothing like having your belongings put into storage, sleeping on your mum and dad's couch and applying for one-bedroom apartments for you and your dog to really make you believe that not only is a happy ever after a myth but that love might actually be a lie. There's a unique humiliation in jumping on a Zoom call with your publisher and explaining that you can't meet your delivery deadline because you're too heartbroken to write the scene that's meant to encapsulate the feeling of being in love. There's nothing like accidentally writing a happy every after scene so unintentionally depressing that you briefly consider rewriting the rest of the novel to become a sad literary tale about Irish teens who never learned how to be happy and enjoy having emotionally ambiguous sex. It's one thing to break my heart, but making me miss my deadlines is unforgivable. I didn't like this limitation I'd discovered in myself – after all, an author's job is to imagine things, so surely I could imagine the idea of being in love, even if I didn't feel or believe in it any more. Literary fiction authors use their imagination to invent a world where it isn't weird for university lecturers to date their students all the time! Sport memoir writers imagine a world where people care about cricket, and cookbook authors like to imagine that people read all the stuff before the recipe. Fantasy authors imagine things that don't exist all the time too – dragons, magic, a world before the invention of toilets that doesn't stink and suck – so surely I could use the awesome powers of my creativity to imagine two boys falling in love and having a climactic smooch? But unfortunately, I found myself stuck on the precipice of an imaginary happy ever after, bitterly wishing I'd written another book about old people solving quaint village murders instead. Ultimately what helped me write my happy ever after was the same delusion that helped me recover from heartbreak and go out and fall head over heels in love again: turning my rock bottom breakup depression into a necessary part of the narrative. When I realised that you can't get a happy ever after in a romance book without earning it first through trial and pain. You need to have your rock bottom scene for there to even be a romcom in the first place – Bridget Jones drunk and crashing out about being 'old' and alone in her apartment – before she can have her big moment of snogging Mr Darcy in the street with no pants on. Instead of bashing my head against my final scene, I went back and rewrote the beginning of the book, where my character was sad and alone and hopeless – this time with added feeling. That made me remember what fuels our love of a happy ever after romance story – it's the hope that this moment of sadness will one day end and everything will work out again. All I needed to do was remember that to write a good end to my book, only a little bit late. The gangrenous leg will heal. In order to justify that big climactic moment of happiness, we had to go through the sadness first – a good lesson for anyone writing a romance book, or recovering from a heartbreak. Patrick Lenton is a writer. His novel, In Spite of You, comes out 1 August 2025
