Latest news with #MatthewRhys
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rosamund Pike recalls getting punched and mugged while on the phone with her mom: 'All she heard was me scream'
Rosamund Pike is opening up about a casual phone call home that became a traumatic incident for the actress and her mother. The Wheel of Time star has revealed that she was once walking the streets of London while chatting with her mom when someone sped by on a bike and mugged her. "I was on the phone to my mother, on a mobile phone walking along a road, and I was mugged," Pike recalled during a recent visit to Magic Radio. "The phone was snatched, so all she heard was me scream and a thud, and the phone went dead." But it wasn't just a drive-by mugging — Pike said the culprit also "punched me down the side of my cheek" before grabbing the phone from her hand. She said that in the moment she was "angry," but also knew that because of the abruptly ended phone call, she wasn't the only one who had to endure the fear and panic. "I walked to the pub and called [my mom] when I got there and met my friends," Pike said. "But for her, it was probably a pretty horrible 15 minutes." A representative for the actress has clarified that the attack took place in 2006. Later in the conversation, Pike and her Hollow Road costar Matthew Rhys pointed out that a similar incident is at the center of their new film, which recently debuted in the U.K. The thriller stars Pike and Rhys as parents who receive a distressing late-night call from their teenage daughter and, after racing to her location, find themselves stumbling through a disturbing series of revelations. While her mugging and attack occurred over a decade ago, Pike was recovering from another facial injury just last year when she walked the Golden Globes red carpet in January to celebrate her movie Saltburn's several nominations. The actress was wearing a lacy veiled headpiece that doubled as a fashion statement and a "protective" Dior veil. "I had an accident over Christmas, actually. I had a skiing accident," she explained on the red carpet. "And I had to think, that's not what you want knowing you're coming to the Golden Globes on the seventh of January."Pike said that when the accident occurred on Dec. 26, 2023, her face was "entirely smashed up and I thought I needed to do something." Though her injuries were mostly healed by the time the event came around, she opted not to waste the fashionable veil. Watch Pike recount her 2006 mugging on Magic Radio above. Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
Sky News
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Urdd Eisteddfod: Why Strictly star Amy Dowden is supporting Welsh festival that is 'like Britain's Got Talent'
Thousands of people are expected to attend Port Talbot this weekend as the town gears up to welcome an annual Welsh festival. The Urdd Eisteddfod is a celebration of Welsh culture when children and young people up to the age of 25 take part in a variety of competitions. There are 400 of them in total, including singing, reciting poetry and dancing. The Urdd organisation itself was established more than a century ago in 1922, with the aim of giving children and young people in Wales the opportunity to learn and socialise in the Welsh language. Its six-day Eisteddfod is held during May half-term and in a different part of Wales each year. The Urdd Eisteddfod broke its own records last year, with more than 100,000 registrations to compete. Margam Park is home to this year's event - the first time since 2003 that it's played host. Among the main prizes up for grabs this year are the chair (awarded to the main poetry competition winner) and the crown (awarded to the main prose competition winner). This year's crown and chair have been made using some of the final pieces of steel produced at Port Talbot steelworks before the closure of the blast furnaces last year. There are some new additions to this year's Eisteddfod, including awards for singing, musical theatre and acting, named in honour of Sir Bryn Terfel, Callum Scott Howells and Matthew Rhys. Another new award - the Amy Dowden award for dance - will also be awarded for the first time this week. Speaking to Sky News, Strictly Come Dancing star Dowden said it was a "real honour" to be supporting the next generation of dancers. "The arts and the industry is tough, and I just hope that [the young people] can see that I've managed to push myself through it," she said. "I've worked hard, I've had a few challenges along the way. Hopefully I can help inspire them as well." 'It's like Britain's Got Talent' As a former competitor herself in what is one of Europe's largest touring youth festivals, Dowden says she "couldn't imagine [her] childhood without it". "I've loved Eisteddfods since I can remember. Every year at school I took part in everything, from the baking to the reciting poems, to the folk dancing, to the creative dancing," she said. "The Urdd Eisteddfod is literally like one big talent competition, it's like Britain's Got Talent." The winner of the Amy Dowden award will get one-to-one sessions with her as part of the prize, as well as masterclasses at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. They will have the opportunity to perform on an international stage and also win a cash prize. "I know from my dance training and everything, each of those is so beneficial to getting yourself to that professional level," Dowden added.
Times
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Rosamund Pike enthrals in cinema's tensest car ride, shot in real time
Blame Aristotle. Every now and again a film-maker gets it into their head to clamp down on the old Aristotelian unities of time and space and let their drama play out in something close to real time. First we had Netflix's Adolescence, and now Babak Anvari's psychological thriller Hallow Road, in which a married couple, Maddie (Rosamund Pike) and Frank (Matthew Rhys), receive a panicky late-night call from their daughter, Alice (Megan McDonnell), after she hits a pedestrian while driving on a remote country road. Mum and Dad pile into their car to track her down, talking to their hysterical daughter on speakerphone. We join them for what feels like the longest 40-minute car ride you've yet had at the movies. The film
Daily Mail
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Hallow Road starring Rosamund Pike is a taut car-crash thriller... until it hits the plotholes, writes BRIAN VINER
Hallow Road (15 hours and 18 minutes) Those of you who are or have ever been the parent of a young, college-age adult will probably watch the excellent first 40 or so minutes of Hallow Road and think: what on earth would I do? It's an agonising moral dilemma wrapped up as a taut thriller, brilliantly performed by Rosamund Pike, Matthew Rhys and the unseen Megan McDonnell. Babak Anvari's film begins grippingly. In disconcerting silence the camera roams through a house, picking out clues of a crime or perhaps a furious argument: an unfinished dinner, a smashed wine glass half-swept up. Soon we learn it was the latter, a domestic barney, which appears to have ended with a young woman storming out and driving into the night in her father's car. Waking in the small hours, Mads (Pike) and Frank (Rhys) are at first concerned only about the whereabouts of their daughter Alice (McDonnell). But then she calls with the alarming news that there has been an accident; driving through a forest, along Hallow Road, she has hit a woman of about her age. The woman seems to be dying. Aghast, Mads and Frank set off to find her, Frank driving Mads's car while she stays in contact with Alice by mobile phone, talking her through the mechanics of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Handily, Mads is a paramedic. She has given Alice CPR training before but performing it for real is another matter. The clever screenplay by William Gillies is full of counterpoints, moments of dissonance between the horror of this situation and life's cheerful banalities. So when Alice doesn't answer her mobile, her bubbly voicemail message, ending with a chirpy 'byeee', is like a cruel mirage, an unattainable happiness. And when Mads explains how to do chest compressions, she reminds Alice to chant 'Nellie the Elephant' as a way of keeping up the tempo. As all this unfolds, we learn bits and pieces about their family life, the crisis that led to the argument, the secret Mads is keeping from Frank, other causes of friction. We also hear how Frank plans to protect Alice in the police investigation that will likely follow, which leads to that quandary: what would the rest of us do in such a predicament? Only at the start and the end, however, do we stray from the car's interior. In many respects, Hallow Road is strongly reminiscent of Steven Knight's terrific 2013 thriller Locke, which similarly used a single car journey and a series of phone conversations to ramp up the tension. Locke was only 85 minutes long and Hallow Road is even shorter, so it could easily keep on a linear narrative path, but instead, about halfway through, it takes a regrettable swerve into vaguely supernatural territory. Before Mads and Frank can reach their daughter, another car stops and a woman gets out, apparently to help Alice. We hear her talking on Alice's phone, but at no point does she convince either as a good Samaritan or a more sinister entity. After that I stopped fully believing in the story. What a shame that Hallow Road develops plotholes. The Marching Band (15 hours and 103 minutes) Rating: How many movies are driven by family dynamics? The Marching Band, a French-language crowd-pleaser, does it in a very different way. Benjamin Lavernhe is wonderful as middle-class Thibaut, a celebrated conductor who, after collapsing at the podium one day, learns that he has leukaemia. He needs a bone-marrow transplant but it turns out that his sister isn't a match. Then comes another life-changing revelation: he was adopted. So Thibaut must first find his biological brother, Jimmy (the also splendid Pierre Lottin, far left with Lavernhe), and then ask him for his bone marrow. All of which is drama enough, but there's another, compelling dimension. Jimmy, raised in a blue-collar community, is a talented trombonist in a marching band. Gradually, their worlds converge and their new fraternal bond builds through music, predictably but very touchingly. It's a real charmer.
The Sun
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Hallow Road film review: High-tension thriller is suspenseful but plays out like audiobook
HALLOW ROAD (15) 80mins ★★★☆☆ 4 4 HOW far would you go to protect your child? That's the question posed by director Babak Anvari in this high-tension thriller with a scenario which would be any parent's worst nightmare. Nineteen-year-old Alice (Megan McDonnell) has fled behind the wheel of dad Frank's car following a family argument. Unable to reach her since, Frank (Matthew Rhys) and wife Maddie (Rosamund Pike) are fraught. The domestic scene we find them in, with its audibly ticking clock, shattered glass on the floor, beeping smoke alarm, and unfinished dinners on the table feels tense and unsettled. Despite expensive interiors and family photos, the atmosphere feels off-kilter and it is as though we are being shown a crime scene. When Alice, who we will only ever hear as a voice down the phone and never see in person, calls her mum in hysterics at 2am everything implodes. Driving alone at night through a forest she has hit a person who appeared suddenly in the road. Maddie, a trained paramedic, talks Alice through performing CPR. But she is unable to resuscitate the body. From this moment onwards Frank and Maddie's sole focus is to reach and to protect their daughter. Whatever it takes. From inside the confines of Maddie's unhelpfully unreliable older vehicle events now begin unfolding almost in real time as we travel with them on their journey to her. Huge blow for action movie legend as new film lands 0% Rotten Tomatoes score as critics brand it 'laughably bad' Static camerawork means every lurch and pothole, every indicator flash and every brake screech are felt or heard. Frantic phone conversations with Alice take place as the satnav shows us the painfully slow time it will take them to reach her. Trapped together in fear as Maddie and Frank drive, other marital revelations are also disclosed. Even in the hands of these talented actors there is a lot of in-car dialogue, which can start to feel a little like a radio play or audio book at times. But suspense and panic builds as they consider ways to stop the hit-and-run destroying all their futures. Accelerating towards its climax, events suddenly take a very unexpected turn. To say more would give away the twist. But do ensure you keep your eye on the end credits. Is parenting a road to hell? You may well be left wondering for some time. MAGIC FARM (15) 93mins ★★☆☆☆ 4 THIS second feature film from Argentine-Spanish director Amalia Ulman (following El Planeta), is a visually rich but tonally uneven satire about a clueless American film crew lost in rural Argentina. Starring Chloë Sevigny as Edna, a frazzled TV host, and Simon Rex as her shady producer-husband, the story centres around their misguided attempt to document a global subculture – only to realise they're in the wrong country. Despite the setup begging for comedic chaos, the humour sadly falls flat, often relying on tired old stereotypes and tropes about arrogant Americans abroad. Sevigny manages a few sharp moments, but the script gives her very little to work with. The supporting cast, particularly locals like Camila del Campo and Valeria Lois, bring much-needed natural charm and understated wit. Yet despite its eccentric aesthetic and surreal interludes, Magic Farm feels oddly empty. Its attempt at absurdity rarely lands, leaving behind a project more self-indulgent than insightful. For some it works, but just not enough for it to be in any way memorable. THE MARCHING BAND ★★★★☆ 4 EMMANUEL COURCOL presents a heartwarming French-language comedy-drama brought to life by two charismatic lead performances and a familiar yet rewarding storyline. Benjamin Lavernhe stars as Thibaut, a refined Parisian orchestra conductor whose life is upended by a shock leukaemia diagnosis. In search of a bone marrow donor, Thibaut discovers a biological brother he never knew: Jimmy, a divorced factory worker played with charm by Pierre Lottin. The pair couldn't be more different – class, lifestyle, and worldview divide them – but a shared love of music brings them closer. Jimmy's passion for trombone and jazz offers an interesting counterpoint to Thibaut's polished classical world, and soon Thibaut finds himself stepping in to help conduct Jimmy's boisterous factory band. While The Marching Band occasionally leans a little too heavily on predictability the climactic concert scene hits all the right emotional notes. This film may not surprise, but it's a sincere and uplifting tale that is in tune with the spirit of underdog crowd-pleasers Brassed Off and The Full Monty.
