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Anthony Ramos is perhaps best known in the UK as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the stage musical Hamilton.

But now, he has ditched the muskets and 19th-century army uniforms for a flat cap and a vest, as he leads the ensemble cast in the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In The Heights, which has just burst on to big screens in the UK.

It tells the story of Washington Heights in New York – a community which is predominantly made up of Latino people and immigrants, and highlights the highs and lows, of living there.

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In The Heights star Anthony Ramos on his role

And while the community and its residents are put centre stage, so is the singing, dancing and rapping in this colourful and loud musical.

Ramos plays Usnavi, the lead character in the film, who ties everyone’s storylines together, telling Sky News he sees the role as the “invisible thread” of the film.

“Usnavi is a guy that… cares about his community, he runs a corner store in a predominantly Latino community.

“He takes care of his cousin, he takes care of, she’s not really his grandmother, but she’s the matriarch of the block, if you will, and of the community. He takes care of her, and both his parents passed away and he inherited a business that he didn’t ask for, but he does it with as much grace as possible.

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“And Usnavi, he tells this story about this community and the day-to-day life that not only he goes through, but the people in the community.

“He’s like that guy that knows who’s dating who, what person moved out of that apartment, who just moved into that business, you know?

“And Usnavi kind of walks us through what is happening in this world, he’s like the perfect invisible thread, if you will, for this for this kind of film with this many characters.”

Corey Hawkins' Benny (L) is a regular at the Washington Heights bodega. Pic: Warner Bros Studios
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Ramos (R) runs the Washington Heights bodega. Pic: Warner Bros Studios

Usnavi’s storyline is bittersweet – he loves his community and works hard for them, but he also dreams of going back to his home country of Dominican Republic and starting a beach bar with his cousin.

Talking about a story that is relatable to people who dream of a more peaceful life, Ramos says: “He wants to build it back up and give not only himself an easier life, but his family, and live in paradise – but times are hard in New York.

“He’s still trucking through and he’s still doing his best every single day. And I think ‘who hasn’t gone through that’, where you have days with some good, some not so good.”

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Ramos tells Sky News that the film’s relevance in society is part of the “beauty of art”.

“That’s that’s why I love to do this,” he adds, saying: “Someone spoke from the heart, wrote something, and then in a movie, the actors come together, the whole crew come together, we tell the story and people are going to receive this however they’re going to receive it.

“It’s going to hit someone differently than this part of the world, and it’s going to hit this person in this part of the world.

“That’s the beauty of art and especially art that transcends, that’s timeless, that feels still feels relevant.

And of course this is not the first time that Ramos has worked with the film’s writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, having previously worked with Hollywood’s most in-demand man on Hamilton – which last year was beamed into millions of living rooms on Disney+.

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Hamilton writer’s new movie musical

“Lin’s a genius,” he gushes to Sky News.

“I’m always nervous – any time I’m around him I’m soaking up something, I’m learning something from him.

“He’s just one of the most brilliant people to ever walk the earth. I think Lin is a visionary.

“So any time I can work with him, I’m grateful because I’m always learning from him all the time.”

In The Heights starring Anthony Ramos is out in cinemas across the UK now and you can hear more on the Sky News Backstage podcast, available wherever you get your podcast.

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Bill Nighy on style, social media and holy socks: ‘I can’t operate in the wrong kind of trousers’

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Bill Nighy on style, social media and holy socks: 'I can't operate in the wrong kind of trousers'

Bill Nighy is a man of many talents – but he knows his limitations – most specifically in the trouser department.

The 74-year-old actor tells Sky News he has very clear sartorial demands when it comes to his acting rider.

“It’s odd, people used to say: ‘There’s a significant lack of classical work on your CV’. And I would say something like: ‘The reason is, I can’t operate in those kind of trousers,’ which is a joke, but it’s also kind of true.

“If you want me at my best, put me in a decent lounge suit. It’s a stupid thing for an actor to say, but art does reflect life.”

And he’s not afraid to bring his own life quite literally into his films, adding: “If it’s a contemporary film and it’s an independent film and they haven’t got a lot of money, I just say, ‘Come to my flat,’ and I open the wardrobe and they can take out whatever they want for that movie. So, the two things do blend.”

He’s currently starring in underdog sports drama The Beautiful Game, playing a retired football talent scout coaching England’s team in the Homeless World Cup.

Founded in 2001, the real-life international tournament that inspired the movie now involves over 70 countries and has transformed the lives of more than one million homeless people.

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Former Homeless World Cup players – who are no longer homeless – feature in the film, playing team members from other countries, which Nighy calls “a wonderful piece of symmetry”.

He of course wore a suit and tie for the majority of the film, despite it being shot in Rome during a heatwave. Scorching weather aside, he says: “It was quite fun to stand on the touchline and scream.”

Pic: Netflix
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Nighy as football talent scout Mal in The Beautiful Game. Pic: Netflix

While Nighy may not necessarily look the part of a stereotypical football coach, he does work on his fitness, training three times a week. It’s something he insists he won’t be “winning any prizes for”, and he certainly won’t be sharing snaps of his workouts on Instagram.

‘My iPhone doesn’t see a lot of action’

He explains: “I’ve never been on social media. I’m lucky in that regard because I’m of an age where I can just about get away with it.

“I nearly went on it. I got very close to, I think it was Instagram, but I didn’t in the end make that jump.

“I don’t have a laptop. I mean, I’m carrying a computer in my pocket, obviously, like everybody else, but I’ve never had a computer. I’ve never owned one, again because I’m fortunate. I don’t need one for anything. I’ve got an iPhone, but there’s not a lot of action on it apart from, you know, the obvious.”

I can only guess ‘the obvious’ is phoning his nearest and dearest, including his daughter and friends. Nighy keeps his romantic dealings close to his chest, and since splitting with his partner of 26 years, he hasn’t been publicly linked to anyone new – either in the public eye or out.

Nighy and Anna Wintour at the Met Gala last year. Pic: Reuters
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Nighy with friend Anna Wintour at the Met Gala last year. Pic: Reuters

As one of Britain’s most recognisable actors, he’s humble in his appraisal of his five decade career spanning theatre, TV and film – reaching to Hollywood and back.

‘I didn’t expect acting to last’

“I don’t know what I’m cut out to be, but it probably isn’t an actor, although I don’t know if anybody is. I think we all have to bend ourselves out of shape to do whatever it is we do.

“I didn’t expect to be an actor. I didn’t expect when I became an actor that it would last very long. I didn’t have a Plan B, it was all basically out of necessity.

“I flunked school, so I didn’t have any qualifications for anything, and I didn’t have a Plan B, so I had no safety net. But, you know, it gradually worked out.”

With two BAFTAs, a Golden Globe and Teen Choice Award (yes really) to name but a few of his accolades, he’s being modest.

And his acting career is about to take a step into the unknown, with his first big horror role in First Omen coming to the screen next month.

Nighy as Cardinal Lawrence in The First Omen. Pic: 20th Century Studios
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Nighy as Cardinal Lawrence in The First Omen. Pic: Disney/20th Century Studios

A prequel to the 1976 original, it returns to the very beginning of the story, with Nighy warning it’s not a film for the feint hearted: “The early signs suggest that it is truly horrible.”

Red satin and holy socks

He does have a wide experience of otherworldly roles, if not out and out horror. Nighy lists a few. “In Shaun Of The Dead I was a werewolf. Yeah, I was a werewolf.”

(Nighy was actually a zombie, but the movie was filmed 20 years ago, and who’s splitting hairs?)

He goes on: “And I’ve been a vampire several times. And I’ve been a squid. If you count animations, I’ve been a rattle snake with a machine gun in its tail. But they’re not straight horror. [First Omen] is really my first horror movie, like what you’d call straight horror. So, it is a departure.”

It goes without saying he was well suited and booted for the role.

“I was dressed by the Vatican tailor. So, you can see I look my best if you’re going to be a priest. And I’m drenched in red satin”.

Rumour has it he was given holy socks from the Vatican shop as part of his costume. Blessed beyond doubt.

Nighy ‘can’t stand’ his own films

He says it “will frighten the life” out of its viewers, adding “a few people I’ve met who’ve seen it and who are horror freaks were stunned. One journalist actually said [they were] traumatised.”

But he doesn’t have to worry about nightmares himself. “I’ve never seen it and I’m never going to see it because I don’t watch films I’m in because I can’t stand it.”

Pic: Netflix
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Pic: Netflix

Meanwhile, his latest offering, The Beautiful Game, is a very different prospect, crafted to leave the viewer uplifted rather than in pieces.

Nighy says it’s a feelgood nostalgia that takes him right back to his childhood. “The deal was when I was a kid, you went, you paid some money, you went to the cinema, and you came out feeling a bit better than you did when you went in. This is what [The Beautiful Game] is.”

The Beautiful Game is streaming now on Netflix, and The First Omen will be in cinemas from 5 April.

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Song lyrics have become angrier and more repetitive since the 80s, study finds

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Song lyrics have become angrier and more repetitive since the 80s, study finds

Song lyrics have become angrier and more repetitive over the past four decades, a study has found.

Lyrics in rock, rap, country, pop, and R&B songs have also become simpler and more personal, according to research published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Rap songs showed the strongest increase in anger and negative emotions, while country songs had the lowest, the researchers said.

Eva Zangerle, an assistant professor at the University of Innsbruck’s department of computer science in Austria, said anger-related words may have become more common because music “reflects more general changes in society and culture”.

Prof Zangerle and her colleagues analysed the lyrics of 12,000 English-language songs released between 1980 and 2020, as well as the page views of the lyrics on online platform Genius.

They found lyrics have become simpler and easier to understand over time, while also becoming more emotional and personal.

Analysis also showed the number of different words used within songs has decreased, particularly among rap and rock songs.

The team speculated this may be because of changes in how music is enjoyed, such as increases in songs being used as background music.

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Prof Zangerle said: “In the last 40 years, we have witnessed a change from buying records in the store to being able to choose from hundreds of millions of songs on streaming platforms on the phone.

“This has also changed the way music is consumed.”

By analysing the page views on Genius, the team found older rock songs were viewed more than newer ones, but the reverse was true for country songs. They said it could indicate rock listeners prefer lyrics from older songs, while country listeners may prefer those from newer songs.

Prof Zangerle gave Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 song Spirit In The Night as a good example of complex songwriting, while she said Miley Cyrus’s 2019 hit Slide Away has simpler and repetitive lyrics.

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Helen Flanagan shares mental health struggles and ‘heartbreaking’ reason for pulling out of West End show

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Helen Flanagan shares mental health struggles and 'heartbreaking' reason for pulling out of West End show

Coronation Street star Helen Flanagan says she was sent into a psychosis after suffering a “bad reaction” to her ADHD medication earlier this year.

The 33-year-old TV star, who’s best known for her role as Rosie Webster in Coronation Street, shared the news on Instagram, after a couple of months away from social media.

She said she was left “emotionally struggling” after splitting from the father of her children, footballer Scott Sinclair – with whom she shares Matilda, seven, Delilah, five, and Charlie, two.

She also explained her reason for pulling out of a theatre tour of Cluedo 2 which kicked off last month, saying it was due to a bad reaction to her medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

At the time, it was announced that Flanagan had withdrawn from the show for “medical reasons”.

Alongside a selfie with her giving the peace sign, she wrote: “Had a few months off from social but I’m back now.

“So basically I really struggled mental health wise December/January. I felt really not great in my head over Christmas and I didn’t really feel that much different when I took the kids away for new year.

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“I had a lot of difficult things going on things I just can’t talk about on Instagram.

“I felt terrible, so I was due my theatre tour which I was excited about so when I came back from holiday I thought it was best for me to take some medication so I’d feel better and be able to cope better with being a working single mum of three and I was emotionally struggling with the break up from the father of my kids.”

‘I just love my kids so much’

She added: “I had a really bad reaction though to the medication (an ADHD medication) and it sent me into a psychosis for a few days which I didn’t know I was in.

“I just love my kids so much, this bad reaction though was a few days before rehearsals were starting and sadly I just wasn’t mentally well enough to do it.

“I was heartbroken as I’ve always been professional as an actress but I needed to stay at home and feel better for me and my kids, with the help of my amazing parents.”

She added that she felt like she was in a “really good happy place” and has found therapy “amazing”.

She said: “I feel like I’ve worked on myself with things that were quite tough to me but I feel lighter now.”

The cast of Cleudo 2 (L-R) Edward Howells, Dawn Buckland, Ellie Leach, Jack Bennett, Jason Durr, Hannah Boyce, Gabriel Paul. Pic: Alastair Muir
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The cast of Cleudo 2 (L-R) Edward Howells, Dawn Buckland, Ellie Leach, Jack Bennett, Jason Durr, Hannah Boyce, Gabriel Paul. Pic: Alastair Muir

Flanagan was replaced in the role of Miss Scarlett in Cluedo 2 by Strictly Come Dancing winner Ellie Leach, who was one of the fellow celebrities to comment on Flanagan’s post, writing “love you” with three kisses.

Other stars including Ex-Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle, presenter Carol Vorderman and Coronation Street actresses Lucy Fallon and Brooke Vincent also showed their support.

Flanagan played Rosie Webster in the Manchester-based ITV soap from 2000 to 2012, returning to the role between 2017 and 2018.

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