A few days after delighting fans with behind-the-scenes pictures of his costume for Loki, Richard E Grant is sitting in front of me on a video call to tell me all about his cameo role – although this time there are sadly no green tights or “baggy, yellow Y-fronts”, as he puts it, in sight.
But first, it’s the day after the Euro 2020 final when we speak, and there’s only one thing anyone is talking about. “Heartbreaking,” says the actor, of England losing to Italy on penalties.
Grant, a West Ham fan, reflects on the cruel nature of spot kicks deciding the outcome. He thinks there must be a better way. “I would rather they played three more hours than resort to penalties,” he says. “What do you feel?”
Image: Grant plays Classic Loki in Marvel’s Loki series, starring Tom Hiddleston. Pic: Marvel Studios/Disney+
Unfailingly friendly and polite, Richard E Grant likes to ask his own questions back. Whether it’s football, favourite Marvel characters (Spider-Man) or the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic (not impressed), the answer is usually followed by a variation of: “And what about you?”
We’re here to talk about Loki, the six-part TV series spin-off featuring the mercurial God of Mischief Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, with the character stepping out of his brother Thor’s shadow following the events of Avengers: Endgame.
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Image: Grant’s character is an older variant of Hiddleston’s Loki. Pic: Marvel Studios/ Disney+
Grant’s debut as Classic Loki, an older Loki variant, came in the penultimate episode of the series, which aired earlier in July. With so many Marvel films and spin-offs, did the British actor have to do much homework before signing up?
“Well, the advantage is that Tom Hiddleston is literally a walking, talking Wikipedia, Loki-centric guru, fundi, whatever you call it, of all things Loki and Norse legends,” says Grant. “So when in doubt, if there was anything that I was curious about or didn’t know about, you just ask Tom and he could explain everything with enormous eloquence and passion and detail.
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“And even though he’s played this role for over a decade, his commitment to it is absolutely off the chart. I’ve never, never come across anything like it. There’s certainly nothing exhausted about him or thinking, ‘oh I’m going to phone this in, I’m doing Loki again’. He is as enthusiastic and passionate about doing it as he was the first time he ever played the part.”
Grant says because of his “long face and V-shaped hairline” similar to Loki’s, he and Hiddleston had joked about him playing his father in the past.
“Not that you see it once I’m in the helmet and the headgear,” he says of his hair. “But every time I’d seen Tom socially down the last decade, we’d joked about playing father and son in something. So the fact that I ended up being an old, classic version of Loki to his Loki seemed serendipitous at some level. I was glad that’s how it worked out.”
One thing he was disappointed with was Classic Loki’s lack of muscles; Grant had been hoping to be transformed into a hulking superhero. “I was absolutely gutted that I didn’t have all the muscles that the [comic book artist] Jack Kirby drawings of Classi Loki had, and I absolutely assumed that… I would have a full Marvel muscle suit to step into, having been born without any.
Image: The series follows Loki after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Pic: Marvel Studios/Disney+
“And the costume designer and the director, Kate Herron, said, no, no, no, you’re just going to be as you are. And I said, but look, how can I possibly fight when I’m like an old string bean? And they said, no, no, don’t worry about that. So I had to in my head say, well, old, withered Loki is going to be trying to fight off all forces of evil. But I would love to have had the muscles.”
In June, the series made headlines when it was revealed that Loki is bisexual and gender-fluid, something of a first for Marvel. “From the moment I joined @LokiOfficial it was very important to me, and my goal, to acknowledge Loki was bisexual,” director Kate Herron tweeted at the time. “It is a part of who he is and who I am too. I know this is a small step but I’m happy, and heart is so full, to say that this is now Canon in #mcu #Loki.”
Grant says it was an important step. “I think that because there are so many Loki variants and at this particular moment in the zeitgeist of where we’re living, people feeling disenfranchised or marginalised being included and seen and acknowledged is something that is so… profoundly in all humans that I’ve ever come across, that Loki being gender-fluid, it fits the moment in which we’re living, if that makes sense.
“I think that anything that promotes tolerance, inclusivity, is something that is hugely worth championing and celebrating.”
The actor says he was struck by Loki not just being God of Mischief, but of outcasts, too. “I think that that keyed me into the loneliness of somebody that’s… as much as you’d like to think you could live forever and the fantasy that we would live eternally, the reality is that you would be very lonely, and the need for human connection is so strong in us that that’s… [Loki] longs to see a family member and as a result is caught by the TVA (Time Variance Authority), in the story, so I completely identify with that.”
Image: Grant was nominated for an Oscar in 2019, for his role in Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Grant’s appearance in the Marvel series comes off the back of something of a late blooming for his acting career, with a role in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker in 2019 and his first Oscar nomination coming earlier that year, for his supporting role in Can You Ever Forgive Me? alongside Melissa McCarthy, after more than 30 years in showbiz. (None of this topped meeting his hero Barbra Streisand, though). Later this year, the 64-year-old will be seen playing drag queen Loco Chanelle in the film version of the award-winning musical, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.
Grant, whose character in Can You Ever Forgive Me? was also gay, is aware of the current debate about whether straight actors should play gay roles, and says it is an issue he has discussed. “I’d just come off an award season for… God, what’s it called, the film with Melissa McCarthy that I did, called…” Just that film he was Oscar nominated for. “Can You Forgive Me? Yeah. In which there had been this ongoing conversation at that point two years ago about whether heterosexual actors could play… whether you were denying gay actors the opportunity to do that.
“So it was a thing that I brought up with [Everybody’s Talking About Jamie director] Jonathan Butterell time and again, and he said, I have chosen you, as a gay director and co-writer of the story, to play this part and you have to trust me that all of us are behind you doing this. So I thought, well, if they if they’re determined to do that, I’m not going to miss this opportunity to do it. And it was a very, very challenging and entertaining thing to do and I had an amazing team of people that helped me do all of it.”
Grant goes on to compare his Loco Chanelle costume with his Classic Loki ensemble. “What nobody tells you is that when you are in full drag, you can’t go to the loo at all for about 12 hours, so you drink a tiny amount through a straw. Whereas on Loki at least those sort of baggy, yellow Y fronts could be removed fairly fast, with a couple of snaps underneath.”
And if Grant were able to take on the powers of God of Mischief in real life, what would he get up to?
“I think the first thing I would have done is, as we are an island, and when COVID was announced in March last year, I think that I would have closed the airports and the ports – just for starters – like Australia and Japan and Taiwan and all the other islands, New Zealand,” he says. “I think that would have been my first thing.”
It’s fair to say he’s not a fan of the way the pandemic has been handled then? “I think that’s very fair to say. What do you think?” I think closing the borders and trying to handle the pandemic better sounds like a very sensible use of his powers, but not very mischievous.
“Yes,” Grant replies. “But if I had to say who the mischief was going to be landed upon, I would be in political deep water instantaneously!”
Gwyneth Paltrow consciously uncoupled from ordinary life years ago.
In the era of celebrity relatability, with once mysterious A-listers now sharing everything from breakfast to breakdowns on social media, she is one star completely comfortable with the world knowing she exists on a higher plane of bone broth, vagina candles, and $8,000-a-day skiing lessons.
Facing a lawsuit, many A-listers might simply choose to pay-up, regardless of whodunnit, rather than go through the rigmarole of a potentially reputation-damaging court case. But the Oscar-winner turned wellness guru is not one of them.
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6:12
The Gwyneth Paltrow court case in six minutes
The internet has been flooded with Paltrow in the last two weeks, as her high-profile legal fight played out on camera. This all started with a skiing accident involving a retired optometrist in Utah in 2016, and somehow ended in global headlines about the star’s outfits, controversy over her offer to hand out treats in the courtroom – declined! – and questioning about her friendship with Taylor Swift.
She won the case – only asking for $1 in damages, because this was about principle – but for a woman who would barely have noticed making it all go away for $300,000 (£242,000), the amount she was sued for, was it really worth it?
Many were shocked hearing the details of the wealth and privilege that spilled out in court, but perhaps there were just as many impressed by her dry response when asked what she had lost as a result of the accident. “Well, we lost half a day of skiing,” quickly went viral. (Luckily, she was still able to get a massage.)
And turning the courtroom into a catwalk for her own brand Goop, as well as other designers, no doubt has helped with sales.
Depp’s two court cases – and very different outcomes
In 2020, when Depp first went to court in the UK – suing the publisher of The Sun newspaper – the revelations about his and Heard’s relationship were jaw-dropping: “mega pints” of red wine, insults scrawled in blood and paint on walls, gross text messages, trashed apartments, human faeces apparently left in a bed… let alone the actual claims of abuse.
Even before he lost the case, his reputation seemed to be ruined. But in 2022, he chose to go through it all again; this time suing Heard herself and, like Paltrow’s case, all on camera. After following the UK case through news articles and bulletins, now the world was able to watch everything as it unfolded.
Depp told the US court he lost “nothing less than everything” as a result of allegations of abuse by Heard. When asked why he had chosen the humiliation of his private life being publicly scrutinised over staying quiet, he said he was “obsessed” with the truth and wanted to clear his name for himself and for his children.
After six weeks of evidence, the majority of the public seemed to side with the actor and the jury went the opposite way to the judge in the UK, finding in his favour.
Before the verdict had even been delivered, Depp was on stage in Sheffield, having joined Jeff Beck on his European tour. More gigs – and a trip to meet a rescued badger – followed in the days surrounding his legal win. Now, he is due to appear as Louis XV in Jeanne Du Barry, his first major film role since the court cases, later this year; his supergroup The Hollywood Vampires goes on tour in the summer, and there are reports he may even return to the Pirates franchise.
‘It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s account’
For Depp, arguably it was all worth it. For Rebekah Vardy, who refused to back down in her lawsuit against Coleen Rooney despite a settlement being offered before the eventual court case, it probably wasn’t.
During the court hearing, it was alleged she had leaked stories to tabloids, not just about Rooney, but about teammates of her Leicester City footballer husband Jamie Vardy and others, and that she set up paparazzi shots of the England players’ wives and girlfriends during the World Cup in Russia in 2018.
In a damning verdict, Judge Justice Steyn described Vardy’s evidence as “manifestly inconsistent… evasive or implausible” – while Rooney’s evidence was “honest and reliable”.
Afterwards, Vardy maintained her innocence in an interview with TalkTV, saying: “It feels like the judge just read what was written in the media and took on their narrative bias.”
Still, she seems to be moving on. Perhaps all publicity is good publicity, as long as you can afford the costly legal fees if things don’t go your way. Her latest Instagram posts show her on the ski slopes herself; hopefully she’s aware of the dangers.
After Paltrow’s win was read out in court, the claimant, Terry Sanderson – who has to pay the star’s legal fees, as well as his own, despite the minimal $1 damages – was questioned by reporters waiting outside. Asked if the trial had been “worth it”, he replied: “Absolutely not.”
For Paltrow, perhaps it was. She has faced years of stick about her wellness brand, but has never cared about the haters. And long after the point of this case has been forgotten, the outfits – and no doubt visits to the Goop website – will live on.
Ahead of her first TV role airing Lily Allen has spoken to Sky News about why she’s moved from music to drama and how her own “dysfunctional” family helped inform her character.
In new comedy Dreamland she plays a woman returning to her family in Margate, who soon finds out she’s brought more than she expected home with her when she discovers she’s pregnant.
It’s not Allen‘s first acting gig, but it is her first TV role and the Brit Award-winning artist, who has lived much of her life in the public eye, says it’s given her a way to express herself while she takes a break from music.
Image: Lily Allen at the Planned Parenthood’s New York Spring Benefit Gala in March
“I feel like one of the reasons I’m not really writing music and putting it out there or spending a lot of time on social media is that it feels very heavy out there at the moment and I feel a bit too exposed and I feel a bit sensitive in that environment,” she said.
“I don’t really want to put myself out there and my experiences, but I still want to talk about the human experience and dive into those experiences a little bit more, try and make sense of the world I guess?
“And I think drama or drama comedy in this instance has enabled me to do that, it’s a different medium but it’s still doing the same thing – we’re just telling stories.”
Dreamland is about four sisters and explores the complexities of sibling relationships.
Despite growing up in a very different environment to her character – Allen is the daughter of the comedian and actor Keith Allen – she says there was still plenty to relate to.
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“The sort of similarities and not the differences is obviously the things that I honed in on and, you know, my family is quite dysfunctional,” she laughed.
“So there was a lot for me to draw on there.”
Image: Freema Agyeman as Trish, Lily Allen as Mel, Sheila Reid as Nan, Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Leila, and Gabby Best as Clare in Dreamland. Pic: Natalie Seery/Sky UK
Weaving serious issues in with comedy, the show isn’t all fun in the sun – tackling themes of racism, homophobia and misogyny.
Former Dr Who star Freema Agyeman plays Allen’s half-sister – and the only one of the four who isn’t white.
She told Sky News she was impressed by the way the more serious topics were handled.
Image: Agyeman and Allen. Pic: Natalie Seery/Sky UK
“There’s a book, The Mixed Race Experienced by Natalie and Naomi Evans, who write about what it was like being mixed race growing up in Margate specifically,” Agyeman said.
“So that was very much pulled on and then, of course, I can identify with so much of that, but also have my own experiences that [the showmakers] were very open for me to share.
“I like it when it’s done with thought and care and collaboration, and I felt like that was happening here… You can’t deep dive into everything, but you can have discussions, or raise issues and address themes and hope that people will go away and think about that.”
Dreamland will air on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW from 6 April.
Gwyneth Paltrow consciously uncoupled from ordinary life years ago.
In the era of celebrity relatability, with once mysterious A-listers now sharing everything from breakfast to breakdowns on social media, she is one star completely comfortable with the world knowing she exists on a higher plane of bone broth, vagina candles, and $8,000-a-day skiing lessons.
Facing a lawsuit, many A-listers might simply choose to pay-up, regardless of whodunnit, rather than go through the rigmarole of a potentially reputation-damaging court case. But the Oscar-winner turned wellness guru is not one of them.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
6:12
The Gwyneth Paltrow court case in six minutes
The internet has been flooded with Paltrow in the last two weeks, as her high-profile legal fight played out on camera. This all started with a skiing accident involving a retired optometrist in Utah in 2016, and somehow ended in global headlines about the star’s outfits, controversy over her offer to hand out treats in the courtroom – declined! – and questioning about her friendship with Taylor Swift.
She won the case – only asking for $1 in damages, because this was about principle – but for a woman who would barely have noticed making it all go away for $300,000 (£242,000), the amount she was sued for, was it really worth it?
Many were shocked hearing the details of the wealth and privilege that spilled out in court, but perhaps there were just as many impressed by her dry response when asked what she had lost as a result of the accident. “Well, we lost half a day of skiing,” quickly went viral. (Luckily, she was still able to get a massage.)
And turning the courtroom into a catwalk for her own brand Goop, as well as other designers, no doubt has helped with sales.
Depp’s two court cases – and very different outcomes
In 2020, when Depp first went to court in the UK – suing the publisher of The Sun newspaper – the revelations about his and Heard’s relationship were jaw-dropping: “mega pints” of red wine, insults scrawled in blood and paint on walls, gross text messages, trashed apartments, human faeces apparently left in a bed… let alone the actual claims of abuse.
Even before he lost the case, his reputation seemed to be ruined. But in 2022, he chose to go through it all again; this time suing Heard herself and, like Paltrow’s case, all on camera. After following the UK case through news articles and bulletins, now the world was able to watch everything as it unfolded.
Depp told the US court he lost “nothing less than everything” as a result of allegations of abuse by Heard. When asked why he had chosen the humiliation of his private life being publicly scrutinised over staying quiet, he said he was “obsessed” with the truth and wanted to clear his name for himself and for his children.
After six weeks of evidence, the majority of the public seemed to side with the actor and the jury went the opposite way to the judge in the UK, finding in his favour.
Before the verdict had even been delivered, Depp was on stage in Sheffield, having joined Jeff Beck on his European tour. More gigs – and a trip to meet a rescued badger – followed in the days surrounding his legal win. Now, he is due to appear as Louis XV in Jeanne Du Barry, his first major film role since the court cases, later this year; his supergroup The Hollywood Vampires goes on tour in the summer, and there are reports he may even return to the Pirates franchise.
‘It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s account’
For Depp, arguably it was all worth it. For Rebekah Vardy, who refused to back down in her lawsuit against Coleen Rooney despite a settlement being offered before the eventual court case, it probably wasn’t.
During the court hearing, it was alleged she had leaked stories to tabloids, not just about Rooney, but about teammates of her Leicester City footballer husband Jamie Vardy and others, and that she set up paparazzi shots of the England players’ wives and girlfriends during the World Cup in Russia in 2018.
In a damning verdict, Judge Justice Steyn described Vardy’s evidence as “manifestly inconsistent… evasive or implausible” – while Rooney’s evidence was “honest and reliable”.
Afterwards, Vardy maintained her innocence in an interview with TalkTV, saying: “It feels like the judge just read what was written in the media and took on their narrative bias.”
Still, she seems to be moving on. Perhaps all publicity is good publicity, as long as you can afford the costly legal fees if things don’t go your way. Her latest Instagram posts show her on the ski slopes herself; hopefully she’s aware of the dangers.
After Paltrow’s win was read out in court, the claimant, Terry Sanderson – who has to pay the star’s legal fees, as well as his own, despite the minimal $1 damages – was questioned by reporters waiting outside. Asked if the trial had been “worth it”, he replied: “Absolutely not.”
For Paltrow, perhaps it was. She has faced years of stick about her wellness brand, but has never cared about the haters. And long after the point of this case has been forgotten, the outfits – and no doubt visits to the Goop website – will live on.