Actor and comedian Chris O’Dowd has described moving back to London from the US, finding people in the city are “down” after a decade of cutbacks.

The IT Crowd star returned to London from Los Angeles with his wife Dawn O’Porter and their two children a year ago.

“It’s just gone through 10 years of austerity, and you can feel it off it,” he told Sky News.

“People are down, is the impression I’m getting. I don’t know if it’s because of the divisive political culture or whether it’s because people are broke as s**t because they haven’t put any money into public services for so long, and now they’ve said they’re not going to do it either because they’re not going to raise taxes, so I don’t know what they’re going to do. But everybody is… it would be hard to say it’s improved.”

Asked if he sensed any optimism that things would change for the better, he replied: “Not yet.”

O’Dowd said the decision to return to the UK “wasn’t because Trump got in or any of that crap”, but that he wanted to “get out before the political cycle starts, because it just gets a bit heated”. He added: “It actually didn’t this time, because he won so easily.”

The Irish star was speaking ahead of the premiere of his new Sky Original series Small Town, Big Story, which comes to Sky and NOW on Thursday 27 February.

Set in the fictional Irish border village of Drumban, the dramatic comedy follows Wendy Patterson, portrayed by Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, a local girl who found success as a TV producer in Los Angeles. She returns with a film crew in tow and is forced to confront a secret from decades ago – visitors from outer space.

So does the show’s creator believe in alien existence?

“I find it hard to believe we’re it, we’re just too imperfect,” O’Dowd replied. He hails from Boyle, County Roscommon, which is considered a “UFO hotspot” in Ireland.

“In the vastness of the universe, or the multiverse or whatever we’re existing within, it seems highly unlikely that you and me are the best we can do, no offence,” he added.

Patterson’s show-within-a-show, titled I Am Celt but described as Lame Of Thrones, appears to satirise Hollywood’s often inaccurate portrayal of Ireland.

“Some of them can be heavy-handed, or a little bit off-piste,” laughs O’Dowd. “I think the thing to remember is we’re guilty of it too.

“Whenever I hear Americans being depicted from Irish people, very often they’re stuffing themselves with cheeseburgers and they’re morons. There’s got to be a bit of give and take with that.”

Pamela Anderson is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood.

Ever since she was spotted on the huge jumbotron screen at a baseball game aged 21, her physical traits have been the overriding subject the world has focused on.

Now 57, the actress and model is claiming back her life, her story and forging a new path in her career.

“I feel so free,” she tells Sky News during a conversation in a London hotel about her latest film The Last Showgirl.

“I write a lot of emotional journals and there’s a lot that you can get out. You can go to therapy, or you can talk to your best friend, but there’s nothing like an art project to express yourself and heal parts of yourself.”

The Last Showgirl follows a seasoned entertainer who has to plan for her future when her Las Vegas show abruptly ends after a 30-year run.

The role almost slipped from her fingers when her old agent passed on the script.

“I have a new agent now,” she says with a smile.

It was her son Brandon who served as a catalyst in her career resurgence after stumbling upon the screenplay and showing it to his mother.

“My sons are so protective of me and their goal is just to say: ‘Mom, we just want you to be able to know that you focused on us as kids and we want you to have the opportunity to shine and to reach your potential as an actress’.”

She adds: “I do have a lot to give, so now I just feel so free. I couldn’t have done anything like this when I had kids because my focus was with them. Now that they’re grown and they’re doing well and they’re thriving, that gives me the opportunity to be able to play in this universe.”

The Canadian-American has been the victim of many harsh headlines over the years with her most challenging moments played out in front of the world.

One of the toughest moments, when her sex tape with her ex-husband Tommy Lee was leaked, ended up being made into its own TV series starring Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan and English actress Lily James.

Anderson had no input in the show and repeatedly called for it to be scrapped.

Anderson says that despite the adversity and misogyny she has faced being in the public eye, she feels ready to take on the spotlight again. This time on her terms.

“It was hard for me decades ago, and now I can look at it as a learning experience. And it was a different time. I think that looking at it through my kids’ eyes was interesting.

“Talking to my adult children about having a mom who was, you know, objectified in some way and how that felt [for them] and how that shaped them and their experience growing up, being teased in school.”

Her sons, Brandon and Dylan, are now both in their late 20s.

Drawing similarities to her character Shelly in The Last Showgirl, Anderson says the film serves as a reflection of the sacrifices, external expectations and realities connected to being a woman and a mother.

“We’re doing the best we can with the tools that we have and what we’ve seen growing up. And there’s no perfect way to be a parent, there really isn’t – and especially in this industry.

“When I did Playboy, when I was in Baywatch, I wasn’t thinking about how it was affecting my kids. I was thinking about just keeping the lights on and living this exciting life and getting through it myself.

“But, you know, it affects everybody around you – your parents, your friends, your kids – and so to kind of look at it from that way [in The Last Showgirl] and to have empathy for the character of Shelly dealing with that… I had some experience to draw from.”

The film also stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka as her close friends and co-workers in a fading corner of the Las Vegas strip.

Anderson adds of the film: “I think this can resonate with any working mom. We all carry this guilt and shame and wish we would have done this or that. And we have to be happy, too.”

The Last Showgirl is out in UK cinemas from Friday 28 February.

A man has been found guilty of attempted murder for attacking author Sir Salman Rushdie.

The 77-year-old British-American writer was stabbed multiple times as he was preparing to give a speech in New York in 2022.

He was blinded in his right eye in the incident, suffered a severely damaged hand, and spent months recovering.

Following a trial in Chautauqua County Court, a jury convicted 27-year-old Hadi Matar of attempting to murder Sir Salman, after less than two hours of deliberations.

He was also found guilty of assault for wounding Henry Reese, who was on stage with Sir Salman at the time.

Matar gave no obvious reaction to the verdict, and quietly muttered “free Palestine” as he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

The court heard Matar ran on to the stage at the Chautauqua Institution where the author was about to speak on 12 August 2022, and stabbed him in front of an audience.

The Indian-born writer, who spent most of the 1990s in hiding in the UK after receiving death threats over his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, was stabbed about 15 times.

Sir Salman was attacked in the head, neck, torso, and left hand. He also suffered damage to his liver and intestines.

‘I was dying’

During the trial, Sir Salman described the moment Matar attacked him and told the court: “I only saw him at the last minute.

“I was aware of someone wearing black clothes, or dark clothes and a black face mask. I was very struck by his eyes, which were dark and seemed very ferocious to me.

“I thought he was hitting me with his fist but I saw a large quantity of blood pouring onto my clothes.

“He was hitting me repeatedly. Hitting and slashing.”

The writer then said he felt “a sense of great pain and shock,” and added: “It occurred to me that I was dying. That was my predominant thought.”

The court also heard that Mr Reese, the co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, had suffered a gash to his forehead in the attack.

‘Attack was unprovoked’

During closing arguments earlier on Friday, District Attorney Jason Schmidt showed the jury a video of the attack and said: “I want you to look at the unprovoked nature of this attack.

“I want you to look at the targeted nature of the attack. There were a lot of people around that day but there was only one person who was targeted.”

Matar’s defence team argued prosecutors did not prove he intended to kill the writer, with Andrew Brautigan telling the jury: “You will agree something bad happened to Mr Rushdie, but you don’t know what Mr Matar’s conscious objective was.”

Mr Schmidt said that while it was not possible to read Matar’s mind, “it’s foreseeable that if you’re going to stab someone 10 or 15 times about the face and neck, it’s going to result in a fatality”.

The judge set a sentencing date of 23 April, when Matar could be jailed for up to 25 years.

Read more from Sky News:
Pope ‘not out of danger,’ doctors say
‘Severed hand’ found near school in Dublin

Matar faces a separate, federal indictment from prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in western New York alleging that he attempted to murder Sir Salman as an act of terrorism.

He is also accused of providing material support to the armed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the US has designated as a terrorist organisation.