The Goonies star Martha Plimpton on 80s nostalgia, Ke Huy Quan’s Oscar hopes and playing a criminal mama

Published

2 years ago

March 9, 2023

admin

Martha Plimpton has played a host of roles across film, TV and stage throughout five decades, but for many she’ll always be associated with the role she played as a 14-year-old – Stef Steinbrenner in The Goonies.

One of the most beloved films of the 1980s, many of the young teens who starred in it – including Plimpton – defied the curse of the child star and continued their screen success as adults.

And in a twist of fate, one of the original Goonies – Ke Huy Quan, who found it harder than most to get work due to a paucity of parts for Asian-American actors – is now taking Hollywood by storm after being cast in multi-Oscar nominated Everything Everywhere All At Once.

The film is the most nominated at this year’s Oscars. So far he’s won a Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and SAG award, and will potentially add an Academy Award to his haul on Sunday.

It’s a Hollywood comeback Plimpton couldn’t be happier to see. She tells Sky News: “I’m especially excited for Ke [Huy Quan]… My gosh, he’s just the dearest human being and the sweetest man and that he’s experiencing this wave of appreciation and love from all over… it’s just really lovely. I’m really excited and happy for him.”

Visibly proud of her co-star, she admits she’s unlikely to be watching the ceremony live – it’s available exclusively in the UK from 11pm on Sky News and Sky Showcase – but says she’ll be rooting for him nevertheless.

Oscars aside, Plimpton is in fact here to talk about her latest project – A Town Called Malice – a very different prospect, which sees her play Mint Ma, the matriarch of a South London crime family – the Lords – who have re-located to the Costa del Sol in a bid to improve their lot.

Described by its creator Nick Love as a “neon Western”, it’s also a love letter to the 80s, filled with all the bright fashion, big hairstyles and memorable music you’d expect from the era.

Plimpton credits the crime drama’s “camp quality” as part of the attraction – indeed there are moments in the show when the characters break into song and dance.

The New York-born star worked with a dialect coach to nail her English accent, which is impeccable throughout. Partly, no doubt, due to the fact she now lives in the UK.

She explains: “I love my Sunday roast and I love the culture, I love the people. I think the British people are extraordinary and have a great sense of humour and a wonderful self-deprecating nature to them that is really just lovely and charming.

“Despite this country’s problems, which, believe me, I’m familiar with, especially coming from the United States… I think that there’s something to the English character that makes dealing with those problems sort of charming, hilarious, and funny.”

It’s no surprise, then, that she jumped at the chance to play a British character, albeit one on the wrong side of the law.

“I loved the idea of this woman from South London – her stealth and her commitment to her family,” she says.

“And I love the idea of playing a mum to all of these gorgeous young men and being a part of this crazy crime family.”

In the show, her youngest son Gene and his girlfriend Cindy are on the run from police following a hit and run.

Spain offers them safe haven thanks to a breakdown in an extradition treaty with the UK, but matters only become more complicated once on the Costa del crime.

Plimpton says it’s a theme rich with dramatic possibilities: “Our fascination with crime probably has some primal reasons for it that I’m not qualified to list, but it’s the excitement and it’s the unpredictability. And people who live life on the edges of society, on the outer edge of what we all consider acceptable.”

And setting it in the 1980s adds a colour and energy to the show that only that era could.

She calls her costumes – including terry towelling swimming costumes, tight white jeans and lots of shoulder pads – “absolutely phenomenal”.

And as for the soundtrack which accompanies each episode, she says: “I’m already immersed in eighties music, those were my teen years. So, I’m pretty familiar with that musical era, and I’m not ashamed to say I still listen to it quite regularly.

“I think we always cling to the music that we grew up with and that connects with us as young people. It’s not necessarily nostalgia for me, it’s an ever-present reality.”

While she agrees the 80s was a great time to grow up as a teen, she admits: “It was also a difficult time to be a teenager. The world was changing spectacularly during that time. It was a scary time, we were terrified of nuclear annihilation.

“The AIDS crisis began in the late seventies, early eighties. It was the beginning of Reaganomics and Thatcherism, which was a huge shift in both of our countries away from a sort of post-war idea of collective responsibility and moving into an era of greed and personal enrichment philosophy that’s unfortunately stayed with us. But it was a very, very interesting time to be a young person.”

But she’s optimistic about today’s youth: “There’s a wonderful quality to the young people now that I think is really extraordinary. Their willingness to be accepting, their openness to new stories, new realities, their eagerness to challenge the status quo and be responsible for their own futures is extraordinary and impressive.”

Click to subscribe to Backstage wherever you get your podcasts

Now 52, Plimpton herself has been working since she was just a child. Starting off in a Calvin Klein advert, before moving on to film, as a teenager she played opposite her then boyfriend River Phoenix in Oscar-nominated Running On Empty and Keanu Reeves in Parenthood. Both movies were Oscar-nominated.

More films, plus theatre followed, and TV shows including Raising Hope, and The Good Wife, with the latter earning her an Emmy.

On her enduring career, Plimpton says: “I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. And, you know, I’ve been very fortunate. I mean, there have been periods of downtime and dry spells like there are in any person’s career or work life. But, yes, I’ve been very lucky to generally have made it without having to get a civilian gig.”

She’s previously spoken about the UK’s “appreciation” of its older actresses, in contrast to the US which she says has been “really slow” on the uptake.

However, she says America’s getting better at showcasing its more mature female talent, citing the growing number of streaming services “telling a lot more stories. A lot of different stories. A lot of stories we traditionally haven’t been exposed to”.

And of course, one of those stories has to be the multi-verse madness that is Everything Everywhere All At Once, which has propelled her former Goonies co-star Quan back into the spotlight.

Looking back on The Goonies – the movie which changed both their lives – she says its success has been a happy surprise: “I’m certainly impressed by the fact that it’s really taken such a hold in popular culture. And I don’t think any of us expected that it necessarily would when it came out. I mean, we all had an extraordinary time filming it. And, you know, I guess ultimately it did change all of our lives, really. It’s just wonderful.”

While she hasn’t stayed in touch with Quan, now 51, Plimpton says: “I do follow him on Instagram and I see all of his adorable selfies and it’s really sweet.”

Along with the rest of us, Plimpton will be cheering Quan on come Sunday night, hoping his unexpected showbiz return has a happy ending worthy of Hollywood.

A Town Called Malice is available on Sky Max and streaming service NOW from 16 March.

You can watch the Academy Awards on Sunday 12 March from 11pm exclusively on Sky News and Sky Showcase. And for everything you need to know ahead of the ceremony, don’t miss our special Backstage podcast available on Friday morning, plus a winners’ special episode from Monday morning.

Entertainment

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show’s Theo, drowns in Costa Rica

Published

12 hours ago

July 21, 2025

admin

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show's Theo, drowns in Costa Rica

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show character Theo, has drowned in Costa Rica, according to authorities.

The country’s Judicial Investigation Department said the 54-year-old actor drowned on Sunday afternoon off a beach on the Caribbean coast.

It is understood he was swimming at Playa Grande de Cocles in Limon province when he was pulled underwater by a current.

“He was rescued by people on the beach,” according to the department’s early report, but emergency workers from Costa Rica’s Red Cross found him without any signs of life and he was taken to the morgue.

Warner was on holiday with his family at the time, according to US celebrity news site People.

The Cosby Show aired from 1984 to 1992 on NBC in the US and is regarded as a groundbreaking show for its portrayal of a successful black middle-class family. It was also shown on Channel 4 in the UK at around the same time.

Its star, Bill Cosby, played a doctor named Cliff Huxtable, with Warner in the role of Theo, his only son.

The NBC sitcom was the most popular show in America for much of its run between 1984 and 1992.

Warner played the role for eight seasons in all 197 episodes, winning an Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy in 1986.

For many, the lasting image of the character, and of Warner, is of him wearing a badly-botched mock designer shirt sewn by his sister Denise, played by Lisa Bonet.

Warner ‘proud’ of show despite Cosby claims

The legacy of The Cosby Show has been tarnished after Cosby was jailed in 2018 following a conviction for sexual assault.

He was released in 2021 after his conviction was overturned.

Dozens of women had accused Cosby of sexual assault or rape before the trial.

Following his release from prison, Cosby was found liable for sexually assaulting a woman at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a teenager.

Warner told the Associated Press in 2015: “My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of colour on television and film… We’ve always had ‘The Cosby Show’ to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that’s the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.”

In 2023, Warner told People in an interview: “I know I can speak for all the cast when I say The Cosby Show is something that we are all still very proud of.”

Read more entertainment news:
Danny Dyer on Mr Big Stuff
Scuffle breaks out on Royal Opera House on stage

Warner wins a Grammy

Following his career on The Cosby Show, Warner later appeared on the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, co-starring with comedian Eddie Griffin in the series on the UPN network from 1996 to 2000.

In the 2010s he starred opposite Tracee Ellis Ross as a family-blending couple for two seasons on the BET sitcom Read Between The Lines.

He also had a role as OJ Simpson’s friend Al Cowlings in American Crime Story and was a series regular on Fox’s The Resident.

Films he has appeared in include the 2008 rom-com Fool’s Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

A poet and a musician, Warner won a Grammy for best traditional R&B performance for the song Jesus Children with Robert Glasper and Lalah Hathaway. He was also nominated for best spoken word poetry album for Hiding In Plain View.

Warner was married with a daughter, but chose to not publicly disclose their names.

Entertainment

Danny Dyer on Mr Bigstuff, Oasis, and his surprising screensaver

Published

19 hours ago

July 21, 2025

admin

Danny Dyer on Mr Bigstuff, Oasis, and his surprising screensaver

From Human Traffic and The Business to his critically acclaimed performance in the raunchy TV adaptation of Rivals, via a stint as Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter in EastEnders, Danny Dyer has been on our screens for more than 30 years.

But it was his performance in the TV comedy Mr Bigstuff that earned him his first BAFTA win – and one of the ceremony’s biggest cheers from the audience – earlier this year.

Now, he returns to his prize-winning role for the second series of the Sky show, which tells the story of two estranged brothers – Glen (played by creator Ryan Sampson), an anxious carpet salesman living his ideal suburban life with fiancee Kirsty (Harriet Webb), and Lee (played by Dyer), an alpha male who struts back into his brother’s life carrying their father’s ashes.

Several EastEnders alumni feature, including Nitin Ganatra, Victoria Alcock and Linda Henry, who played Dyer’s on-screen mother, Shirley Carter.

Reflecting on some of Albert Square’s most famous characters and who would work well in Mr Bigstuff, Dyer says he would have loved to see the late June Brown, who played the chain-smoking hypochondriac Dot Cotton for 35 years, taking on a role.

“Absolute legend,” he says.

Sampson suggests the late Dame Barbara Windsor, who played the formidable Queen Vic landlady Peggy Mitchell, but has a clear pitch if season three gets the green light.

“It could still be a possible, it would be amazing,” he says. “You want your Pat Butcher, don’t you? You want Pam St Clement. Why hasn’t she played a mafia boss yet? She’d be amazing. She’d be incredible at it.”

Dyer reveals his screensaver

After his long career on screen, Dyer is now enjoying playing a variety of roles alongside the Cockney geezer types that became his bread and butter in the early noughties.

His nuanced performance as awkward entrepreneur Freddie Jones in Rivals brought him praise from fans and critics alike, and Mr Bigstuff his BAFTA.

But Dyer always had range. After small TV roles in shows including The Bill and A Touch Of Frost, he grew close to the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter in 2000 after auditioning and earning the role of a waiter in his play Celebration at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, north London.

“I’ve got Harold Pinter as a screensaver on my phone,” he says. “I always feel that he’s sort of looking down on me or close to me, so I like to just feel that he’s around me.”

Dyer continued the role in Celebration both in the West End and on Broadway, with Pinter becoming his mentor in the process.

In 2020, he presented a Sky Arts documentary, Danny Dyer On Pinter, which explored the life, career and impact of the playwright and screenwriter, who died in 2008.

He also has plans to develop a stage tribute to his friend, currently titled When Harry Met Danny.

Reflecting on his entry into the industry, he says theatre was quite inaccessible at the time, but Pinter opened it up to him.

“I think it’s even worse now, which I feel is a sad state of affairs,” he says. “I don’t know why that is. Everything’s become quite elite. All the elite f****** looking after themselves, so that needs to change.”

‘Love in the air’ at Oasis gig

But Pinter isn’t his only big influence – Dyer was one of the thousands of fans to see Oasis make their return to the stage in Cardiff earlier this month.

“It was really emotional seeing them come out,” he says. “There was a lot of love in the air, a lot of good energy.

“You know, there’s a lot of f****** shit going on. I think people, of my age as well, just want to jump around and sing them songs at the top of their lungs. So I’m still recovering, I’m not going to lie.”

Mr Bigstuff returns for season two on Thursday, on Sky Max and NOW

Entertainment

Scuffle breaks out on stage of Royal Opera House after performer unfurls Palestinian flag

Published

19 hours ago

July 21, 2025

admin

Scuffle breaks out on stage of Royal Opera House after performer unfurls Palestinian flag

A brief scuffle broke out at London’s Royal Opera House after a performer unfurled a Palestinian flag during a show.

The incident took place during a performance of Il Trovatore on Saturday.

During the final night of the 11-night run of the show, a performer held up the flag on stage.

In video footage, shared online, someone backstage could be seen attempting to take it off the performer. The performer grabs it back following a brief scuffle.

A spokesperson for the Royal Ballet and Opera said: “The display of the flag was an unauthorised action by the artist.

“It was not approved by the Royal Ballet and Opera and is a wholly inappropriate act.”

The reaction to the flag was mixed, with some people heard applauding and cheering, while another audience member was heard saying “oh my God”.

One poster on X, who claimed to have been a member of the audience, said: “Extraordinary scenes at the Royal Opera House tonight.

“During the curtain call for Il Trovatore one of the background artists came on stage waving a Palestine flag. Just stood there, no bowing or shouting. Someone off stage kept trying to take it off him. Incredible.”

Performers show support for Palestinians

A number of performers have shown support for Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

During Glastonbury Festival, numerous acts offered messages of support during their sets, including Kneecap, Bob Vylan, Wolf Alice, and Amyl And The Sniffers.

During her band’s set, Wolf Alice singer Ellie Rowsell told the crowd at the Other Stage: “Whilst we have the stage for just a little bit longer, we want to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine.

“No-one should ever be afraid to do that.”

Following their performances, both Kneecap and Bob Vylan faced investigation by Avon and Somerset Police.

Bob Vylan were widely criticised after leading on-stage chants of “death to the IDF” (Israel Defence Forces).

The performance was live-streamed by the BBC, sparking a backlash against the broadcaster – which later issued an apology.

The investigation into Kneecap was later dropped, with the police saying there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any offence”.