Olivier Awards: Jodie Comer and Paul Mescal win acting trophies as My Neighbour Totoro sweeps the board
Hollywood stars Paul Mescal and Jodie Comer have won the night’s biggest trophies at the Olivier Awards, while a stage adaptation of a beloved animated Japanese classic swept the board.
Mescal won best actor in a play for his role in the revival of the Tennessee Williams classic A Streetcar Named Desire, while Jodie Comer was recognised for her performance in the explosive one-woman show about sexual assault, Prima Facie.
Speaking backstage at the awards, which were held at the Royal Albert Hall, Comer told Sky News: “Women sharing their stories with each other online, to us as a production… some people have felt courage enough to tell family members or friends what they experienced.
“To be a part of that conversation – I feel like this is how I can contribute.”
Mescal, who was also nominated for an Oscar this year, told Sky News: “It’s one of the greatest honours in my life… theatre is so important and will continue to be. It’s just something that I will cherish the rest of my life.”
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage adaptation of the Studio Ghibli 1988 film My Neighbour Totoro won six of the night’s awards, including best entertainment play, and best director – making it the night’s most successful production.
Elsewhere, Sir Derek Jacobi was given the lifetime achievement award and Dame Arlene Phillips – choreographer and former Strictly Come Dancing judge – was handed the Special Award.
Musical theatre mainstay Beverley Knight also won an award for her role in the musical Sylvia at The Old Vic.
Anjana Vasan, Hey Duggee, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! and Will Keen were among the other major winners, while Standing At The Sky’s Edge scored the coveted best new musical trophy – beating a superstar collaboration between Elton John, James Graham and Jake Shears.
Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham was the evening’s host, a musical theatre performer herself. She will also present Eurovision in May.
Hannah Waddingham hosted the event. Pic: Christie Goodwin
Mescal, Izzard, Knight and Self Esteem call out cuts
But while the awards celebrated the best in British theatre, it was amid a backdrop of Arts Council funding cuts across the sector.
Talking about the cuts that have seen theatres – including Oldham Coliseum, English National Opera and The Donmar Warehouse – lose funding this year, Mescal told Sky News: “The Almeida where we started with this play took a pay cut this year, and it’s been celebrated year after year [at The Oliviers] and something just doesn’t add up to me where you’re celebrating us on these stages, but you’re not giving us the stage to perform, and it’s the same in Ireland.”
Read more on theatre:
Maxine Peake’s fight to save theatre ‘reaching natural end’
English National Opera faces funding cut head on
Theatre staff ‘fearing for safety’ after rise in audience anti-social behaviour
Beverley Knight also delivered an impassioned defence of the arts, telling Sky News: “The first port of call is for our government to understand the job of theatre and what we do and what we represent – being at the vanguard of creativity in this country, pulling in billions every year.
“We’re storytellers, we are explaining the human condition to fellow humans. We have a really important role to play.
“And in so doing, the government needs to respect it, because it will never ever give the funding to theatre… until they respect it – and in my humble opinion, I don’t think they do.”
Beverley Knight performing at the Olivier Awards. Pic: Christie Goodwin
Also speaking on the show’s green carpet, actress and Labour activist Eddie Izzard added: “[The government] want us to have a very odd view of creative people… they choose their levelling up by what seats they want to win.
“We have people who have done amazing creative things, from painting, to acting, to rock n roll, to comedy, and that must keep going.”
Self Esteem, who composed the soundtrack to Prima Facie, which also picked up best new play, said: “It’s so vital for art, whatever form it is in, to not bypass people that aren’t privileged to start off with, otherwise you’re just going to get this horrible one world view.
“The less that’s prioritised, the worse the arts gets.”
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
More entertainment news:
Paris Hilton’s home destroyed in fires
RuPaul pays tribute to The Vivienne
Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports9 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway