Bridgerton star Phoebe Dynevor has told Sky News that being in the running for a BAFTA “means the world” after the nominations for its Rising Star award were announced.
“With social media, there’s a very curated kind of idea of what it is to be an actress,” she said. “And actually, it’s a lot of rejection and a lot of getting back on the horse and days like today make it feel really worth it.”
She was speaking at the announcement of the nominees for this year’s EE BAFTA Rising Star award.
Saltburn’s Jacob Elordi, The Bear actress Ayo Edebiri, and stars of the films How To Have Sex and Talk To Me – Mia McKenna-Bruce and Sophie Wilde – are also among the nominees.
It is the only BAFTA award voted for by the public.
Dynevor, 28, has been nominated for her work in the film Fair Play – a role she admits she practically begged director Chloe Domont for.
Dynevor said: “I read the script and it was a female director, it’s a female story and it’s kind of roles that I dreamed about doing when I was a kid. So to be recognised for this film in particular is… very gratifying.”
She is best known for Netflix‘s Bridgerton, in which she plays Daphne, who has a romance with Rege-Jean Page’s character the Duke of Hastings in the first season.
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‘Being an actress means a lot of rejection’
Australian-born actor Elordi has recently starred in Saltburn, a thriller about high society, and as Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s biographical drama about the famous musician’s ex-wife, Priscilla.
The 26-year-old, also known for HBO’s Euphoria and Netflix romance trilogy The Kissing Booth, said he is “deeply honoured” to be recognised.
Meanwhile, Edebiri, 28, who is in 2023 teen comedy Bottoms about a fight club started to find romance, said it is “wonderful and humbling to receive this nomination”.
She is in the running for the BAFTA after winning the award for best television actress (musical or comedy) at the Golden Globes.
That win was for her work on the hit Hulu series The Bear, for which the American comedian, writer and producer starred as young chef Sydney Adamu opposite Jeremy Allen White. She has been nominated for an Emmy for the same role.
McKenna-Bruce, who plays a teenager under pressure to lose her virginity in coming-of-age drama How To Have Sex, told Sky News she’s also grateful to be recognised for this particular piece of work.
“I think the fact that all of this is coming off the back of How To Have Sex is really incredible because it’s such a special film. And even when we were making it, it was so important to every single person on that set,” the 26-year-old said.
“So for it to just continue is incredible. It is bittersweet as well because it obviously resonates with so many people, which is a heartbreaking reality.
“But then hopefully it means that we can start to bring about some kind of change for people as well.”
Image: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Sophie Wilde and Phoebe Dynevor at the BAFTA EE Rising Star Award 2023 nominees announcement
Last year may have seen Hollywood shut down after strikes by writers and actors but it also saw the box office ignited thanks to Barbenheimer and other cinema successes.
Nominated for her role in horror Talk To Me, 26-year-old Sophie Wilde told Sky News she’s looking forward to seeing last year’s releases recognised during awards season.
She said: “Last year was such a fantastic year for cinema, like such a breath of fresh air, so many incredible filmmakers and films and showcases of actors.
“So I think it’s a really exciting time and it feels like a particularly exciting awards season.”
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.