‘Feeling frailer and smaller’ helped Amy Winehouse actress portray singer

Published

7 months ago

March 21, 2024

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Actress Marisa Abela consulted a dietician to help her safely portray Amy Winehouse in the upcoming biopic about the singer’s life.

The 27-year-old actress from Brighton said feeling “frailer and smaller” helped when depicting the Valerie singer in the upcoming film Back To Black – named after the artist’s famous album and song.

“I had help to do it safely; I consulted a dietician and was being monitored,” Abela said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK.

“Feeling frailer and smaller helped – I hadn’t understood, before, how much that affects your tempo.”

“During her Frank era [her debut album released in 2003], Amy is fast and loud and boisterous with her arms, her movements are big,” she said.

“Once I started to change, I realised that you can’t physically make those same movements.

“It’s uncomfortable to sit. You’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re more exposed.”

Winehouse, who suffered from bulimia and publicly battled a drug addiction, died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at her home in Camden, north London, aged 27.

During filming, Abela said she felt a connection to the Grammy-winning singer, both of them having grown up in Jewish households.

“The more I got to know her, the more I felt a major connection to this spiky Jewish girl from London who had a lot to say and was really quite unafraid,” the actress, whose mother is Jewish, said.

“I remembered how I felt when I was young, seeing that woman who was proud and cool, wearing a big Star of David in between a cleavage and a nice bra.

“I understood what a Friday-night dinner would look like in her home, the humour in her family.”

“I loved how effervescent she was, how huge a soul, how she just permeated any room she was in.

“But also, her relationship to her art form, and wanting to be good. That was the most important thing.”

‘My job was to get into Amy’s shoes’

The biopic is directed by 50 Shades Of Grey filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson, whose husband, Aaron, has recently been reported to be the next James Bond.

It follows Winehouses’ journey to fame, with “addiction” and “the relentless paparazzi” the villains.

“As an actor, I think you’re making a terrible mistake when you judge a character and a character’s decisions,” Abela said.

“Of course – these are not just characters, they are real people.

“My job was to get into Amy’s shoes and her soul, and understand why she did the things she did.

“The only villains in our story are addiction and the relentless paparazzi. I’m not telling people how to feel about it.”

At the 2008 Grammys Winehouse won record of the year, song of the year and best female pop vocal performance all for Rehab, along with best new artist, and best pop vocal album for Back To Black.

Abela, who has starred in BBC Two series Industry and Sky One drama COBRA, is the cover star of the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

Back To Black will open in UK cinemas from 12 April.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. Alternatively, letters can be mailed to: Freepost SAMARITANS LETTERS.

Entertainment

GB News fined £100,000 by Ofcom over Rishi Sunak programme

Published

10 hours ago

October 31, 2024

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GB News fined £100,000 by Ofcom over Rishi Sunak programme

GB News has been fined £100,000 for breaking impartiality rules over a programme featuring Rishi Sunak, Ofcom has said.

It comes after the media watchdog announced in May that the show called People’s Forum: The Prime Minister had breached broadcasting guidelines.

The programme featured then prime minister Mr Sunak answering questions from a studio audience and a presenter.

GB News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos said the fine was a “direct attack on free speech and journalism in the United Kingdom”.

“We believe these sanctions are unnecessary, unfair and unlawful,” he added.

The hour-long show, which aired on 12 February, prompted 547 complaints to Ofcom.

The regulator found earlier this year that while featuring Mr Sunak was fine in principle, “due weight” should have been given to an “appropriately wide range of significant views” other than the Conservatives.

Ofcom said Mr Sunak “had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government in a period preceding a UK general election,” which it recorded as a breach of impartiality rules.

The watchdog said “given the seriousness and repeated nature of this breach,” it had imposed a £100,000 financial penalty.

GB News was also directed to “broadcast a statement of our findings against it, on a date and in a form determined by us”.

The TV channel is challenging the breach decision by judicial review and Ofcom will not enforce the sanction decision until those proceedings are concluded.

Mr Frangopoulos insisted the show featuring Mr Sunak “was an important piece of public interest programming”, and that “appropriate steps” were taken to ensure due impartiality.

He added: “It was designed to allow members of the public to put their own questions directly to leading politicians.

“GB News chooses to be regulated and we understand our obligations under the Code.

“But, equally, Ofcom is obliged by law to uphold freedom of expression and apply its rules fairly and lawfully.”

Ofcom previously found GB News violated due impartiality rules in March over five programmes that featured Tory MPs as presenters.

Entertainment

Comedian Marcus Brigstocke reveals he was addicted to pornography

Published

10 hours ago

October 31, 2024

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Comedian Marcus Brigstocke reveals he was addicted to pornography

Comedian Marcus Brigstocke has revealed he became addicted to pornography and received help to overcome the issue.

The TV star discussed the issue on The Hidden 20% podcast, saying he became addicted after he had an affair which led to the end of his first marriage.

Brigstocke, who has regularly been a panellist on Have I Got News For You and featured in the film Love Actually, said the “shame” from his affair “led to a lot of very dysfunctional behaviour”.

He told the podcast: “I’d stayed sober from drugs, alcohol, and my compulsive eating disorder, but I had become addicted to porn.

“I really had no idea that I was addicted to it. I sort of thought I looked at a normal amount of porn. Well, the normal amount of porn today is not like a normal amount of porn… before the internet.”

Brigstocke, 51, told host Ben Branson that most porn addicts “were addicted from about the age of 11”, saying it “profoundly alters your brain chemistry”.

“There are so many people with different depths of addiction to porn and to online social media,” he added. “But porn is the most toxic.”

The comedian said he would watch porn “all night, for the entire night”, before he received help to end his addiction.

Brigstocke is now married to comedian Rachel Parris and the couple host a podcast called How Was It For You?

Entertainment

Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell talks nerves, fame, and The Diplomat

Published

19 hours ago

October 31, 2024

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Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell talks nerves, fame, and The Diplomat

Rufus Sewell may seem to perfectly personify calm and confident characters in the acting world, but he admits he still struggles with public speaking.

“There’s nothing more terrifying,” he tells Sky News. “I remember having to do a reading at a church when I was very young and I was so nervous. I was at drama school, so people knew I wanted to be an actor, and as I was walking up towards the lectern I heard someone say, ‘this will be good’, and I completely froze.”

After portraying Prince Andrew in Scoop, which told the story of the royal’s infamous Newsnight interview in 2019, the British actor can now be seen on screen playing political superstar Hal Wyler in the second series of The Diplomat.

Despite his ability to inhabit his characters, both real and fictional, the “idea of speaking as myself” he says has always been “a horror”.

Even playing confident characters is nerve-wracking, he says, as it creates an internal battle between himself and the role. “I naturally, if left to my own devices, become very, very self-conscious, so I have to find ways to trick myself out of it.”

In The Diplomat, Sewell’s character is the estranged ex-husband of Kate Wyler, the US ambassador to the UK, played by Keri Russell.

She spends the first season navigating political minefields trying to prevent a war before it happens, after a British aircraft carrier is blown up off the coast of Iran.

The series ended on a cliffhanger that saw Hal and other political figures involved in a car explosion in London, and season two picks up following the threads of evidence left in the aftermath.

Russell credits the show’s creator, Deborah Cahn, with making the series such a thriller.

“That is the gold of our show, 100%,” she says. “She has this uncanny ability to portray political intrigue and the world of diplomacy, but also has this innate understanding of what makes people human and all the idiosyncratic weird things that make people normal.

“Even though they’re in this really seemingly powerful position, they still have bad days and are cranky, or get mad when their food is the wrong thing, or when they have to wear something they don’t like, and they still deal with all the embarrassments of daily life.”

Season two of The Diplomat out now on Netflix