Erin Brockovich: ‘My chiropractor saw mud on my stiletto – I said, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’
Erin Brockovich says a chance conversation about a muddy stiletto with her chiropractor led to the making of the award-winning film about her life.
The climate activist, who was played by Julia Roberts in the movie, told Sky News: “My girlfriend, who was a chiropractor, was giving me a chiropractic adjustment and asked me why I had mud on my stilettos.
“I said, ‘Oh, I’ve been collecting dead frogs’. She goes, ‘What is wrong with you?’ So, I started telling her what I was doing.”
Then just a junior paralegal, Brockovich was in fact pulling together evidence that would see her emerge victorious from one of the largest cases of water contamination in US history in Hinkley, California.
Her hard work would see her win a record settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric Company – $333m (£254m) – but that was all still to come.
Little did Brockovich know, but her tale of a muddy stiletto would get back to actor Danny DeVito and his Jersey Films producing partner Michael Schamburg, and through them to the film’s director Steven Soderbergh.
Brockovich says Soderbergh was “wowed” by what he heard.
She says he realised her image “was something that Hollywood might be drawn to that I was never thinking of – the short skirt, the attitude, the big bust, the stilettos, the backcombed hair. Somehow, it came together.”
‘I was always going to be misunderstood’
Released in 2000, the powerful story of one woman’s fight for justice made Brockovich a household name, and the film won actress Julia Roberts an Oscar.
Now, 25 years on, Brockovich says she believes her legal victory was helped in part by an unlikely ally – her learning difficulty.
Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe win best actress and actor at
the 2001 Oscars. Pic: AP/Richard Drew
Brockovich says: “Had I not been dyslexic, I might have missed Hinkley.”
Recently named a global ambassador for charity Made By Dyslexia, she’s been aware of her learning differences since childhood and still struggles today.
She says “moments of low self-esteem” still “creep back in”, and she long ago accepted “I was always going to be misunderstood”.
But for Brockovich, recognising her dyslexic strengths while working in Hinkley proved a pivotal moment: “My observations are wickedly keen. I feel like a human radar some days… Things you might not see as a pattern, I recognise. There are things that intuitively, I absolutely know.
“It will take me some time in my visual patterns of what I’m seeing, how to organise that. And it was in Hinkley that that moment happened for me because it was so omnipresent [and] in my face. Everything that should have been normal was not.”
‘A huge perfect storm’
Brockovich paints a bleak picture of what she saw in the small town: “The trees were secreting poison, the cows were covered in tumours, the chickens had wry neck [a neurological condition that causes the head to tilt abnormally], the people were sick and unbeknown to them, I knew they were all having the exact same health patterns. To the green water, to the two-headed frog, all of that was just I was like on fire, like electricity going, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s going on out here?'”
She describes it as “a huge, perfect storm that came together for me in Hinkley”.
But a side effect of the movie – overnight global fame – wasn’t always easy to deal with.
Pic. Made By Dyslexia
Brockovich calls it “scary,” admitting, “when the film first came out the night of the premiere, I was literally shaking so bad, I was so overwhelmed, that Universal Studios said, ‘If we can’t get you to calm down, I think we need to take you home’. It was a lot”.
Brockovich says she kept grounded by staying focused on her work, her family and her three children.
With Hollywood not always renowned for its faithful adherence to fact, Brockovich says the film didn’t whitewash the facts.
“I think they really did a good job at pointing out our environmental issues. Hollywood can do that, they can tell a good story. And I’m glad it was not about fluff and glamour. I’m glad it was about a subject that oftentimes we don’t want to talk about. Water pollution, environmental damage. People being poisoned.”
‘Defend ourselves against environmental assaults’
While environmental awareness is now part of the daily conversation in a way it wasn’t a quarter of a century ago, the battle to protect the climate is far from over.
Just last month, Donald Trump laid out plans to slash over 30 climate and environmental regulations as part of an ongoing effort to boost US industries from coal to manufacturing and ramp up oil and minerals production.
In response, Brockovich says, “We’re not going to stop it, but we can defend against these environmental assaults.
“We can do better with infrastructure. We can do better on a lot of policy-making. I think there’s a moment here. We have to do that because the old coming into the new isn’t working.
“I’ve recognised the patterns for 30-plus years, we just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, expecting a different result.
“For me, sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, just get your ego out of the way’. We have to accept that this might be something greater than us, but we can certainly defend ourselves and protect ourselves and prepare ourselves better so we can get through that storm.”
You can listen to Brockovich speaking about her dyslexia with Made By Dyslexia founder Kate Griggs on the first episode of the new season of the podcast Lessons In Dyslexic Thinking, wherever you get your podcasts.
Entertainment
‘Epstein is rolling in his grave laughing’: Artist reveals why he photographed convicted paedophile – and Donald Trump
Andres Serrano says he doesn’t set out to be a controversial artist – but he’s certainly proved to be one during his career.
The 75-year-old New Yorker first found fame (or infamy in the eyes of his critics) with one of the most notorious works of art in history – his 1987 photograph titled Piss Christ.
The depiction of a crucifix submerged in urine led to protests denouncing the image as blasphemous – and it was vandalised while on display in a French art museum in 2011.
“I don’t do work to be controversial,” he tells Sky News. “I do work that I feel like I need to do.
“For some reason, I’ve touched on many cultural things that have become cultural flashpoints.”
Andres Serrano spoke to Sky News
Now, two of Serrano’s most high-profile and controversial subjects for his artwork are dominating headlines around the world.
Serrano photographed Jeffrey Epstein for a portrait in 2019, four months before the paedophile financier was found dead in a prison cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. It is one of the last known images of Epstein, whose death was ruled to be suicide.
Years earlier, Serrano took a portrait photo of Donald Trump in 2004 – the same year the property tycoon began starring on The Apprentice TV series.
As Trump faces scrutiny over his past links to Epstein, and pressure to release all files in the sex offender’s case, Serrano offers a rare insight into the two men.
Photographing Epstein
Serrano’s portrait of Epstein was “23 years in the making”, he says, after he agreed to do it in exchange for a sculpture the wealthy collector owned that the artist had wanted since the mid-1990s.
Pic: Andres Serrano
At the time, Epstein was already a convicted sex offender who had served time in jail after pleading guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Despite this, Serrano says he didn’t have reservations about taking the photo because he “wanted the statue” that Epstein owned.
Serrano believed the 16th century statue of the Virgin Mary should be paired with one he owned of St John.
“Jeffrey Epstein is rolling in his grave laughing about how he is still talked about,” the artist says.
“He wasn’t an interesting guy. Except for being a paedophile, there was nothing about him that should have made him so interesting to so many people.”
Epstein ‘collected people’
Serrano – who was first introduced to Epstein in the mid-90s – says he and his wife had “a few meetings” with him and considered him to be a “strange guy”.
He says he has “shocked” when he learnt Epstein had been “exposed and indicted as a paedophile”.
“We never saw that side of Epstein,” he says.
“To me, he looked like a guy who didn’t have a job and was always on a vacation having fun.
“I never asked him about where his money came from. I knew he was very rich. I also knew he knew a lot of people.
“Jeffrey Epstein did not collect art but he collected people. He made it his business to know everybody, anybody who was a celebrity, famous, rich – anyone with a reputation.”
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Pic: NBC
Serrano says he doesn’t “judge” the subjects of his photography, who have also included members of the Ku Klux Klan, and he was “happy” with the outcome of the Epstein portrait.
But how does he think Epstein’s victims feel seeing the image?
“I don’t see how one thing has to do with the other,” he replies.
“Does that mean the victims would feel better looking at the portrait of him in the mugshot, which is a horrible picture?”
Jeffrey Epstein in 2017. File pic: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP
He adds: “Their take on Jeffrey Epstein is very different from everyone else’s. So they see something that we can’t even imagine what they see.”
Photographing Trump
While Serrano believes Epstein was uninteresting, his opinion of Trump couldn’t be more different.
Pic: Andres Serrano
He describes the US president as “fascinating” – so much so that he collected more than 1,000 items linked to him for an art installation called The Game: All Things Trump.
The objects, products and items of merchandise had been created for Trump’s businesses and brands, including Trump Vodka, Trump University and even Trump Steaks.
An 11ft-tall sign spelling the word “Ego” from the Trump Taj Mahal resort in Atlantic City also featured in the display, along with Serrano’s own portrait of Trump.
An 11ft-tall sign spelling the word ‘Ego’ from the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Pic: Andres Serrano
He calls the photograph “one of the best portraits I’ve ever seen of Donald Trump”, and reveals he had a particular way of working with him – staying quiet.
“I didn’t give him any reason to upset him,” Serrano says.
“He sizes you up very quickly. (I didn’t want to say) anything that would turn him off or that would bore him or that would make him in any way want to leave.”
‘Quiet’ Trump ‘tried to figure me out’
Serrano says he spent about half an hour with Trump, who he describes as being “quiet” throughout the process of having his portrait photo taken.
“I often like to leave people to their own thoughts when I’m taking a portrait,” the artist says.
“I like to make the kind of portraits where it feels like I’m not even there. It’s just you, the viewer and the sitter.
“I think he was just trying to figure me out. And so since we didn’t talk, you know it was just a silent conversation between us.”
Read more:
All we know about Trump and Epstein’s ‘friendship’
What’s in Epstein’s ‘birthday book’?
The artist won’t answer directly when asked if he is a Trump supporter but calls him “the epitome of the American dream”.
“I don’t think the art world has ever taken Donald Trump seriously except as a subject for ridicule,” he says.
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‘It’s a Democrat hoax’ – Trump on Epstein files
“My perception and my intent with Donald Trump was far from that, because I think that’s a very simplistic way of doing things.
“My view of him is that he’s a really smart guy.
“Whatever you think about him, you can’t argue with the fact that he often gets his way and I think that’s because Donald Trump is persistent. He doesn’t let go. He’s like a pitbull who doesn’t let go.”
‘Epstein story will be buried’
Serrano also took a portrait photograph of Trump’s former presidential election rival Kamala Harris for The New Yorker magazine but says the circumstances were very different.
“When I do portrait for a magazine… I’m happy to do for them but there’s no skin in the game for me,” he says.
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Despite the pressure facing Trump to make public all files related to the Epstein case, Serrano believes “the story will die at some point”.
“It’s kind of like the Kennedy assassination. People have been obsessed with conspiracy theories, theories about John F Kennedy’s assassination for years,” he says.
“It’s a story that comes and goes, but I think this story will go.
“At some point, maybe some point soon, the Jeffrey Epstein story will be buried, along with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Actor Henry Cavill has suffered an injury during training ahead of filming for the remake of the Highlander film.
The British actor, best known for TV series The Witcher, playing Superman in Man Of Steel, and more recently Sherlock Holmes in the Enola Holmes film series, was hurt just days before the film was due to start production.
Filming for the reboot of the 1980s classic will now begin in 2026, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The cast includes Gladiator actor Russell Crowe, who worked with Cavill on Man Of Steel, as well as former Doctor Who star Karen Gillan, and Dave Bautista – known for roles in Dune and as Drax in the Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy.
Cavill, 42, was injured during pre-production of the Amazon MGM Studios’ United Artists (UA) film.
Highlander, which is being directed by Chad Stahelski, is based on the original 1986 film of the same name.
The film starred Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery and is about an ancient battle between immortal warriors.
The fantasy-action film was followed up with several sequels, including Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Highlander III: The Sorcerer (1994), and Highlander: Endgame (2000).
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An alternate sequel to the original film was also produced as a TV spin-off series in 1992.
Speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April, Cavill told The Hollywood Reporter he was a “lover of the original movies, for better or worse” and was currently in training to play the immortal Scottish hero.
He added: “If you think you’ve seen me do sword work before, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
There has been no word on what type of injury Cavill suffered or how it occurred.
Ireland will not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest next year if Israel is allowed to take part, RTE has announced.
The Irish broadcaster said in a statement that a number of European Broadcasting Union (EBU) members raised concerns over the participation of Israel in the competition at the union’s general assembly in July.
RTE added that its “position” is that Ireland will not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if the participation of Israel goes ahead.
The broadcaster will make its “final decision regarding Ireland’s participation” once the EBU decides whether Israel will take part, the statement continues.
It adds: “RTE wishes to thank the EBU for the extensive consultation process that was initiated on foot of that meeting, and the extension of the option to withdraw from participation without penalty to December.”
The statement added: “RTE feels that Ireland’s participation would be unconscionable given the ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza.
“RTE is also deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza, and the denial of access to international journalists to the territory, and the plight of the remaining hostages.”
Ireland has won Eurovision seven times, the joint most of any country along with Sweden. Its last win was in 1996.
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Eurovision Song Contest director Martin Green said: “We understand the concerns and deeply held views around the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We are still consulting with all EBU Members to gather views on how we manage participation and geopolitical tensions around the Eurovision Song Contest.
“Broadcasters have until mid-December to confirm if they wish to take part in next year’s event in Vienna. It is up to each member to decide if they want to take part in the contest and we would respect any decision broadcasters make.”
The 70th anniversary edition of the contest is due to take place in Vienna, Austria, in May after Austrian entry JJ won with his song Wasted Love in Basel, Switzerland, earlier this year.
Ireland was represented by Emmy in Basel, with the song Laika Party, while Israel was represented by Yuval Raphael, with her song New Day Will Rise.
There has been growing controversy about Israel’s participation in Eurovision with protests in host cities in the last two years.
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