Elle Fanning has graced film screens since the age of three, when she played the younger version of her sister Dakota in I Am Sam.
Since then, Elle has made a name for herself in Hollywood portraying Aurora in Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent, Michelle Carter in The Girl From Plainville and Catherine, Empress of Russia, in The Great.
Her portrayal of Catherine The Great has earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination in 2022 as well as multiple nods from the Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globes and Critic’s Choice Awards.
Now in its third season, we see Catherine and Peter, played by British star Nicholas Hoult, attempt to make their marriage work after some seemingly irresolvable issues between the couple.
Speaking to Sky’s Backstage podcast, Elle Fanning commended the show’s creator, Tony McNamara, who wrote and executive produced the series.
“What is he going to come up with next? His brain. He’s so genius. He’s so dark as well. Like, Tony, you’re twisted. But he really that’s what it blends so perfectly. He’s such a genius.”
What makes the series stand out compared to other historical dramas is its use of dark humour, allowing storylines to transition from comedic scenes to bloodshed and violence in the blink of an eye.
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“I crave that humour,” says Fanning.
“It’s like when there’s a really kind of funny, crazy moment, always turning it on its head and making the audience question and feel something and get emotional about something like right after. So, it’s a balancing act, for sure. But it’s real.”
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This is one of the first times, since appearing in Daddy Day Care when she was four, that Fanning has been able to lean into a more comedic side of acting.
“Living in the comedy space is really fun for me, which was kind of it was different. And now I feel like I’ve settled in and gotten used to that space.”
The Great is very loosely based on the lives of Catherine The Great, Empress of All Russia and her husband Peter III of Russia, who was famously overthrown by his wife and died in captivity.
The previous two seasons picked moments from history as inspiration for the series – and ignored others – so there is a chance that Peter could survive in the fictitious retelling.
Fanning says: “I think this season is also about destiny and fate. A lot of our seasons have been, but maybe this one more so than others.”
Hulu, the production company behind The Great, hasn’t confirmed if there will be a season four of the show, which raises the question for fans of a potential spin-off in its place.
But Fanning doesn’t think it’s likely: “Amongst the cast, we’ve talked about this like, I don’t think it would happen.
“I think I would like to see Marial [Catherine’s friend played by Phoebe Fox] or Aunt Elizabeth [played by Australian actress Belinda Bromilow]. I don’t know. All the women maybe.”
The Great season three is available to stream now on Lionsgate+.
Hear more about it on the latest episode of Backstage – the film and TV podcast from Sky News.
Zayn Malik paid tribute to former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne as he kicked off his solo tour.
Payne died last month of multiple traumas and “internal and external haemorrhage” after falling from a third-floor balcony in Buenos Aires, according to a post-mortem.
Images from Leeds’s O2 Academy on Saturday showed Malik – who delayed his Stairway To The Sky tour due to Payne’s funeral on Wednesday – shared a tribute.
A message was displayed with a heart on a large blue screen behind the singer reading: “Liam Payne 1993-2024. Love you bro.”
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Rapper Ye – formerly known as Kanye West – has been accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit that alleges he strangled a model on the set of a music video.
Warning: This story contains details that readers may find distressing
The lawsuit alleges the musician shoved his fingers in the claimant’s mouth at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City in 2010, in what it refers to as “pornographic gagging”, Sky News’ US partner network NBC News reported.
The model who brought the case – which was filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York – was a background actor for another musician’s music video that Ye was guest-starring in, NBC said, citing the lawsuit.
She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the 47-year-old.
A representative for Ye was approached for comment by NBC News on Saturday.
The New York City Police Department said it took “sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors”.
The lawsuit alleges that a few hours into the shoot, the rapper arrived on set, took over control and ordered “female background actors/models, including the claimant, to line up in the hallway”.
The rapper is then believed to have “evaluated their appearances, pointed to two of the women, and then commanded them to follow him”.
The lawsuit adds the claimant, who was said to be wearing “revealing lingerie”, was uncomfortable but went with Ye to a suite which had a sofa and a camera.
When in the room, Ye is said to have ordered the production team to start playing the music, to which he did not know his lyrics and instead rambled, “rawr, rawr, rawr”.
The lawsuit claims: “Defendant West then pulled two chairs near the camera, positioned them across from each other, and instructed the claimant to sit in the chair in front of the camera.”
While stood over the model, the lawsuit clams Ye strangled her with both hands, according to NBC.
It claims he went on to “emulate forced oral sex” with his hands, with the rapper allegedly screaming: “This is art. This is f****** art. I am like Picasso.”
Universal Music Group is also named in the lawsuit as a defendant and is accused of failing to investigate the incident.
The corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment by NBC.
Jesse S Weinstein, a lawyer representing the claimant, said the woman “displayed great courage to speak out against some of the most powerful men and entities within the entertainment industry”.
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
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The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November