Armando Iannucci was too busy filming his own political satire – after a three-year gap, at last there’s another series of The Thick of It, hurrah! – to stay glued to the real-life drama of the Leveson Inquiry, but he has hinted that it, or something very like it, may feature quite heavily in the …
The last time I saw Hugh Bonneville, it was summer on the set of Downton Abbey, where he was pacing up and down the lawn right in front of the stately home of Highclere, looking slightly creature of the night-ish, in an ankle-length black coat over his Lord Grantham tuxedo, talking very intently into his …
He’s as handsome as hell, no argument. He is morally questionable but mysterious, intriguing, compelling. He’s a coward who has chutzpah. He’s brilliant at what he does, partly because of his instinctive understanding of what makes people tick, but seemingly incapable of correcting his own psychological flaws. He drinks way too many martinis and smokes …
We are in Peter Capaldi’s spacious, if spartan, dressing room in the vast, empty, 1930s Hornsey Town Hall in north London. The actor’s days are spent filming (he’s working on the second series of The Hour, in which he is the new head of news) and his nights are on stage (as Professor Marcus in …
Jennifer Saunders seems very relaxed, her booted feet up on a pouffe, snuggled in a big woolly cardie, sipping a mug of tea and talking openly about everything from the menopause to depression, cancer and her empty nest syndrome. Oh, and there are a few laughs, too. The last time we met, six years ago, …
The long wait is over – the surprise TV hit of 2011 is back. Its Danish star Sofie Grabol reveals she’s battling even darker forces. Never act with children or animals, as the old line goes. But now, after the first series of the cult Danish crime thriller, The Killing, we clearly need to coin …
Downton creator Julian Fellowes reveals his love for Lady Mary, answers the critics and declares his passion for a woman’s right to inherit. Beware of meeting your heroes, they say, to which I would add a new warning – beware of visiting the set of your favourite television series, which in my case is Downton …
When Ewan McGregor appointed his chosen rendezvous for our breakfast interview – at the eleventh hour, alarmingly literally, the night before – messages were left with the manager to reserve a quiet table. We may still think of him as a barely grown-up Scottish lad, but he is a Hollywood film star, after all, whose …
John Malkovich and I are ensconced in his hotel room in Recklinghausen, near Düsseldorf, having a cosy chat about murder – and, in particular, the Austrian serial killer, Jack Unterweger, who is the latest in a line of mad, bad and dangerous characters the actor has inhabited in his long career. He’s playing the celebrity …
We had been discussing her husband, Simon Torrance, a management consultant, and I asked Monica Ali whether they had met at Oxford, where she read PPP. “No, he went to the other one,” she says, and I nod, “… Loughborough Poly”, at which we both scream with laughter. This joke was unexpectedly playful, apart from …