James McAvoy

Star James McAvoy's supporting role for Manchester charity helping street children
Actor James McAvoy is supporting a charity appeal to raise funds to improve the lives of African street children
James McAvoy was so shocked when he witnessed the real-life drama faced by street children in Africa that he is now supporting a Manchester-charity fighting to improve the lives of youngsters.
The star first became aware of the heartbreaking struggle of thousands of children, who wake up in plastic bags, drains or rubbish dumps every day with little chance of finding food, when he starred in Last King of Scotland which was filmed in Uganda in 2006.
McAvoy was so touched by his experience that he became a passionate supporter of Retrak, which helps to provide homes for street children in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.
McAvoy shot to fame when he appeared in the TV series Shameless. He fell in love with his co-star Anne-Marie Duff and the couple have since married and had a son. The actor took time out from shooting his next film Trance, a drama thriller directed by Radcliffe’s Danny Boyle, to urge support for Retrak’s ZERO Appeal which runs until December 5. He said: "No human being, never mind a child, should wake up in the morning not knowing how they’ll get through the day.
"The street restricts these children’s access to food, water, shelter and denies them love and instead offers neglect, exploitation and abuse in abundance.
"That’s why I support Retrak’s call for a world where no child is forced to live on the streets."

To support the Retrak ZERO Appeal visit www.retrak.org/zero , email zero@retrak.org or call 0161 485 6685. To donate £10 text: ‘ZERO12 £10’ to 70070.

Source: Manchester Evening News

Richard Madden

Richard's a Leading Light
One of Britain’s finest actors features in a new exhibition of photography at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
Rising star Richard Madden, 26, from Elderslie, began his acting career at Paisley’s famous PACE youth theatre, and has gone on to take lead roles on stage, in television and film.
And now a portrait of him by K K Dundas is among a number of famous names that can be seen in the photographer’s show “Leading Lights”.
Hanging alongside him at the prestigious gallery are portraits of Bill Paterson, Billy Boyd, Elaine C Smith and Ruby Wax – all, like Richard, graduates of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

In 2010, to celebrate its 60th anniversary, the Conservatoire commissioned Glasgow-based Dundas, who specialises in theatre and portrait photography, to take portraits of past and present students from the school of drama.
These images, presented in collaboration with the Conservatoire, features some of the institution’s most illustrious alumni, from old hands to more recent graduates.
Richard got his acting break at the age of 11 when he appeared in a film adaptation of Iain Banks’s hit novel Complicity. Then came a lead role in kids’ TV series My Barmy Aunt Boomerang, before he quit acting for a while.
But he returned to the profession with a vengeance when he was 17.
Richard said: “I got to the point when I was being asked to choose what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I knew there was nothing else I wanted to do more.
“I went back to PACE and spent a year being one of the oldest ones, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I had to get back into acting.”
Richard then earned a place at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and jobs with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre, in London, followed.
He later gained the lead role of Dean McKenzie in the 2009 BBC series Hope Springs, followed by his roles as Ripley in the 2010 film Chatroom, and as Theatre of Hate singer Kirk Brandon in the 2010 film Worried About The Boy.
Since 2011, he has been starring as Robb Stark in the HBO series Game of Thrones, the Channel 4 series Sirens and in the BBC series Birdsong.
Leading Lights runs until Sunday, March 3, 2013.
Source:  Paisley Daily Express

Douglas Henshall

The Secret of Crickley Hall, 9pm, BBC1
Prepare yourself to be spooked good and proper by this three-part adaptation of the novel by horror writer James Herbert. A great cast includes David Warner who can't half do creepy well, along with Suranne Jones, Tom Ellis and Douglas Henshall. The action flits between a contemporary couple Ellis and Jones who are trying to come to terms with the disappearance of their young son and back to the war years. To try to escape the past they move to Crickley Hall (don't these people ever read horror stories?) which was once used as an orphanage. It is riddled with secrets as well as strange bumps in the night. It's enough to put you off that place in the country.
Source: This is South Wales

Blythe Duff

Iron, Traverse Theatre: Review
by Irene Brown - Posted on 15 November 2012

4 stars

Iron: a word that evokes hardness and coldness. Among its dictionary definitions are ‘symbol of firmness’ and as a verb ‘ability to smooth’. It is these qualities that are most evident in this latest powerful play from Rona Munro.
Fay (Blythe Duff) has been convicted of killing her husband. Till now, her only visitor has been her solicitor but fifteen years in to her sentence, she gets another visitor: her daughter, Josie (Irene Allan).
Josie was a child when her father was killed and was brought up by her Gran, her father’s mother, whom she called ‘Mum’. Now at a cross roads in her life, being divorced and looking for a new job, she wants to find out what happened the day her father was killed.
The piece is an exploration of the difficult and tentative relationship between the estranged mother and daughter. With enormous skill and sensitivity, as well as her use of rich and keenly heard language, Munro shows the gradual unraveling of a story as the blanks of the missing years are filled.
At first Fay can make no eye contact, and displays mannish body language, but this gradually changes as memories are shared between the women. In spite of the ‘no touching’ rule, an uneasy understanding develops between them, with Fay enticing a vicarious life for herself from Josie as a diversion from her usual ‘adventure of a chocolate biscuit’.
And who can blame her when part of her survival technique in an environment with no natural light and only a ‘slice of blue’ from her cell window, is to lie down in an awkward position to capture a patch of sun? Her bonnie daughter can bring her virtual sunshine by living the way Fay would like her to. At least that’s the plan.
The two guards, Sheila (Claire Dargo) and George (Crawford Logan), pace the theatre among the audience during ‘visiting time’. Sheila, a single parent who had once befriended Fay is cynical, seeing her as a dangerous manipulator while George, the father of three daughters and self-appointed expert on women has the theory that they respond best to kindness, which is hard to argue with till he says they are like dogs in this respect.
Scotland has no crime passionel, but the revelations of the motive for this fictional murder were full of love, passion and heartache, all brilliantly shown through a superlative cast, with a particularly impassioned performance from Blythe Duff.
The stark set and the chilling sounds of clanging gates and turning locks added to the tense and thoroughly absorbing atmosphere of this tightly directed and thoroughly human play.
Show times

Wednesday 14 - Saturday 17 November 8.00pm

Matinee: Saturday 17 November 2.00pm

Tickets

£15.50/£11.50/£6
Source (including photo): Edinburgh Guide

Iain De Caestecker

S.H.I.E.L.D. casts The Fades' Iain De Caestecker

Marvel's television adaptation has previously announced that Ming Na is to play weapons expert Agent Melinda May and Clark Gregg will revive his Avengers role of Agent Phil Coulson.
Henstridge has now boarded the project to play S.H.I.E.L.D. science expert Gemma Simmons, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Iain De Caestecker - who previously appeared in the UK's Coronation Street and The Fades - has also signed on for ABC's Marvel series as Agent Leo Fitz, the strategic intelligence group's technology specialist.

The pilot for S.H.I.E.L.D. is being written by Avengers director Joss Whedon with his brother Jed Whedon and Drop Dead Diva's Maurissa Tancharoen.

S.H.I.E.L.D. will be set in the Marvel cinematic universe, but is to focus on stories specifically revolving around Nick Fury's security force.

ABC is expected to debut the show in autumn 2013. 
Source (including photo): Digital Spy

Henry Ian Cusick

The Mentalist Season 5 Episode 7 “If It Bleeds, It Leads” – Henry Ian Cusick guest stars

The Mentalist “If It Bleeds, It Leads” Season 5 episode 7 aired Sunday, Nov. 11 2012 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Episode Synopsis: The team investigates the murder of a reporter who may have become too close to her story, while Jane insists on pursuing his own leads to find Lorelei, on THE MENTALIST, Sunday, Nov. 11 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Henry Ian Cusick (“Lost”) guest stars as Tommy Volker, a multi-millionaire adventurer playboy who becomes a suspect. Ted McGinley guest stars as Ed Hunt, a news anchor who worked with the victim.

Show Summary: THE MENTALIST stars Golden Globe Award nominee Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, an independent consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI), who has a remarkable track record for solving serious crimes by using his razor-sharp skills of observation. Within the Bureau, Jane is notorious for his blatant lack of protocol and his semi-celebrity past as a psychic medium, whose paranormal abilities he now admits he feigned.
Jane’s role in cracking a series of tough, high-profile cases is greatly valued by his fellow agents; however, no-nonsense Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon alternates between reluctantly acknowledging Jane’s usefulness and blasting him for his theatrics, narcissism and dangerous lack of boundaries. Lisbon’s team includes agents Kimball Cho, Wayne Rigsby and Grace Van Pelt, who all think Jane’s a loose cannon but admire his charm and knack for clearing cases.

Source (with video and more photos): TV Equals

Tony Curran

Defiance set tweets (with photos) from Tony Curran: 

Me with some friends in the hollows but on my way home to my Stahma...
https://twitter.com/TonyCurran69/status/268795699708166144/photo/1

Me and my Beautiful wife Stahma
https://twitter.com/TonyCurran69/status/268791552653021184/photo/1

Ban gwa Wo me ka, Mim ba A du, Kur ro sha Da ra Va nu Hin ji Lu
https://twitter.com/TonyCurran69/status/264617861656481792/photo/1

the Defiance massive chilling on the main street
https://twitter.com/TonyCurran69/status/264772395280257024/photo/1

Datak&Stahma Tarr are a colorful couple,but we do have a dark side
https://twitter.com/TonyCurran69/status/265675217941172224/photo/1

Don't dry because it's over Datak smile because it happened, final week of shooting @DefianceWorld April 2013
https://twitter.com/TonyCurran69/status/265687028660854784/photo/1

Making of Defiance Chapter 4: Cultures, Makeup and Languages
Want all the details about the new species that now call Earth home? Catch the new Making of Defiance: Cultures, Makeup and Languages on Saturday at 10/9c.

Source: YouTube

Making of Defiance Chapter 4: Cultures, Makeup and Languages (17.11.2012)


Get all the details on the different Votan species that now call Earth home in our latest Making of Defiance Chapter 4: Cultures, Makeup and Languages.
Source: YouTube

Photo courtesy of Defiance France @DefianceFrance Fan Page: Datak & Stahma Tarr

Alan Cumming

 

Alan Cumming fights for the child in 'Any Day Now' Trailer
The trailer opens with a gender-bending Alan Cumming meeting a guy at a cabaret, but the frivolity appears to end there. After the pair get together with his closeted lawyer partner, Cumming's Rudy befriends a developmentally disabled adolescent who is being neglected by his mother. The story goes from there in what turns out to be a fight for civil rights and the welfare of a child.
Director Travis Fine's Any Day Now won Audience Awards at the Chicago, Provincetown, Tribeca and Woodstock film festivals in addition to other wins in Seattle and Outfest.
Official Log-line:

Inspired by a true story and touching on legal and social issues that are more relevant now than ever, Any Day Now tells a story of love, acceptance, and creating your own family. In the late 1970s, when Marco (Isaac Leyva), a teenager with down syndrome who’s been abandoned by his mother, is taken in by committed couple Rudy (Alan Cumming) and Paul (Garret Dillahunt), he finds in them the family he's never had. However, when their unconventional living arrangement is discovered by the authorities, Rudy and Paul must fight a biased legal system to adopt the child they have come to love as their own.

Music Box Films will release Any Day Now in theatres December 14th.

Read More at: Movieline 

Brian Cox

Actor Brian Cox on new show Addicted to Pleasure and why drugs in Scotland should be legalised
Dundee-born Cox admitted he smoked opium on a trip to India in the 1980s, and that he enjoyed taking the highly addictive drug.

Actor Brian Cox presents new BBC programme Addicted to Pleasure.

Scots actor Brian Cox has revealed he smoked opium and called for the legalisation of hard drugs in Scotland.
The Dundee-born Hollywood star says “everything” should be legalised if the government has any hope of getting on top of the country’s drug problem.
Cox admitted he smoked opium on a trip to India in the 1980s, and that he enjoyed taking the highly addictive drug.
He said: “I used to be very down on drugs. I tried marijuana occasionally, but I was never really into it. I was in India touring with a play and I thought I would experiment and see what it was like. So I went to an opium den.
“It was great, very beatific. I got my feet massaged and had two great hours there. But I never did it again because what eventually happens is that pleasure decreases as want increases. Want becomes the thing that drives you, not the pleasure. You can never recreate that first fix. Once it’s over it’s over. But that’s why people get into a spiral, especially with heroin.”

Brian Cox looks at addictions of all kind in the new programme.

Cox was speaking ahead of Addicted to Pleasure, a four part documentary series he’s presenting on BBC Scotland. It addresses our nation’s addictions to sugar, alcohol, tobacco and opium.
The X Men II star blamed Scotland’s addiction issues on the relocation projects of the 1960s, which saw whole communities decanted from city centre environments to housing schemes.
He said: “Environment and drugs go hand in hand. We have created these appalling environments for people to live in, especially the housing schemes which are a hotbed for drugs.
“We took people away from towns with structure to schemes with no structure. Now there are four generations of addicts. We moved people into these areas and they have a lack of functionality, which leads to negativity, loss of self esteem and self worth. They’re thwarted people, and they take drugs for the lack of something.
“Taking something like heroin helps them deal with that.
 “Everything should be made available, but monitored, of course. Prohibition is a problem. Look at any prohibition era in history.  Al Capone and the rest made a lot of money there. It’s the same today with drug dealers. We need to try to get people’s self worth and sense of empowerment back again.”
Addicted to Pleasure is on Monday, 26 November BBC at 9pm on BBC1.

Source (including photos): Daily Record

Billy Connolly

Knit your own Billy Connolly
Billy Connolly is one of several Caledonian legends features in a new book, Knit Your Own Scotland, by costume designers Jackie Holt and Ruth Bailey

Read more at Daily Record

Photos from Daily Record

Gerard Butler

Sarah Jessica Parker and Gerard Butler are adding to the star wattage at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert.
The actors will be the hosts of the 19th annual event, to be held Dec. 11 in Oslo, Norway.
Read more at Washington Post

Ewen Bremner

Weinstein Co. nabs Bong Joon Ho's 'Snowpiercer' in U.S., and other territories

The Weinstein Co. has acquired rights to Bong Joon Ho’s upcoming post-apocalyptic action thriller Snowpiercer in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The story, adapted by Bong and Kelly Masterson, is based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige and stars Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner and Alison Pill.
Set in a future where a failed experiment to stop global warming creates an ice age that kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. A class system evolves on the train, but a revolution brews.
Park Chan-wook, Lee Tae Hun and Jeong Tae-sung produced Snowpiercer. Miky Lee executive produced.
“Snowpiercer is the amazing vision of Bong Joon Ho," said Harvey Weinstein. "With a stellar cast led by Chris Evans, we look forward to bringing this action-packed thriller to audiences worldwide."
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Paul Brannigan

Photo courtesy of The Sun
Scots actor Paul Brannigan’s naked romp with Scarlett Johansson
Glaswegian actor Paul Brannigan has confessed to being terrified of a naked romp with Scarlett Johansson. The star had to strip for a scene in the forthcoming Under The Skin flick.
The Angels’ Share actor was petrified when he learned he had to get totally naked for the scene with the actress. Scarlett was only semi-nude.
Paul said: “I was really nervous because I have never done a sex scene before.
“I was stood there completely naked in front of Scarlett and all I was worrying about was how it would embarrass my son.
“Scarlett was great. She’s a marvellous girl. She said my timing was really good.”
The film was shot in Scotland earlier this year and is due to be released in the next couple of months.
Scarlett plays a hungry human-eating alien in the movie.
Paul, who was opening the Aberlour Family Support Service in Glasgow, said: “Needless to say all my friends are now asking me how they can get into acting.”
Source: STV
Also reported by The Sun

Actor Paul Brannigan teaching drama to Saturday Sportscene Kids
Scottish actor Paul Brannigan - star of the hit movie, The Angles Share - has come on board with Sidekix to deliver Drama Workshops at  NL Leisure’s Saturday Sportscene.

Paul, who has recently been nominated for a Scottish Bafta Award, will work with the Sportscene participants on a small drama piece which shall be  showcased at the Saturday Sportscene Football League Awards on 28th January 2013.

Paul will pass on his acting skills, give out some tips and encourage inspiring actors to perfect their performance and no doubt tell some interesting stories!

It kicks off this Saturday (17th November) with a site visit from the man himself.

The small drama will see the participants examining real life situations they may find themselves such as bullying/being bullied, peer pressure and getting into trouble. The workshops shall aim to give the participants  coping skills and improve confidence levels.
Source: Sidekix

Actor Paul Brannigan helps to launch rehab clinic for addicts
A rehab centre for pregnant addicts has been launched with the support of an ex-convict who beat his own addictions to become an acclaimed actor.

Paul Brannigan, star of Ken Loach’s prize-winning film The Angels’ Share, has opened the The Aberlour Family Support Service.
The centre offers addict mothers and expectant mothers from across Scotland purpose-built rehabilitation accommodation, complete with communal facilities and a gym, in the East End of Glasgow.
The service is designed to help addicts beat their problems, provide parenting advice and keep their children out of care.
The Angels’ Share tells the story of a jobless young jailbird who resolves to change his life after becoming a father. It won the Jury Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and was in the running for the prestigious Palme d’Or.
Mr Brannigan, who was imprisoned in his teens for a firearm offence and has battled addiction, described the film as “like a mirror image to my life”. He helped dedicate a “recovery tree” in the grounds of the new Aberlour facility to commemorate its launch.
Aberlour chief executive Ken Dunbar said: “This really is a proud moment for Aberlour, as it stretches the boundaries of our work once again.
“Aberlour has a history of working in some of the most challenging areas because deep down in our hearts we know that everyone has the potential for growth and change.”
One former resident said: “I came straight from a hostel and I had a lot of problems and 
addictions.
“I was also pregnant and in an abusive relationship so this was my chance to get in here without him knowing. Aberlour is the only place that has worked for me.”

Source: Scotsman

Enquirer - radio broadcast

From Emma Lennox of Hopscotch Films

The radio broadcast of Enquirer – a co-production from the National Theatre of Scotland, the London Review of Books, and Hopscotch Films - premièred on Friday 16 November.

Blending fact, anecdote and passionate opinion, Enquirer is a rapid response to the unfolding events in the newspaper industry. It is based on interviews with over forty journalists and was first performed in June as a site-specific piece of theatre performed in an empty media office block in Glasgow. 

As its tour draws to a close, we would like to invite you to listen to a specially produced radio broadcast on Radio 4 (Friday 16 November at 9pm).

Edited and directed by Vicky Featherstone and John Tiffany, co-edited by Andrew O'Hagan. The Enquirer cast includes: Maureen Beattie, John Bett, Billy Boyd, James Anthony Pearson, Gabriel Quigley and Billy Riddoch.

In the meantime, you can visit the microsite at Enquirer

You can listen to the play here