Sienna Miller: ‘Having a Baby Saved My Career’

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Catherine Balavage

While some people say having a child ruins your career Sienna Miller has told the Observer magazine that having a child improved hers. A combination of showing up for meetings with executives underprepared and an affair with married actor Balthazar Getty in 2008, which was reported in the tabloids in excruciating detail, all affected her career. “Quite chaotic,” is how Miller sums up her 20s.

Studio decision-makers read papers and care about how actors come across to the public. The article says: ‘The thinking among certain casting agents, Miller once said, is that “People don’t want to see films with people they don’t approve of in them.” She took a break from screen work, performing in plays in London and New York.”

She was the heroine of hackgate and then hooked up with actor Tom Sturridge. In 2012 the couple had a daughter, Marlowe.

“And I think having a baby really changed everything, if I’m honest, I think that’s where it began.” Miller says. “The stakes are higher. You have someone that you want to be proud of you eventually.” And on the other hand she says: “You’re aware of your own mortality. For me, as soon as I had a baby I had a vision of my life – and what was left of it.”

Miller also says that executives and casting directors think differently of her now “I’m sure that factors. People who read the negative things [about me], the people who need persuading, are probably ignorant enough to assume, ‘Well she’s got a kid so she’s serious now.’ Which, of course, isn’t the case. I’m still whoever I was. Maybe more mature, but the same. So amongst that ignorant, ridiculous area of my industry, I’m sure opinions of me have changed because I’m a mother now.”

What do you think? Do you agree with Sienna Miller?

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Interview With Game of Thrones Star Maisie Williams

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Frostie

Most of us know Maisie Williams from her excellent turn as Arya Stark in Game of Thrones but she is also in excellent new Channel 4 show Cyberbully. Here she is interviewed about her new role.

At 17, Maisie Williams has probably achieved more, seen more than most of us will in a lifetime, yet the star of Game of Thrones remains a remarkably modest, unaffected, eloquent young woman. Here, she discusses her new project, Cyberbully, a remarkable one-off drama for Channel 4 about the dangers lurking on the internet.

Cyber Bully airs on Thursday 15 January at 9pm on Channel 4.

Your new project is Cyberbully. You play Casey. What’s her story?
Casey begins as a young teenager who’s struggling to express herself, and the only way she feels safe is to do that anonymously through the internet. She finds that, using a fake name, she can post honestly about things that annoy her, things that make her laugh, things that make her happy and sad. That’s the way she gets teen angst out of her system, I guess. When we meet her, she’s battling with sharing her best friend with her best friend’s boyfriend, which is a common issue for a lot of teenagers. We see that first-hand in the first few minutes. As the story picks up, she realises that, through hacking and whatever, people can take anything that you’ve written, anything you’ve recorded, pictures you’ve taken, anything like that, and they can turn it into something you never meant it to be. Really, anyone with the power of their computer taken away from them and used against them, even the nicest and most genuine of people can be portrayed as something they’re not, which is something extremely current at the moment. It’s something we’ve seen a lot of, with phone hacking, computer hacking, iCloud hacking, in the news recently. That’s something that really attracted me to the project.

Explain a little more about that. Why were you attracted to this role?
I feel like Cyberbully is a really honest representation of interactions between teens and their parents, and each other. A lot of the time things aren’t always at they seem. Teens get it hard for being grumpy and being rude, and this shows the other side to that, and actually what could be going on behind closed doors, I guess. In a pretty extreme way. She battles with anxiety, and that comes into its own story arc during the hour. We never leave her, we never cut away to anything else, we only see her in her bedroom, and other characters are only referred to through shadows or video clips or pictures and Skype calls. Apart from that it’s just her, in a room – that’s something that’s very different to other things I’ve done.

The fact that it’s really just you, on your own, on screen for the whole time – has that made it quite an intense experience filming it?
Yeah, of course. It’s been one of the most intense two weeks of my life. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, but it’s come with its difficulties. For the first week I was quite ill, so that didn’t help at all. But it’s been really exciting, and I’m so glad to have done it. As a young actor, you’re constantly looking for things that are going to push you out of you comfort zone, and show different emotions. With this, I feel like it’s got everything all in one. Such a range of emotions. That’s something you really look for. There’s not very many good, honest teenage roles written, without them being just a platform for the lead character. Teenagers are written pretty poorly, and this was such a good representation of a normal teen, who doesn’t have some extreme family issue or mental issue, or is a drug dealer or something. She’s just a normal girl who gets her life completely changed.

Have you been acting against a blank screen, or have you been interacting with stuff that’s happening on the screen?
We’ve got a full package, which, when you load looks like your home screen and your Facebook page and whatever, but isn’t. That’s really been helpful, actually being able to type, and being able to send messages and minimise browsers and all sorts, all within this one package. It’s been really, really great, and was something that, for our director Ben, was really a must. To really be reacting to a computer screen that’s actually using these words and photos.

Have you even met the other people who have acted in this [appearing on skype calls and in videos etc]?
We had a big rehearsal about a week before we started shooting, which was very beneficial, and we did a big run-through of the whole four acts. That was great, to meet everyone, but apart from that, during shooting I haven’t seen anyone. It’s been intense for that reason, but also necessary.

The story is pretty frightening, in terms of how much a person can hack into and destroy someone’s life. Is everything that happens genuinely possible?
Yeah, of course. There is no one story that Cyberbully is based upon, but everything included is very much possible, or has happened to various different people.

Has it made you think about internet security and what you do online?
Yeah, definitely. From the age of 12 I’ve been on the internet, on Twitter and Facebook and things like that, and I’ve had a very different experience of it from most teens of my age. But I can very much see the difficulties it presents, and the difficulties it has caused some of my friends and things like that. I think people always assume that it’s going to happen to someone else. It may not all play out the way it does in Cyberbully, but just because someone isn’t there hacking you and talking to you and manipulating your screen doesn’t mean they’re not there looking at you. In America, for example, everyone always puts a sticker over their webcam, little things like that, which really makes you stop and think. It’s something we’re all very new to. In the grand scheme of things the internet is still so young, and we know nothing about it. So it’s something we need to all think about. You think something’s safe just because it has a password on it, but that’s not always the case.

You mention being on Facebook and Twitter and stuff. With your profile, does that mean you’ve experienced negativity and trolling?
Yeah, of course. Trolling is the biggest thing that anyone faces, and it’s easy to dismiss, but it does hurt. As much as we like to say we don’t care, of course we do. People laugh at me when I try to stop people from behaving like that. Just in my followers, not on the internet in general. But I don’t want that. I don’t want Twitter to be that sort of place. People laugh at that, saying “If you’re trying to teach manners on the internet, you’ve got another thing [sic] coming.”

69 per cent of young people say they’ve experienced some form of Cyberbullying. That’s an extraordinary statistic, isn’t it?
Yeah, it is. Everyone I know is on Facebook, and if they’re not it’s because they’ve had a negative experience with it. That’s just awful. People turn a blind eye to stuff like that until someone’s gets really fucked up and goes too far.

One of the things that struck me about the script is that Casey has inadvertently done a bit of cyberbullying herself. Is that part of the problem, that people just don’t really realise the damage they may be doing to others?
Exactly! You don’t even realise that what you’re saying really does hurt people. And it kind of spirals out of control. “Oh, she’s saying it, so I can say it too.” That’s what was so interesting about it. It’s not all that straightforward. There’s not just an honest victim and an honest predator. We all say things that we regret, and especially on the internet. That was an eye-opener for me. You need to ask yourself “Would I ever say that to somebody in person? Would I be happy for my mum to see that I’d just written that?” Just because you’re hiding behind a fake name doesn’t mean you’re not talking to real people.

Your first ever professional acting role was as Arya Stark in Game of Thrones, a lead in one if the biggest dramas ever on TV. How has your life changed in the last few years?
Completely! But it’s like I’ve never known anything else, really. I was a child, and then I started doing Game of Thrones, and now all of a sudden I’m growing up, I’m nearly 18 and I’m nearly officially an adult. It’s been a brilliant experience for me, I couldn’t really have asked for a better opportunity. So many kids of my age are struggling to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives, or what subjects they’re going to take, or what they’re going to do at Uni. I’ve been so lucky to have been given the opportunity to do something I love for the rest of my life.

Do you get recognised a lot? What’s that experience like?
I get recognised a lot, and it’s usually very lovely. People are always really nice, and it’s the price that you pay for doing this job. It’s still awfully strange. People forget that they don’t know you. Sometimes people get a bit – particularly when its parties or festivals and people are a bit drunk – it gets very intense, and people forget that you’re actually a person, and they’re not allowed to just grab you and pull you by your arm and grab your t-shirt. They’re never trying to be nasty, but sometimes that’s really overwhelming. Sometimes that’s not okay. But usually it’s a very, very positive experience. I’ve got more used to it.

How have you kept up with studies? Are you going to continue with studying, or carry on with acting full time?
We tried to juggle school and film, but it was very difficult. My school weren’t very supportive of it all. So we decided to drop that and do home tutoring, which went well for a few years. It came round to my GCSEs and I landed a role in an Irish movie called Gold, and I ended up not doing the exams and doing the film instead. So to this day I haven’t got any GCSEs, because I haven’t stopped, and that was a conscious decision. We decided that I was going to do acting, and school will come later. I’m still very happy with that decision. At the moment it’s going so well, I’m getting to do so many fantastic roles, I’d rather just stay doing this. That doesn’t mean in the future I’m not going to go back. I’d love to be treated normally as other kids, and not have horrible things written about me because I didn’t do this exam or haven’t got that qualification. But at the moment it’s the decision that we made, and it feels like the right one.

What one message would you want young viewers to take away from the drama?
Some people on the internet are never going to be satisfied with any reasoning. The answer is just to close your computer and walk away, because it doesn’t matter. Don’t try reasoning with the trolls or the bullies, don’t engage with them, just walk away. You can’t win, so just walk away, and find people who really care about you.

A House in Italy by Amanda Brake, Frost’s Le Marche Correspondent

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Margaret Graham

At the stroke of midnight, an explosion of fireworks cascaded over the medieval village of Force, in Le March on the east coast of Italy, marking the end of one year and the start of the next. My family and I remained in our house, relaxing and drinking our local wine while we watched the display.

It was the best way for us to enjoy the celebrations this year, because, after a Christmas with lots of friends and relatives, the children were whacked. They loved the skating on the rink put on this year in the town square particularly, so the local bars and restaurants will have to wait for next year, before we join them for their fabulous New Year celebrations.

So what brought me to Italy in the first place?

I suppose it was the same as so many other people: the stunning countryside, the wine, the food, the lyrical language, and of course the Mediterranean warmth. Italy is full of history and culture and this is what intrigued me when I first visited the country at the age of eighteen. I was introduced to the Le Marche area, by friends. It was the up and coming place to buy, ‘the new Tuscany it was labeled, but a lot cheaper

On my first morning in the area, I threw open the slatted shutters of my rental accommodation and the view was more than breathtaking: the mauve coloured mountains stood out like giants in front of me stretching out from the valley. Even to this day, though I live here, and could become careless of its charms, this stunning area never ceases to impress, especially with the changing seasons and weather.

Today, in early new year, we have the magical deep snow of winter contrasting with the deep blue skies, or the tumble of snow clouds, before moving onto the rich greens of the rolling hillsides, in the hazy heat of the summer.

I won’t say the twelve years here have not been challenging with Le Marche’s old antiquated ways, which often make us feel that we are living in a world that is closer to the UK fifty or sixty years ago. But of course, that is part of the reason for be being here in the first place.

Things are so different. If a house starts to crumble, a house that has been in the same family for generations, the family just build another next to it.

‘Piano, Piano’ is the common expression meaning ‘slowly, slowly’ everything in good time, which gives you time ‘to smell the roses’. You have to learn a completely different pace, and to remain laid back when the work that needs to be done for you, takes forever.

Here, in Le Marche, they inhabitants grow their own food, and breed their own animals. The small hamlets and villages are full of culture, their individual history not to mention a long line of local families. Each area has its own dialect, which makes learning the language challenging.

Those native to Le Marche are slow to embrace you but if you, in turn, embrace the local environment and activities, you one become part of their community more quickly than you would have thought possible.

So, come, if you are thinking of a new life at the start of 2015. Just remember that you are not living in an ex-pat community. You will need to live as the Le Marche people do. Live, drive (an experience) work and local schooling can all help one to settle

I still struggle to adapt sometimes, but trust me, letting the old ways go and doing things the Italian way instead opens up your life more than you could ever hope.

So, what do we do, here, to earn a living? My boys have taken up most of my time up while my partner has found some building work, some house maintenance, or gardening. Whatever is about reallya little house maintains, gardening whatever is about really. As time has passed and the house has become more together, we have decided to start adventure holidays.

The area is packed with activities: mountain bike tracks, 4×4 off-roading, climbing, horse riding, rafting, beaches. This coming year we are hoping to provide accommodation above and beyond our existing self-catering apartment for back-packers, as the hiking potential in this area is limitless, in addition to our self-catering apartment.

You can see that our life here is a work in progress, but it is such a good life, though a hard working one. Like I always say to our two boys nothing is easy without a little effort.

Ashton Kutcher On Dating, Food And The UK

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Frostie

Fans of new father and, possibly, newlywed Ashton Kutcher are in for a treat. Here he is on dating, food and the UK

Ashton on, dating

The biggest mistake people make on dates is that they try to be someone that they’re not and they try to sort of over perform and then they start to set expectations for relationships which they can’t keep up with over time, so I would say the best thing you can probably do is sort of be yourself and have enough self-humility to drive whatever car you have and go to whatever restaurant you can afford to go to and then just sort of depend on you, because you’re probably good enough.

Ashton on, Food

You know what’s surprising about the best food, is that it’s surprising where you find the best what; like the best Dim Sum I’ve ever had is in London, which is like weird right? I’ve been to Bejing – you’d think oh boy, they’re gonna have great Dim Sum? The best Dim Sum is in London; that’s like a weird thing. I love Italian food so Italy kind of has my heart there, I would say like the best overall cuisine, French in France has the best overall cuisine. The greatest variety of good food; I would say is in the United States of America.

Ashton on, the UK

Well you know I’ll tell you my favourite British food is fish and chips done well, and if it’s done well its exceptional and I’ve seen like a lot of variations on fish and chips that I think are interesting, but bad fish and chips…break up. It can be nasty.

Ashton Kutcher has been unveiled as the new Wrigley’s Extra brand ambassador. The new ad featuring Ashton will air from January 1st 2015 in the UK as well as 40 countries around the world. Are you a fan?

Gone Girl Book Review

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

Gone Girl has been the literary sensation of the past few years. It was published in June 2012 and it soon made the New York Times Best Seller list and has sold over two million copies. It has sparked a Hollywood film and a vast amount of copy cats. I came late to the Gone Girl party. The film was out in the cinemas and I did not know whether or not to go and see it or read the book first. In the end I went to the cinema first. Our excellent film writer Owun’s review of Gone Girl is here. The film is brilliant, with great performances from Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

Seeing the film first did not ruin the experience of reading the book. The book is deeper, less Hollywood and, obviously, has more information. The author, Gillian Flynn, also wrote the screenplay. She did a good job but there are differences between the film and the book. Not bad differences, I think she did an amazing job.

A lot of people told me not to read the book or watch the film as I am recently married. However, although the book has great observations on marriage and relationships, I really don’t think anyone in a good marriage could possible relate to the book or the film. So, read it and enjoy: it won’t destroy your marriage.

The book is engrossing and I have tried very hard to not give any spoilers. Although I am sure everyone knows, from the title alone, that this is a book about a man who’s wife goes missing. Did he kill her or not? But this book became a literary sensation not only because it is well written, but also because it is original with great twists. It is an intense thriller and hard to put down. Join the Gone Girl fan club, I know I have. Gone Girl is available to buy here.

Yes Please By Amy Poehler Book Review

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

Yes Please is Amy Poehler‘s first book, and what a corker it is. I loved this book. I mean, really loved it. Yes, I know this review is starting to look like a gushing fan letter and not a proper review but a woman like Amy Poehler can do that to you. I loved her on Saturday Night Live and Parks And Recreations. The book starts off with Poehler talking about how hard writing a book is:

“Everyone lies about writing. They lie about how easy it is or how hard it was…No one tells the truth about writing a book…the truth is, writing a book is this: hard and boring and occasionally great but usually not. Even I have lied about writing. I have told people that writing this book has been like brushing away dirt from a fossil. What a load of shit. It has been like hacking away at a freezer with a screwdriver.”

She goes on to talk about how she wrote the book on set, when her children were sleep, at airports and even on the notes section on her iPhone. It is a corking start and everyone who has ever written a book will relate to it. Poehler goes on to talk about improvisation, sexism, marriage, divorce, pregnancy and motherhood. She is a hard-working, talented woman who has gone for what she wants and knows that she is worth it. Amy Poehler leaned in. Amy Poehler is the coolest woman in the world. Well, she may have to share her crown with best friend Tina Fey but you get the point.

The book is split into three parts: Say Whatever You Want, Do Whatever You Like and Be Whoever You Are. A lot of the book is advice like ‘treat your career like a bad boyfriend’ but all of the book is well-written and funny. I rushed through the book and nothing else mattered while I was reading it. Hence why I did not go to sleep that night until 4am. This book is a must read for both men and women. There is definitely a reason it is on the Amazon Bestseller List: it rocks.

After reading this book I felt inspired, happy and thoroughly entertained. This is the non-fiction book of the year. I love, love, love it. I am pretty sure you will to. You can buy it here.

Cable Street Collective: The Best of Times | Music News

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Frostie

16 February 2015
Lead Track – ‘Can’t Take Me Under’

Formed in 2012 at the same London open mic night that produced Denai Moore, Cable Street Collective combine catchy tunes with dance-inspired beats to create music that mixes African influences (two of the group grew up in Swaziland and Malawi) with UK funky house and a whole host of other sounds from in and around their home bases in East London and Brixton.

Tom Robinson of BBC 6Music and BBC Introducing says their music “grooves like a bastard.” XFM’s new music guru John Kennedy says: “Their music is guaranteed to bring the sunshine, whatever the weather.”

The band have enjoyed airtime on XFM and played at a series of high profile festivals including Bestival, the Isle of Wight Festival, Secret Garden Party, Boomtown Fair and the Lake of Stars Festival in Malawi.

Their debut EP ‘The Best of Times’ is available on iTunes, Spotify and as a physical release. ‘Can’t Take Me Under’ is the lead track and will be released as a single on February 16th 2015.

Not That Kind of Girl By Lena Dunham Book Review

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

Where to start? I guess with the fact that this book is not what I thought it would be. It’s not bad, it’s just not what I expected. Let’s get the controversy out of the way: I don’t believe Lena molested her sister. The passage about ‘spreading open her vagina’ makes for very uncomfortable reading but, in my opinion, is very different from sexual abuse. Same gender curiosity in young children is different from sexual abuse, many have said that if this book was written by a male things would be different, but not if the male did what Lena did to his brother. Young children don’t even know what sex is. So, end of.

The thing is, I don’t relate to Lena Dunham. Or at least I thought I did until I read this book. I don’t get the drug use, I am very anti-drugs and always have been. I don’t even care if I come across as boring but mentioning casual drug use as if it is not a thing to me is irresponsible. Many people think drug use is ‘cool’ and ‘artistic’ but it’s not. Drugs ruin lives and society. Now go ahead and judge me for my controversial view: I don’t care. The book is full of sex: masturbation and sexual encounters. This also makes for uncomfortable reading. Not bad reading, just uncomfortable. Dunham seems to want to punish herself with jerks and bad sexual encounters. It’s a version of self-loathing and it made me want to pick her up and hug her. Then of course there is the fact that Dunham was raped. Rape is never fun to read about, but Dunham’s courage in telling her story is commendable. The book is full of brutal honesty.

I know that in many ways this review will seem like a bad review, it’s not. I still think Dunham is talented, amazing, brilliant: a trail blazer. We are similar in age and I also made a web series about young twenty-somethings struggling to find their way in life, though with less success than the juggernaut that is Girls. We are both writer/producers/actors/directors and I always thought that Dunham was so together. I think she is now and that is what is interesting about this book. After all of the self-loathing, punishing herself dating/having sex with men who treated her terribly and other self-destructive behaviour the book comes beautifully full circle: she no longer runs away from people and herself, she in many ways, becomes a grown up. She finally stops causing herself pain. While I related more to Amy Poehler and her awesome book, Yes Please, there is something here to learn. Dunham is unvarnished, naked, almost embarrassing in her honesty. Dunham has been called the voice of her generation many times. Truth is, she doesn’t speak for me or many people that I know. But the thing is: it doesn’t matter. She is still paving the way for women, still creating waves in the film and TV industry, still making progress in a brutal, sexist industry. It doesn’t matter that I don’t 100% relate to her: she is still awesome. I may not write endlessly about my vagina the way Dunham does but then, maybe my vagina just isn’t that interesting. There is a lot of stories of bad sex in this book, and I hope that other women who read it don’t think this is par for the course. It shouldn’t be.

This book is certainly worth a read. It really made me think and feel. This is essentially a collection of autobiographical essays which Dunham was paid £2.3m for by Random House. It is not as good as it could have been, and Dunham could have done with more editing, but she is certainly a talented writer and I am sure there will be more to come. As Dunham says in the book: “There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman,”

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s Learned is available here.

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