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Glasgow transforms into New York as Spider-Man filming begins

Glasgow transforms into New York as Spider-Man filming begins

The streets of Glasgow city centre are being redesigned in the image of New York as filming for the new Spider-Man movie gets under way.
The Marvel movie, set for release next year, is being filmed in several parts of the city, including Blythswood Street, Pitt Street, Wellington Street, and Bothwell Street.
US flags and banners have been draped on the sides of buildings, and highly-realistic but fake items that are commonly seen in the Big Apple line the streets.
A number of US vehicles have been spotted near the Scottish Event Campus, including New York Police Department cars, buses, and food vans.
Road closures and diversions throughout the city can be expected until filming ends on August 15.
The film stars Tom Holland as the titular character and Zendaya as Michelle Jones 'MJ' Watson.
Jon Bernthal will star as The Punisher, and Charlie Cox plays Daredevil.
It marks the fourth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Spider-Man franchise, and creators have said it will see a change in tone when compared with the previous three movies, which were released in 2017, 2019, and 2021.
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‘I couldn't get rid of Finchy': Ralph Ineson on The Office – and becoming a Hollywood superstar at 55
‘I couldn't get rid of Finchy': Ralph Ineson on The Office – and becoming a Hollywood superstar at 55

The Guardian

timean hour ago

  • The Guardian

‘I couldn't get rid of Finchy': Ralph Ineson on The Office – and becoming a Hollywood superstar at 55

How do you portray Galactus, a gigantic, amoral, immortal superbeing who thrives by draining planets of their energy? If you're making a film of any part of Marvel's Fantastic Four journey, your best bet is probably to depict him as a cloud. That's what happened in 2007, and even though fans complained about it a bit, it solved a lot of problems. Matt Shakman, director of the new The Fantastic Four: First Steps, cast Ralph Ineson, who still sounds faintly surprised by the move. 'I've been working for a long time,' he says. His first role was a small part in Spender, the Jimmy Nail vehicle, in 1991, and he's in a similar mould to Nail: tall with a handsome, rough-hewn face, a guy who looks as if he knows how to do guy stuff. 'I've been a jobbing actor for a long time,' he continues, with the same disbelieving, 'how the hell did I wind up in this huge movie?' tone of voice. 'There's no denying it's really nice to have a huge trailer. And it was huge. Bigger than mine and my wife's first flat.' (He married Ali Milner, a radio host, in 2003.) 'Nice trailers, nice cars, and a paycheck. But it's a privilege and an honour to be the first person to bring this character to life. Twelve-year-old me wouldn't have believed some of this shit. I don't have any snobbery about it. I loved it.' Then Ineson describes what it took to make this character, in terms I could already hear, after five minutes, were extremely true to form: stressing the industry and professionalism of everyone on set (including the two people whose job it was to blow cold air into each of his gauntlets between takes) except himself, the dude who just has to show up and try not to sweat. 'They had to shoot me on a white background, with lots of bright light, and I'm wearing this enormous costume, so it was incredibly hot and there was nowhere for the heat to escape. Obviously, Galactus can't sweat. So I had a Formula One pit crew of people around me.' It sounds like a nightmare, I suggest. 'For me, there's something quite masochistic about acting. Sometimes you only really get the good stuff when you're at the edge of something, either mentally, emotionally or physically. It unlocks stuff.' And then, mindful that he has skated way closer to pretension than he'd prefer, 'Occasionally I had to have the physio at my knees, because I'm 55 and falling apart.' His calling, as an actor, has been playing one bad guy after another, but he is one of the most personable people you could ever meet. Ineson grew up in Leeds in the 1970s, when he 'felt as if acting was something that was almost shameful, or maybe that's too strong a word. But it wasn't really something to be proud of, when I was a kid.' His parents were supportive in the sense that they would never miss a show, but nobody thought it was a serious career prospect, and after doing theatre studies at Furness college in Lancaster, he worked as a drama teacher at a sixth-form college in York. He got involved with the York Mystery Plays – a tradition that's been going, on and off, since the mid-14th century: a Bible story told every year, once performed on a roaming cart, then, by the time Ineson did it in 1992, at the York Theatre Royal. All the characters were played by the people of York, except for one professional actor, who that year was Robson Green. 'He was pretty lonely on his own, sat in his hotel. We'd go out for a drink and I ended up sharing a dressing room with him. And he said: 'You're not wedded to being a teacher, are you?' I wasn't, although I did enjoy it, but I hadn't been to drama school, I wasn't classically trained. He said: 'Go home and watch TV tonight, look at the characters you could play.' So I watched a soap, I watched the nine o'clock drama, and there were about five people I thought I could play.' He describes the next phase as a series of lucky strikes: meeting an agent through Green and getting the part in Spender, 'basically because I could ride off-road motorbikes – the character was a professional motocross rider'. Then another agent, more parts, but still 'I don't think I realised I wanted to be an actor until I'd been doing it for 20 years,' he says. 'Shoots were something I really enjoyed, but almost pretended I didn't. Then, I was sitting on a horse on the plains outside Santa Fe, dressed as the man in black, a posse leader' – that was The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a Coen brothers film. 'And I thought: 'This is exactly what I have always wanted to do.' I just didn't realise it until I was in my mid-40s.' But that was 2018, and quite a lot had happened in the years before that. If you feel as if you know Ineson personally, it will be because of The Office, in 2001, where he occasionally breezed in as Finchy, the boorish sales rep whom Ricky Gervais's David Brent hero-worshipped all the more for his proudly offensive humour. Ineson was sent the pilot episode on VHS, 'which is how long ago it was. I remember being really terrified. How brilliant they were, the central four, firing off each other. I was slightly intimidated. My first thought was: 'Shit, can I do this?'' When he first started out, he often felt as if he was on the back foot because he hadn't been to drama school. 'I don't know whether I would have suited it, but it felt like a big thing for the first few years, because that is all young actors talk about.' Slowly, he came to have more regard for his own idiosyncratic apprenticeship: 'For years I've had the chance to work on big productions without a lot of responsibility – mainly getting my horse to stand in the right place, being in that part of the screen, behind the main villain's left shoulder. You learn a lot about acting, doing that.' Anyway, feeling that he had to be on his mettle – which was fair, Gervais, Mackenzie Crook, Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis were explosively good together – he made a fateful decision. 'I thought: 'I'll use my own accent, I'll play Finchy as a Yorkshireman so I don't have to think about anything except keeping up with the rest of them.' That was a big mistake, because it meant that everybody, for at least 10 years, thought that I was Finchy. That I wasn't acting; that was just my personality. So having people thinking you're Chris Finch, looking at you with amusement, but also a bit of disgust, a bit of fear. He's just such a shitter. It's not a nice skin!' It didn't end with regular human interactions, either – 'career-wise, it was a bit of pain. I just got offered wankers, racists, misogynists and homophobes.' Before The Office, he was always having to recount his CV for people in the street – they'd come up and go, 'what have I seen you in?', and he'd have to size them up and figure out whether they remembered him from Goodnight Sweetheart or an episode of The Bill. He remembers thinking it would be nice to have something so major that nobody would have to ask. 'Be careful what you wish for, because then I got Finchy and I couldn't get rid of him for about 20 years. At least Galactus simply exists, he's a cosmic force. He doesn't do it out of malice. You can't really get much worse than Chris Finch.' He remains a big fan of The Office, which I smoke out by getting him to adjudicate between the British and American versions – he didn't watch the US one for ages, because he caught snatches of it and thought: 'No, they're doing it wrong.' Five years ago, his daughter watched the whole thing and he realised, 'it's different, but it is good. Because I have a slightly twisted sense of humour, I prefer the British Office, it's darker. You would actually let Michael Scott [Gervais's US counterpart, played by Steve Carell] look after your 18-year-old daughter, whereas I'm not sure you'd let Ricky Gervais's character look after your 18-year-old daughter. Same with my character, he's a lot darker than Todd Packer, the American version. Whether that makes it better or worse, I don't know. It's nastier underneath, which I kind of like.' The late 00s were taken up at least partly with the Harry Potter movies, in which he played the dark wizard Amycus Carrow. His son was 10 and his daughter was six when he shot Half-Blood Prince in 2008. It was the perfect age, you get the impression he'd have done it just so they could meet Daniel Radcliffe. He also got to hang out with Michael Gambon for days on end. 'He's the best storyteller in the world, ever. Joke-teller, raconteur, everything. He told me this joke that lasted a whole week; I could tell it in 15 seconds. It was one of the best weeks of my life.' Nevertheless, he had no lines at all, 'a supporting artist, basically'. The producers enticed him in with the next two books, in which there's more meat on Carrow's bones. But when they came to make the astronomically long Deathly Hallows, parts one and two, the plot had been very slightly tweaked to remove the pivotal moment when his character spits in Professor McGonagall's face and unleashes hell. 'I did three Harry Potter films without saying a single line.' As the father in The Witch, Robert Eggers's acclaimed, hypnotising horror movie, which won lots of indie film awards, including best director for Eggers at Sundance, Ineson felt that he'd got the first part with its own arc. This was 2015, when he was in his mid-40s, realising he actually was an actor, perhaps relatedly, at around the time the industry realised how good he was. He speaks so highly of his co-star, Kate Dickie – 'she should be a dame, she's that good,' he crescendoes a little surprisingly. But his collaboration with Eggers was intense. Ineson sat at the director's shoulder while the other actors were cast. 'It was a weird experience – it felt terribly unfaithful, as if I was cheating on my profession.' They worked together again on The Northman in 2022, which had a broader canvas visually and emotionally, but had the same feeling of The Witch, a film that had an immense amount of knowledge go into it, only a fraction of which you could pin down. 'I have got no idea how Rob has managed to read so much in his lifetime, it feels as if he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of almost every period in history.' If Ineson was never prepared, post-Office, to give in to being typecast as a wanker, he's pretty comfortable with being a supervillain. 'I think with my size, face and voice, 90% of the time I've been on the bad guy side of the line anyway. I would be fighting a losing battle if I was trying to get myself into romcoms. Some things are beyond the realms of casting.' If The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a turning point, the difference is mainly one of scale. 'Although I've been involved with big films before, I've never played a character that is this important to the film and the franchise,' he says, with an amount of trepidation. It's true – there are other people in the movie (Pedro Pascal! Vanessa Kirby!), but if the villain doesn't work, nothing does. 'So if it doesn't make a profit, it's my fault? Is that what you're saying?', he says, mock petrified. The film is already doing fine at the box office. He should relax.

Celtic's Jota forced to flee after being caught up in Orange Walk
Celtic's Jota forced to flee after being caught up in Orange Walk

Daily Record

time6 hours ago

  • Daily Record

Celtic's Jota forced to flee after being caught up in Orange Walk

The Portuguese star was posing for pics with Hoops fans outside Glasgow's five star Blythswood Hotel on Sunday afternoon. Celtic hero Jota was forced to flee after being caught up in an Orange Walk. ‌ The Portuguese star was posing for selfies with Hoops fans outside Glasgow's five star Blythswood Hotel on Sunday afternoon. ‌ But his pals yelled at him to run into a car as the procession closed in. ‌ One fan said: 'We were actually outside the hotel as we wanted to get glimpse of Tom Holland who was staying there during Spider-Man filming. 'Then all of a sudden Jota just strolled out. ‌ 'He was happily chatting to us and doing selfies. 'My friend asked if he'd seen Tom but he said he hadn't but had seen his fiancée Zendaya. 'The march was getting louder and closer so his pals were getting very flustered telling him that he had to go. ‌ 'He didn't seem too bothered though and kept doing pictures but the people he was with started shouting that he had to get away. 'They then ushered him into a vehicle which sped off.' Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. ‌ Jota, 26, is currently injured so wasn't with his Celtic teammates as they prepared for their season opener with St Mirren which they later won 1-0. The parade started at Blyswood Square at 3pm with hundreds of marchers taking part. ‌ Holland, 29, is starring in Spider-Man: Brand New Day which started filming in Glasgow on Friday. Holland was seen on Sunday shooting an action sequence in costume before speaking to a crowd of about 100 people. Large sections of the city centre have been closed off for filming and there have been warnings of widespread disruption.

Limitless: Chris Hemsworth on facing fears, ageing and return of Thor
Limitless: Chris Hemsworth on facing fears, ageing and return of Thor

BBC News

time11 hours ago

  • BBC News

Limitless: Chris Hemsworth on facing fears, ageing and return of Thor

Chris Hemsworth is best known as the hammer-wielding Norse god Thor in Marvel's cinematic universe. But now the Australian actor is trading superpowers for science, introspection and a new set of personal challenges, many of which are far scarier than battling fictional villains. The 41-year-old is back for a second season of Limitless which sees him confront some of his deepest fears as he explores how to live longer, healthier and better. "The first season almost killed me," Hemsworth tells the BBC. "And I thought, 'never again.'" In season one, Hemsworth tackled physical and mental challenges designed to delay aging including free diving, fasting, stress training and walking along a crane 900 feet above the actor says he chose to "torture" himself again as he had a burning curiosity to "ask bigger and deeper questions" about aging and the meaning of life."It was exhausting but also profoundly rewarding," he says. "But now I do have more questions rather than answers!"Season two takes a different path as Hemsworth continues to test himself, but not just physically. With the help of Ed Sheeran, he learns to play a musical instrument for the first time and inspired by his children's carefree risk-taking, he climbs a 600-foot Alpine dam. "Being thrust into unfamiliar environments where you're facing adversity or risk helps you understand how fragile life is and how quickly it can change," he says. Hemsworth, whose brothers, Liam and Luke, are also famous actors, says he now takes nothing for granted and has learnt to not "settle for the easy route as the greatest lessons come from the more challenging times". One of the biggest challenges for the actor was in the first season of the National Geographic series when a genetic test revealed he carries two copies of the gene ApoE4, one from his mother and one from his father, making him between eight and 10 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's than those without both copies of the gene."That warning sign was further motivation to take care of myself," Hemsworth explains. "It also felt like a great opportunity to offer up education and a better understanding for people navigating it as Alzheimer's is something a lot of people face." While Hemsworth has become increasingly interested in how to live better, he says there's a fine line between healthy aging and extreme biohacking. Biohackers want to make their bodies and brains function better by "hacking" their biology."You want to live a longer and better life but at what cost? You could have your exact routine but there's no point doing all of that if you're isolated and lonely at home," says Hemsworth."I'm going to put energy into health and wellness but I also want to enjoy life."This mindset puts him at odds with more extreme elements of the biohacking movement, which has gained attention through figures like tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson. Johnson, 47, has spent millions of dollars in a bid to slow down aging - his regime, Project Blueprint, has seen him take numerous supplements a day, follow a strict diet and sleep routine and undergo a plasma an approach that Hemsworth finds intriguing but admits he has "no interest to explore". "I like dancing in and out of those spaces," Hemsworth explains. "Sometimes I try one thing, then another, and different pieces of science resonate at different times in your life. "If you're too boxed in with one way of thinking, you close the doors to other opportunities." As well as reversing his biological age, Johnson also wants to crack the code on how to live forever. But the Marvel star says no one has figured out how to cheat death yet and he doesn't think anyone will so "we have to embrace death". "Suffering comes from denial of our inevitability of death - we all have an expiration death." He adds: "If you were told you had 200 years guaranteed you'd become more complacent and reckless. The idea that life can be taken away at any second is a beautiful reminder to appreciate every moment." He also explains that if humans could live forever then relationships with other people wouldn't be as important, and for Hemsworth, family appears to really Thor actor lives in Byron Bay with his wife, actress Elsa Pataky, and their three children. Limitless touches on how his choices affect not just his own life, but those around of what spurred him on to film a second series was "the great feedback from young kids, parents and grandparents" and realising that he was able to inspire others to challenge themselves. Despite his status as a global action star, Hemsworth is very introspective and seems to be deeply driven in finding constant meaning and purpose to his life. "This experience reminds me of what I'm offering up and receiving," he says, adding that it's important for him to always remember that "we don't survive and thrive on our own". Alongside his lifelong quest to live better, Hemsworth is also thinking about what is next in his acting career. Thor will return in Avengers: Doomsday which is set to be released in the winter of to whether there will be another standalone film, the actors says: "I don't know, we'll have to see where this one goes as I'm unpacking all of that now." "It's something I certainly love and so we'll see what Geographic's Limitless: Live Better Now is available to stream on Disney+ from 15 August.

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