logo
Susan Sarandon 'nervous but excited' to make UK stage debut

Susan Sarandon 'nervous but excited' to make UK stage debut

Perth Now12 hours ago
Susan Sarandon is "terrified but excited" to be making her UK stage debut later this year.
The 78-year-old actress - who has performed on New York's Broadway several times between 1972 and 2019 - is set to tread the boards in London's west end for the first time in the UK premiere of Tracy Letts' play Mary Page Marlowe.
The production spans 70 years of the titular character's life and Susan and Birdman star Andrew Riseborough will play her at diffeent stages in the story.
The Old Vic's artistic director Matthew Warchys will direct Mary Page Marlowe in his final season before stepping down from his role at the theatre in September 2026.
Susan said in a statement: 'I'm so honoured to be asked to be in a play during Matthew Warchus' final season at The Old Vic. Terrified but excited.'
The play will also mark Andrea's return to the British theatre for the first time since she starred with Sir Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hiddleston in a 2008 production of Ivanov, though she has appeared on stage in New York more recently, turning out alongside Hugh Dancy, Ben Whishaw and Adam James in The Pride 15 years ago.
Performances for Mary Page Marlowe begin at the Old Vic from September 23 and through November 1 .
They will be performed in-the-round, which the director noted is "perhaps my favourite configuration."
Some seats for the first five previews of the play will cost just £10.
Susan - who has Eva, 40, with her former partner Franco Amurri as well as Jack, 35, and 32-year-old Miles with Tim Robbins - recently reflected on the ups and downs of raising children amid her Hollywood career and ultimately concluded they are "grateful" for it.
When asked what sort of legacy she wants to leave behind for her children, she told 'Entertainment Tonight': "That makes me cry because I can't think about leaving them but one of the things about being in this business and dragging your kids all over with you is that they're very flexible, and they're not afraid of other cultures.
"Their bubble has been very big and sometimes it was a little awkward because there was no picking up at school or whatever but at the end of the day, they look back at it now and they're grateful for it."
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Put down the AI toy: kids need you, not a robot
Put down the AI toy: kids need you, not a robot

Sydney Morning Herald

timean hour ago

  • Sydney Morning Herald

Put down the AI toy: kids need you, not a robot

There comes a time in every parent's life when you realise you need the mental grit of a hostage negotiator to withstand the rapid-fire questions from your small child. My six-year-old daughter is in her 'spelling' era. 'Mum, how do you spell 'elephant'? How do you spell 'vacuum'? How do you spell 'kitchen'?' I feel like I'm in a demented game show dreamt up in the literary circle of Hell. But the other day, while testing out Google Gemini 's live function, which is a generative AI capable of speaking in the polite, clipped British tones of Emma Thompson, an idea was born. 'Ask my phone how to spell elephant,' I told my daughter. She did, and Emma Thompson 2.0 (known henceforth as E.T. 2.0) politely acquiesced, spelling out the word and asking if my daughter would like to know anything else about elephants. This became a half-hour conversation full of animal facts and names spelt out: 'Rhinoceros: R H I N O C E R O S,' E.T. 2.0 said without a single trace of irritation in her automated voice. I suddenly realised that E.T. 2.0 is a better mother than I am. But then another thought sparked, like a glitch: should I be letting my kids near generative AI? There are plenty of robot mother stories populating science fiction lately. Last year's The Wild Robot made us fall in love with a robot that methodically teaches a baby duck to fly. In I Am Mother, from 2019, the robot mother in question is a little more sinister, more interested in genetic engineering than in baby ducks. We already have screen 'babysitters' for kids, such as Cocomelon, that rainbow-coloured lobotomy, but we need to brace ourselves for generative AI babysitters. Mattel has recently partnered with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which should raise concerns about our parenting future. There are already a range of toys out there that use generative AI to 'talk' to kids, like singer Grimes' brainchild 'Grok', a chatty soft toy designed to lure kids away from screen time and back into the real world. Mattel released a 'talking' Barbie in 2015 ('think Siri, not ChatGPT' according to Vox), but privacy concerns made Mattel discontinue her in 2017. And yet, with this recent partnership with OpenAI, they're still trying. Talking toys are creepy AF. Most parents have a horror story of their malfunctioning Bluey toy calling out 'Whackadoo!' in the dead of night under the bed, let alone throwing a chatty toy-bot in the mix. We can thank the films M3GAN and the recent sequel M3GAN 2.0, about a psychotic robot doll, for seeding our latest nightmares. 'Many parents want their children to understand emerging technologies. This leads to a mixed response of curiosity and concern,' Andrew McStay wrote in The Conversation. We know by now how tech companies feel about our personal information: playing around with it like a kid with a toy; and yet, despite our security concerns, we still willingly submit. No one wants to be left behind. But after seeing my daughter chatting away with E.T. 2.0, my greater concern is that we're losing the ability to give our kids undivided attention. It's hard enough to resist screens with the pace of modern life, let alone being offered an even easier way out: a chatty robot who never tires of questions. And what about when we need to explain to our kids that their robo-toy doesn't really care about them? It'll be like telling them that Santa is the dude who runs the kebab shop with a fake beard all over again.

Put down the AI toy: kids need you, not a robot
Put down the AI toy: kids need you, not a robot

The Age

timean hour ago

  • The Age

Put down the AI toy: kids need you, not a robot

There comes a time in every parent's life when you realise you need the mental grit of a hostage negotiator to withstand the rapid-fire questions from your small child. My six-year-old daughter is in her 'spelling' era. 'Mum, how do you spell 'elephant'? How do you spell 'vacuum'? How do you spell 'kitchen'?' I feel like I'm in a demented game show dreamt up in the literary circle of Hell. But the other day, while testing out Google Gemini 's live function, which is a generative AI capable of speaking in the polite, clipped British tones of Emma Thompson, an idea was born. 'Ask my phone how to spell elephant,' I told my daughter. She did, and Emma Thompson 2.0 (known henceforth as E.T. 2.0) politely acquiesced, spelling out the word and asking if my daughter would like to know anything else about elephants. This became a half-hour conversation full of animal facts and names spelt out: 'Rhinoceros: R H I N O C E R O S,' E.T. 2.0 said without a single trace of irritation in her automated voice. I suddenly realised that E.T. 2.0 is a better mother than I am. But then another thought sparked, like a glitch: should I be letting my kids near generative AI? There are plenty of robot mother stories populating science fiction lately. Last year's The Wild Robot made us fall in love with a robot that methodically teaches a baby duck to fly. In I Am Mother, from 2019, the robot mother in question is a little more sinister, more interested in genetic engineering than in baby ducks. We already have screen 'babysitters' for kids, such as Cocomelon, that rainbow-coloured lobotomy, but we need to brace ourselves for generative AI babysitters. Mattel has recently partnered with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which should raise concerns about our parenting future. There are already a range of toys out there that use generative AI to 'talk' to kids, like singer Grimes' brainchild 'Grok', a chatty soft toy designed to lure kids away from screen time and back into the real world. Mattel released a 'talking' Barbie in 2015 ('think Siri, not ChatGPT' according to Vox), but privacy concerns made Mattel discontinue her in 2017. And yet, with this recent partnership with OpenAI, they're still trying. Talking toys are creepy AF. Most parents have a horror story of their malfunctioning Bluey toy calling out 'Whackadoo!' in the dead of night under the bed, let alone throwing a chatty toy-bot in the mix. We can thank the films M3GAN and the recent sequel M3GAN 2.0, about a psychotic robot doll, for seeding our latest nightmares. 'Many parents want their children to understand emerging technologies. This leads to a mixed response of curiosity and concern,' Andrew McStay wrote in The Conversation. We know by now how tech companies feel about our personal information: playing around with it like a kid with a toy; and yet, despite our security concerns, we still willingly submit. No one wants to be left behind. But after seeing my daughter chatting away with E.T. 2.0, my greater concern is that we're losing the ability to give our kids undivided attention. It's hard enough to resist screens with the pace of modern life, let alone being offered an even easier way out: a chatty robot who never tires of questions. And what about when we need to explain to our kids that their robo-toy doesn't really care about them? It'll be like telling them that Santa is the dude who runs the kebab shop with a fake beard all over again.

Leo Sayer returns to Mandurah Performing Arts Centre for first solo Aussie tour in six years
Leo Sayer returns to Mandurah Performing Arts Centre for first solo Aussie tour in six years

Perth Now

time2 hours ago

  • Perth Now

Leo Sayer returns to Mandurah Performing Arts Centre for first solo Aussie tour in six years

Leo Sayer is coming to Mandurah for his first Australian tour in six years. Leo Sayer is coming to Mandurah for his first Australian tour in six years. Credit: John Eaden After his latest sold-out UK and Ireland tour, music legend Leo Sayer's Still Feel Like Dancing! Australia tour will hit the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre stage on September 11. As an international chart-topper throughout the late 70s and 80s, the British-born singer has called Australia home for most of the millennium and said he was excited to perform in intimate theatres nationwide for the first time since 2019. Camera Icon The British-born 80s icon will come to Mandurah Performing Arts Centre on September 11. Credit: John Eaden 'We intentionally choose smaller scale venues because it feels nice to perform intimate theatres,' he said. 'I'm very happy doing these places because there's a real shared experience between the audience and the band. There's no clever tricks, no backing tracks, no dancers, just the interplay of the musicians which is nice for audiences to come up close and see.' Sayer said concerts today were very different to how the icons of the 70s and 80s used to do it. Camera Icon Sayer said he's excited to strip things back for an intimate performance with his band. Credit: John Eaden 'Not to sound critical but I think technology has come in and changed a lot; there's great artists out there today whose shows are more manufactured than what we were doing,' he said. 'There's so much between you and an audience at a big show and sometimes it's too much. 'The efforts have to come from the acts themselves and for us it's time standing still; we're still doing the things we did all those years ago and it's nice that it hasn't evolved.' Performing top hits like Thunder In My Heart, More Than I Can Say and tour namesake You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, Sayer promised a hit-packed, high-energy evening not to miss. Tickets are available on the Leo Sayer website or the MPAC website.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store