Actress Emma Laird, 26, rekindles romance with Matt Smith, 42, as pair look loved-up at trendy London bakery
ACTRESS Emma Laird seems to have travelled back in time by going on a date with Matt Smith.
The starlet, who at 26 is 16 years
Advertisement
3
Actress Emma Laird has been snapped on a date with Matt Smith in London, pictured attending the 28 Years Later film premiere
Credit: The Mega Agency
3
Emma laughing with the former Doctor Who star outside a trendy bakery in North London
Credit: Eroteme
3
The pair seem to have rekindled their romance
Credit: Eroteme
Emma, seen at her 28 Years Later film premiere earlier this month, left, seems to have rekindled her romance with Matt, after the pair were first seen in a clinch outside a pub two years ago.
An onlooker said: 'The pair look relaxed in each other's company as they sat outside and Matt puffed on a cigarette.'
Matt, who stepped down as the sonic screwdriver-wielding Doctor after four years in 2013, has a history of high-profile romances.
He was pictured holding hands with
Advertisement
READ MORE ON CELEB ROMANCE
She played Rose Tyler in 34 episodes from 2005 to 2008 before returning for one special in 2010 and another in 2013 marking the show's 50th episode.
The two were snapped sharing a snog.
He counts models
Advertisement
Most read in Celebrity
He broke up with actress
Matt played Prince Philip in Netflix series The Crown, then landed a starring role in Game Of Thrones spin-off House Of The Dragon as Daemon Targaryen.
The Crown's Matt Smith reveals surprising nickname Prince Harry called him after he played Prince Philip on the Netflix show
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Extra.ie
an hour ago
- Extra.ie
F1 in pole position as rave reviews have it set to become hit of the summer
F1: The Movie starring Oscar nominee Kerry Condon and Brad Pitt is on track to become the biggest blockbuster of the summer in Ireland. The film has been attracting rave reviews since it opened in cinemas here this week. And although official audience figures will not be released until tomorrow, industry sources reported yesterday that the movie is expected to be one of the biggest-grossing films of the year, both domestically and globally. Brad Pitt in F1. Pic: Warner Bros/Everett/Shutterstock One source told 'It's a bit early to say, but based on Friday's numbers, which have been good, it's up there with our best performing movies over the past few months. 'It's up there with 28 Years Later, which performed very well and the horror film Final Destination. It's tracking to match up with our best movies and it's on par with superhero and horror movies. 'I don't think anyone will disagree that it will be the biggest hit of the summer.' F1. Pic: Warner Bros/Apple Conor Kelly of Dublin's Savoy Cinema also said the movie is gearing up to be the big hit of the summer. He told 'People are just saying it's great and when they come out [of the cinema] they are saying they want to see it again. 'It's going very well and everyone has been raving about it. It's like the [Top Gun] Maverick movie, and even people who don't like Formula 1 – the sport – are saying they think it's well done.' Tom Cruise. Pic: Paramount Pictures He added: 'It's bringing in people. I think it's going to be like Twisters last year; that was helped by word of mouth. It could be the hit of the summer.' F1: The Movie opened in 710 cinemas in Ireland and the UK last Wednesday. The American movie trade magazine Variety has forecast it will make €42m during its first weeks in the cinemas. Directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Top Gun: Maverick's Jerry Bruckheimer, F1 cost €170m to make. Kerry Condon. Pic: Amy Muir/REX/Shutterstock Although the film is a work of fiction, Condon's character Kate – the only female technical director in Formula One – is largely based on the real-life Fermanagh woman and former Aston Martin strategist Bernie Collins. Condon – whose character keeps her distinctive Thurles accent in the film – has admitted she knew nothing about motorsport before she landed the leading lady role. Speaking about her pre-shoot preparation for the racing platform F1 Nation this week, Condon said: 'The first race I went to was in Barcelona, just to meet people and observe everybody. Everyone was so nice and generous, particularly Bernie Collins.' 'I learned a lot from Bernie because of her Irish background. I thought that was going to be perfect. I thought, 'yes, bingo, I'm going to base it kind of on Bernie's backstory.' [F1 TV's] Ruth Buscombe as well was very helpful. 'I just kind of found out a little bit about where they went to college and what they studied and the route that they took to get there,' Condon added. 'And then little things like the notepad that I have [in the movie] when I walk to the pit wall. I asked Bernie what she would have written on the front page of her notepad, just in case the camera caught a glimpse of my notepad or something. 'It was kind of radical because we shot a lot of the movie live with the real Grand Prix, so a lot of the cars flying by in the background were the real cars happening in real time. That's never been done before.'
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
The days of families huddling around the Late Late Show or Glenroe are gone - and that's no bad thing
By the end of the latest season of Doctor Who , it was clear the BBC 's once high-flying franchise was on life support. Ratings had collapsed. Lead actor Ncuti Gatwa was keen to move on to Hollywood. Whatever the television equivalent of urgent medical attention is, the Doctor needed lots of it. The real surprise, though, was that the decline of the Doctor went largely unnoticed. There had been widespread speculation among hard-core Whovians that the BBC and its international partners in the franchise, Disney +, were considering pulling the plug on the Tardis (the eventual twist was far more shocking, with former Doctor's assistant Billie Piper revealed is to be the new custodian of the venerable blue police call box). What was most telling, however, was that, amid all the online chatter, nobody in the real world much cared. The entire saga of the Doctor's rumoured demise and the character's bombshell resurrection in the guise of the former Because We Want To chart-topper passed without comment – in contrast to the widespread anguish that had attended the cancelling of the series for the first time in 1989. Billie Piper in the final episode of Doctor Who. Photograph: James Pardon/Bad Wolf/BBC Studios Such has been the pattern in recent decades – and not just in the context of time-travelling British eccentrics. Contrast the present-day television landscape with that distant time when The Late Late Show on RTÉ ranked as unmissable viewing. Or what about Montrose's perpetually okay-ish soap opera Fair City, which once held the entire nation in its thrall - including when it aired Ireland's first on-screen kiss between two men in 1996. Or in November 2001, when 800,000 viewers tuned in to the soap to see abusive sociopath Billy Meehan beaten to death by the son of his partner, Carol. People were talking about it at the bus stop and in the pub (back when the pub was a place we frequented in numbers). Even if you wanted to, you couldn't get away from bad Billy and his bloody exit. READ MORE Those days are clearly long over. According to RTÉ, some 280,000 people watch Fair City each week (with more tuning in on RTÉ Player). But when last did you hear someone discuss a Fair City plotline – or even acknowledge its existence? It's still out there, and fans still enjoy it, but to the rest of us, it's gone with Billy in the grave. The fracturing of television audiences has long been a source of dismay to those who care about such matters. In 2019, Time Magazine fretted that the end of Game of Thrones would be 'the last water cooler TV show'. That same year, author Simon Reynolds despaired of the great geyser of streaming TV and how it had deprived us of unifying cultural milestones. With so much entertainment jetting into our eyeballs, how is it possible for any of us to hold dear any particular film or show? 'There is,' he wrote in the Guardian, 'always something new to watch… an endless, relentless wave of pleasures lined up in the infinite Netflix queue.' More recently, Stephen Bush wrote in the Financial Times that 'everywhere in the rich world, the era of truly 'popular culture' is over'. This, he posited, 'is bad news for modern states, which are held together to some extent by the sense that we are all part of a collective endeavour ... the decline of shared viewing is eroding shared cultural reference points'. The death of monoculture is generally presented as a negative. Weren't we all better off in the old days, when Biddy and Miley's first kiss in Glenroe held the nation transfixed, and the big reveal as to who shot JR was a global news event that pushed trivialities such as the Cold War off the front pages? But is that such a loss? It's easy to look back with nostalgia, but the age of the monoculture was the era of having everyone else's tastes forced on you. Consider the great cultural tragedy that was Britpop, where lumbering, flag-waving Beatles cover acts became the dominant force in music. Liam Gallagher (left) and Noel Gallagher of Oasis. Photograph: Simon Emmett/Fear PR/PA Those bands never really went away, and some of them are back in force this summer – asking you to pay an arm-and-a-leg for the privilege of a ringside seat (or, indeed, a seat miles away). The difference is that today, you have the option of not participating. Instead of going to Oasis in Croke Park, I'll be in London watching the K-pop band Blackpink. Thanks to streaming and the general fracturing of popular culture, I can, moreover, essentially put my fingers in my ears and pretend Oasis doesn't exist. Thirty years ago, that option was not available. They were everywhere – in the summer of 1996, it felt as if Wonderwall was stalking us. But because mass entertainment has splintered, you no longer have to feel as if you are being followed around by Liam Gallagher every time you leave the house. It is also important to remember that the monoculture is still occasionally capable of making its presence felt. Let's go back to The Late Late Show, which, according to the latest statistics, is watched by about 400,000 people. That may be a long way off the annual Toy Show spectacular, which in 2024 drew 1.6 million viewers, but it remains a national talking point – every bit as much as Billy Meehan getting his just deserts. Adolescence. (L to R) Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller, Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, in Adolescence. Photograph: Netflix © 2024 The same effect can be seen in streaming. Granted, the extraordinary response to the Stephen Graham drama Adolescence , which streamed on Netflix earlier this year, was in some ways a product of a moral panic more than an epoch-defining cultural moment. But while the show had some astute points about misogyny in our schools, its depiction of what it's like to be a 13-year-old boy was painfully wide of the mark. Still, it did capture the public imagination. And maybe there will be a similar response to series three of Squid Game, which was released on Netflix this weekend. So it isn't as if we aren't capable of bonding over our favourite TV shows any more. It's just that such instances are far rarer than they used to be. But is that a bad thing? Nowadays, we are free to follow our own interests, rather than having someone else's forced on us. And when we do come together, that moment of shared excitement feels all the more precious. The water cooler is dead; long live the water cooler.
Extra.ie
3 hours ago
- Extra.ie
Al Porter has had to learn to live with awful abuse
Comeback comedian Al Porter said he's learned to live with people who call him a 'pervert' and that he has rediscovered his love of performing as a stand-up comedian. In a wide-ranging interview with the Dubliner also insists that, following an extended spell in the wilderness, he does not care if TV and radio opportunities no longer come his way. And he said his on stage performance has matured with the years, and that he is no longer 'as camp as I used to be'. Porter, who is in a long-term relationship, said of his previous on-stage persona: 'In retrospect, I think some of it was kind of put on because you thought that's what was expected at the time. Or I think it was my age more than anything and my nervousness. Comeback comedian Al Porter said he's learned to live with people who call him a 'pervert' and that he has rediscovered his love of performing as a stand-up comedian. 'But listen, I'm still gay, there's no denying that, but maybe I've just toned things down.' Porter is back on the stand-up circuit following accusations of inappropriate behaviour from some of his colleagues on the comedy circuit. At the time, the Tallaght entertainer was at the very height of his fame. As well as his comedy gigs, he had TV and radio shows, a column in a national newspaper and there was even a Netflix special in the works. Then, in a matter of days, it was all gone. Porter's professional and personal life fell apart when she was accused of a sex attack dating back to late 2016. In November 2019, he walked free from court after a charge of sexually assaulting a young man at a Dublin venue was dropped. Al Porter. And now, six years on, an older and wiser Porter – whose real name is Alan Kavanagh – is a firm believer that: 'If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger'. He said it was during his spell in the 'wilderness' that he rediscovered 'what I really loved, and that was performing'. 'That's what I did when I was five, six, seven, years old, getting up and wanting to read poems. I would write poems to my class and entertain them and be wheeled from classroom to classroom as if I was the TV. 'So that's what I missed. I didn't miss TV. I didn't miss the radio. I didn't miss writing for newspapers.' He added that while he would 'consider' offers for media work, 'I am in no way yearning for it.' He told Extra: 'I'm not trying to prove anything. This is me… Alan Kavanagh is Al Porter. We're the same person. 'I found when my life fell apart, that people used to try and use the fact that Al Porter wasn't my real name, people tried to use that against me in a weird way, like almost, to try to suggest, l am false altogether.' The comedian said he decided to change his stage name to Porter because, 'when I was starting out there was a singer on [former RTÉ music competition series] You're a Star called Alan Kavanagh. So I chose the name Al Porter and I loved it. And I still like that name. I'm proud of it.' Porter candidly admits he is 'ashamed that I brought trouble onto that name and I dragged that name through the mud, fairly and unfairly'. But he said he never considered dropping his stage name or to even temporarily move abroad to start anew. 'People said to me, 'did you never think of going to Australia? Did you ever think of doing stand-up comedy in America and then coming home?' And I would say to them, 'I'm not in the business of running away,' like I'm not gonna change my name.' Al Porter. Pic: Sean Gallagher Photography Now firmly back on the stand-up circuit and playing to packed theatres, Porter said he has learned to live with criticism or hate that lingers on long after the scandal that turned his life upside down. 'Look, there might be some people who hear my name who go, 'Oh, him. Is he not a pervert?' And look, I can live with that. I truly believe that whatever happens, I'm going to have a good life. 'I do believe that if I continue on the track I'm on, it'll be more people than not that associate that name with more good than bad. 'That's one of the things I love about doing comedy now… I've never been freer because I'm like, 'well, you know, I've got nothing to lose and everything to give.' 'I mean, what could people write about me that they haven't already written?'
