Fantastic Beasts star breaks silence on being re-cast in the movies
His departure in November 2020 stemmed from his libel battle with News Group Newspapers over domestic abuse allegations made by his ex-wife, Amber Heard.
Depp told The Telegraph he felt 'shunned, dumped, [and] cancelled' in the aftermath, believing the studio wanted him to retire.
A June 2022 jury found Amber Heard defamed Depp, awarding him over $10m in damages, while Heard received $2m in damages in her counter-suit.
Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen replaced Depp as Gellert Grindelwald, admitting it was 'very intimidating' to take on the role.
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BBC News
27 minutes ago
- BBC News
Love Island's Cierra Ortega apologises for derogatory social media post
Love Island USA's Cierra Ortega has apologised for old social media posts including a derogatory term for Chinese people, following her sudden removal from the hit TV show. In a video message, the 25-year-old content creator from Los Angeles said the post in question that led to her departure was made in 2024 and that a follower messaged her to explain that it was a slur. "In that moment, I was embarrassed," she said, adding that she "immediately deleted the post".Ortega, who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, said she and her loved ones had been harassed online over the posts, including by people calling immigration authorities on members of her family and issuing death threats. "What's been extremely, extremely difficult is the way people are approaching my family and my loved ones," she said. "They have had ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] called on them. My family doesn't feel safe in their own home. I'm receiving death threats."There's no need to fight hate with hate. I don't think that that's justice." Ortega said she was in agreement with the network's decision to remove her from the show and said she understands why viewers were upset. But she took issue with social media posts claiming that she did not delete the derogatory post or doubled down on using it. "I was apologetic and I educated, not only myself on the true meaning and history of the word, but also anyone around me."I think the backlash has obviously been very hard to deal with."Ortega's departure from the show, a spinoff of the popular UK reality series, follows that of fellow islander Yulissa Escobar, who left after videos of her using a racial slur on a podcast in 2021 Love Island USA can learn from the UK show's own tragediesLove Island USA's Cierra leaves show after racism rowMs Escobar later apologised, saying on Instagram she used the offensive term "ignorantly, not fully understanding the weight, history, or pain behind it".She followed up her apology with a second post, saying she had received death threats and that she "came back to a warzone" after leaving the season of Love Island USA has been wildly popular and Peacock, NBC's streaming app that airs the show, said the series was ranking as the most streamed reality series. But its skyrocketing success has led to contestants being relentlessly cyberbullied on social media, so much so that the show aired a statement during a recent episode with a plea for viewers to halt the harassment.
Times
33 minutes ago
- Times
Meet the A-list psychic woo-wooing Demi Moore and Brad Pitt
Demi Moore is sitting on her bed explaining how she will choose her next film. After her first Oscar nomination for The Substance and winning the best actress award at the Golden Globes for the same role, the offers are coming in and her next project will have to be carefully considered. She will consult her agent and her family (when we speak, her toddler granddaughter is nearby). But there's one friend above all on whom she relies: Laura Day, often described as a psychic to the stars. Moore, 62, who has known Day since being introduced over lunch in Los Angeles 37 years ago, says, 'If there is a project — let's say there's a script that's come in — I will already have a sense of how I feel about it [but] it's really wanting to see if what I'm feeling is actually aligned. Often the details of what she picks up… It's almost like she's expanding on something I felt, but I didn't have a place to put it.' Day, who prefers the term 'intuit' to 'psychic', has helped many a Hollywood A-lister, several of whom are coming out to support her new book, The Prism, in which Day sets out ways in which we can all channel our intuition to become our own psychics. No crystal ball required. 'I believe in the gut and I believe in Laura Day,' says Brad Pitt, while Nicole Kidman enthuses, 'Some things defy explanation and Laura Day is one of them. She is extraordinary.' Other Day enthusiasts include Jennifer Aniston, Uma Thurman and Jaimie Alexander, the Thor actress. This wasn't supposed to be an interview with Demi Moore but here we are. Or rather, there she is, telling me about Day's powers over a Zoom call while sitting cross-legged in a crisp white shirt on top of crisp white bed linen in her bedroom at her Idaho estate. • The rise, fall — and rise again of Demi Moore Moore, looking serious in oversized glasses and little make-up, says, 'I would say she's 98 to 99 per cent accurate. If I'm going to step into a project, I might be wanting insights on somebody that I'm going to be working with, who she feels they are and how it might work, and that gives me a deeper perspective.' Day, 66, says she developed her abilities after a difficult childhood, constantly watchful that her suicidal mother would try to take her own life. After seeing a television programme on extra-sensory perception (ESP), she contacted the researchers, saying, 'I can do that.' They were initially sceptical, but it set her on a trail to develop what Moore has called Day's 'gift'. In her late teens, Day was hired by American police, including the New York Police Department, to help them search for missing people (although she says she only helps find children as she believes some adults don't want to be found, and for good reason). She has even helped unearth historic artefacts by marking maps showing where archaeologists need to dig. Day says she did all this to test herself and to answer the question: 'Am I batshit crazy or are these things actually useful?' After the publication of her 1996 New York Times bestseller Practical Intuition, she quickly gained a celebrity following and is now the author of seven books. Today, her bread-and-butter work comes from several long-standing contracts with Fortune 500 companies. They ask her what deals should be done and when. She has no idea about their profit margins and even less about the markets in which they operate. She likes the fact that there are right and wrong answers for her work — if she gets it right, the firm makes money; if not, they lose out. 'They don't make natural vitamins,' Day says. 'What I do for them is basically corporate spying. I predict the future. I know nothing about the companies, even one of the companies I've worked with for 30 years. It's an investment firm. So it's a million different companies, really.' Her real passion, however, is teaching regular people how they can train their intuition to trust their gut instinct. Day streams regular live sessions on Instagram and hosts workshops (some of which Moore has attended). In her new book, she sets out seven steps to train your intuition. It leads you through stages such as listening to your body, thinking about 'ego centres' and reflecting on your response to the behaviour of others around you. The idea is to 'gain a deeper understanding of your intuitive abilities, heal past wounds and transform your life for the better'. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews If it all sounds a bit woo-woo, that's because it is. But it is nevertheless a tantalising prospect. Have you ever had a day that you've known from the start was going to go wrong? The day you ended up on a rail replacement bus service (four words to send a chill down any spine) and thought: I knew I should have taken the car. In her new book, Day says she wants to help us harness that gut instinct. This can be done, she says, with 'just a moment or a tiny change'. But it's mostly a book about how you can hit rock-bottom and still get back up again. Her friend Demi Moore, of course, is the prime example. 'The Prism is actually best exemplified by what's happening with my friend Demi,' Day says. 'She was the biggest thing. And by the way, even when she wasn't working a lot, you still couldn't walk down the street without the paparazzi. But she is the Prism. When she was ready, she remade herself. What the Prism does is guide you to the superpower.' Day helped mastermind Moore's recent comeback to this year's awards successes. And what a comeback. After being one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, the Indecent Proposal and A Few Good Men actress had hit rock bottom. Her marriage to Ashton Kutcher had come to an end amid rumours that he cheated on her, she had descended into substance abuse, was not speaking to her children and had started drinking again. She was rarely in touch with her former husband, Bruce Willis. Aged 49 she was admitted to hospital after a drug overdose. Now she's winning awards and two years ago was present at the birth of her granddaughter which was 'incredible… so moving'. Day helped her rebuild, but it doesn't mean they have always got along. Moore says, 'We have a mutually bossy relationship. We've argued. And if you've experienced Laura, she's like, 'I don't want any information!' ' I have experienced Laura. I've known her and her husband, Stephen Schiff — an American scriptwriter (American Assassin and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) and producer — for several years. She's glamorous — the nails, the hair — in a way that it seems only New York women are allowed to be. She's also very blunt. We first met when we were both invited to lunch at the Ivy in London by a mutual friend — an American living in London who thought we would get along — at the end of 2019. What my friend didn't know at the time was that I had just applied for a new position in the US and my plan, known only to my potential future employers and my husband, was that if I got it we would move to the US. I was yet to be offered the role but was feeling quietly confident. That is, until I met Day. I have never asked for 'a reading' but I had barely sat down at the table before she told me, 'You're thinking you're going to move everything out to America, but you're not. It's not going to happen.' OK. Rude. I smiled weakly. Day then changed the subject as if nothing had happened. She was right. I didn't get the job. Covid hit and the role evaporated. While she didn't predict a widespread pandemic that day, Day later told me that she had bulk-bought hundreds of face masks before there was even the merest hint of the virus. In the years since, she has passed on some good news to me with her unbidden predictions. It's sometimes vague, so you can read it how you like, but it's fair to say that she hasn't been wrong yet. She puts her psychic skills down to a terrible childhood, something she has in common with Moore. While writing her 2019 autobiography, Inside Out, Moore told her rags-to-riches, nothing-to-lose story of finding fame and fortune after an abusive start in life. She was brought up by peripatetic, alcoholic parents who were always trying to get ahead of the debt collectors. Moore was raped at the age of 15 by a man who let himself in to her apartment after paying her mother $500 for the key. 'Our relationship is really bonded,' says Moore of her friendship with Day. 'I do think we have some shared trauma in common. I think in many respects we are both motherless daughters.' Day's story is just as horrific. In one chapter of The Prism she deals with her own family trauma, including a harrowing detail about how her mother died by suicide (only after reprimanding her for foiling one of her previous attempts). Other close members of her family also took their own lives. 'I learnt to be intuitive because I had a mother who sought death the way other people seek love. And I, from the time I was a baby, kept my intuitive eye predictably on her. I had an uncle who suicided, a mother who suicided, a sister who suicided, a brother who suicided. I mean, I certainly could have gone a very different way. But you take what you have and you make what you want out of it.' Day has an expression that 'survivors aren't pretty people', by which she means that the wounds may heal but the scars never leave. However, neither Day nor Moore wish to dwell on trauma. Day is disdainful of the modern obsession with dredging up the past. She says: 'I go on Instagram and I see all of these techniques that say, 'Here's your trauma. Do this 20 minutes a day to make it manageable. Find your trauma.' No, make your life good. Do something in your life you want. Go for a goal. Your trauma will be front and centre. Don't worry, you don't have to look for it.' Day's no-nonsense approach sometimes ruffles feathers. Moore says, 'She has been very clear about not doing things. I appreciate that she doesn't people-please. She doesn't tell you what she knows you want to hear.' Did Day warn Moore that she would win the Golden Globe but not the Oscar earlier this year? 'I didn't ask her to predict anything of the outcomes,' she says. 'I wouldn't have wanted to put the pressure on her. And also I really trusted what was happening for me, not to me.' Before she wrote The Prism, Day tested its tips and techniques on volunteers. She says, 'I always tell my students, 'You are your magic wand. You know, there's no fairy dust coming down from Heaven. What you do, how you think, how you interface, your willingness to change, how you tend to yourself, how you tend to your relationships, how you show up, how you bravely notice your deficits and get the information or training you need… That's all magic.' ' In other words, pull up your big girl pants and get on with it. Some of it is more down to common sense than a mystical prediction of the future. 'Another thing, and it's in the book, is our time zone,' Day says. 'You know why people live in the past or the future? It's because you don't have to do anything. When you're in the present, you actually need to do something. Most things that are worth doing are not that easy. Period. So get up and do it.' The Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future by Laura Day (Spiegel & Grau, £25) is out now. To order a copy go to or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Discount for Times+ members
Reuters
41 minutes ago
- Reuters
Industry video game actors pass agreement with studios for AI security
LOS ANGELES, July 9 (Reuters) - Hollywood video game voice and motion capture actors signed a new contract with video game studios on Wednesday with a focus on artificial intelligence protections, the actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, said in a press release, ending a near year-long strike. "AI was the centerpiece of our proposal package," video game voice actor and member of the negotiation committee Sarah Elmaleh told Reuters after the new agreement passed. Elmaleh, a voice actor for popular titles like "Final Fantasy XV" and "Call of Duty: Black Ops III," said she knew it was crucial to ensure there was a baseline for how to ethically use AI in the gaming industry. The new protections include consent and disclosure requirements for AI digital replica use and the ability for performers to suspend consent for the generation of new material during a strike. "This deal achieves important progress around AI protections, and progress is the name of the game," SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in the guild's statement. The deal applies to video game studios Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions and WB Games. The new Interactive Media Agreement, which goes into effect immediately, was approved by SAG-AFTRA members by a vote of 95.04% to 4.96%, ratifying the deal and ending the video game strike, which had been suspended pending ratification. The new contract also offers more performer safety measures, which was a specific concern for motion capture video game performers. "There are folks who not only give their voices to these characters, but their bodies, and they put their bodies on the line for these characters," Elmaleh said. Motion capture actors will have medics available during high-risk jobs. The deal also provides compounded increases in performer pay at a rate of 15.17% upon ratification plus additional 3% increases in November 2025, November 2026 and November 2027. The work stoppage of video game voice actors and motion-capture performers started following failed contract negotiations focused around AI-related protections for workers, bringing about another work stoppage in Hollywood following the dual writers' and actors' strikes in 2023. The strike brought a larger call to action across Hollywood as people in the industry advocate for a law that can protect them from AI risks. The NO FAKES Act, a bipartisan bill in Congress which would make it illegal to make an AI replica of someone's likeness and voice without their permission, has gained support from the SAG-AFTRA performers union, the Motion Picture Association, The Recording Academy and Disney.
