Latest news with #GretaScacchi
Wales Online
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
'Brilliant' crime drama is a must-watch for fans of BBC's Death in Paradise
'Brilliant' crime drama is a must-watch for fans of BBC's Death in Paradise The Australia-set TV drama first landed on screens back in 2022 and stars actors Greta Scacchi and Bryan Brown If you miss having new episodes of Death in Paradise to look forward to, this Australia-set crime drama could be the perfect replacement. Darby and Joan first landed on TV screens back in 2022 before returning with a second season in 2024. The drama stars Greta Scacchi and Bryan Brown, and has proven to be a hit with TV fans. The series follows retired Australian detective Jack Darby (Bryan) and widowed English nurse, Joan Kirkhope (Greta), as they form an unlikely partnership while searching for answers surrounding her husband's death. Darby and Joan is currently airing on U&Drama, but is also available to stream on U in the UK. Darby and Joan first aired in 2022 before returning with a second season in 2024 (Image: Vince Valitutti/AcornTV ) Article continues below Channel 4 Gogglebox sign up two huge names for final episode of Celebrity series READ MORE: The synopsis reads: "Widowed English nurse Joan Kirkhope is on a quest to find answers about her husband's mysterious death, while ex-detective Jack Darby has taken to the open road to escape his past. "But when they collide in the Australian outback and become drawn into a series of mysteries, this unlikely investigative duo soon realises the most intriguing puzzle they face is each other." Jolene Anderson also stars in the series. Guest stars in the first season include Heather Mitchell, Anna McGahan, John Waters, Angie Milliken, Caroline Gillmer, and Casey Donovan. Season two welcomes the likes of Sigrid Thornton, Brett Climo, John Jarratt, Debra Lawrence, and Miriama Smith as guest stars. Each series consists of eight episodes and was created by Glenys Rowe and Phillip Gwynne, with scenes filmed in Queensland. The series stars Greta Scacchi and Bryan Brown (Image: Vince Valitutti/AcornTV ) Fans have praised Darby and Joan on social media, branding it "excellent" and a "pleasure to watch". "Just finished watching the excellent second season of #DarbyAndJoan on #AcornTV. Likeable characters, fun mysteries, and gorgeous scenery that makes us want to drive the open roads of Australia! Here's hoping there will be another season," one person wrote. A second TV fan added: "Where is #DarbyAndJoan S3? This little gem could be the #DowntonAbbey of #DownUnder; seriously, not kidding." Article continues below Meanwhile, a third viewer wrote: "The ABC's #DarbyAndJoan has a very Death in Paradise vibe to it," while another simply said: "Good acting, great story, just a pleasure to watch." Darby and Joan is available to watch on Drama on Wednesdays at 8pm, and is available to stream on U.
Telegraph
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
When was the last time you found a sex scene sexy?
Back in the day, the actress Greta Scacchi had something of a reputation for 'getting her kit off' on camera. That was the term we all used in the 1990s, and it wasn't so much sexist as highlighting a terribly British, jolly hockeysticks approach to sex. Come on, old thing. Last one to the marital bedchamber's a lemon, that sort of thing. The term popped back into my head this week for the first time in years. Scacchi, a very good actress as well as a paragon of soft-focus eroticism, has been back in the news, telling Radio Times that she finds modern sex scenes, 'the explicit rutting stuff' as she calls it, deeply unsettling. At the height of Scacchi's career – when she appeared with Tim Robbins in The Player, with Charles Dance in White Mischief and with Harrison Ford in Presumed Innocent – everything was very gentle, 'made to look beautiful and slowed down' as Scacchi said. Sex on screen at the time tended to be heralded by a bit of light jazz (often a saxophone) and conducted with tasteful arrangements of Egyptian cotton, the actor's modesty often artfully concealed. Was this good sex? Not exactly – it was inoffensive, and almost as laughable as the act itself, despite the general degree of decorum. Except we now know from the era that such scenes were not always very nice for those involved. While Scacchi was unscathed, there must have been plenty of actresses who had horrible experiences. Julia Roberts has always demanded that anything sexy be toned down, but few women have her clout. There is no doubt that any on-screen nudity from that era, no matter how convivial the circumstances, was all at the behest of a middle-aged director who was either fulfilling their fantasies or had an eye on the commercial big time. In the cold light of day, these old sex scenes feel like part of a wider power trip. Things have changed, as Scacchi points out, but the drift away from the fluffy loveliness of the 1990s has not been straightforward. You would imagine that in the wake of the Me Too movement sex scenes might not have much of a place in film and television, but this is not the case. Indeed, it often feels like there is more sex on screen than ever before, and that modern phenomenon, the intimacy co-ordinator, has their work cut out ensuring that sensitive thespians are entirely comfortable with making the beast with two backs. The end result is not neutered but often quite violent (think of Tom Hollander and Leo Woodall in The White Lotus or Emilia Clarke and Jason Momoa in Game of Thrones) which makes you wonder whether the majority of intimacy co-ordinators are, essentially, sado-masochists. Of course, they, as well as the directors and probably the actors, may well suggest that the end result is due to a sort of artistic quest, a search for emotional truth, but ultimately such scenes seem hardly less ridiculous than those carried out with soft-lighting and a burst of Kenny G. In the worst cases, the sex scenes of today veer dangerously close to pornography, which makes you wonder why the hell the actors agreed to do them in the first place. The truth is that most sex scenes are unnecessary, and it is not as if they are even serving the dirty mac brigade. I remember hearing stories of Channel 4's infamous red triangle; a warning given at the start of any programme during the mid-1980s that included risqué content, and a fillip for the lonely men of the nation (I imagine it was mainly men whose interest was piqued by the promise of a piece of mid-1970s Swedish arthouse erotica). Such needs are now pointless given that we can all seem the most extreme sexual acts on the internet. So is there ever any need for sex on screen? I would suggest that the old cliché about such shenanigans being 'integral to the plot' is only occasionally true, and usually the most effective sex scenes are not about sex at all. I dread to mention Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972) because we now know that Maria Schneider was treated abominably by the director who had decided not to tell her what Marlon Brando was about to do with a tub of Lurpak. But if we set aside the fact that Schneider was essentially being forced into filming a simulated rape while an entire crew watched her, it is a very effective scene which shows the extent to which someone who is incredibly damaged (Brando's character Paul) will try and make someone as damaged as they are (Schneider's character Jeanne). Then there is its near-contemporary Don't Look Now (1973), Nic Roeg's masterpiece about a couple (played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) who travel to Venice after their daughter's death. What we would now call something naff like 'the grieving process' is punctuated by supernatural sightings and the most famous sex scene in history which seems to last a lifetime. It is tasteful, but unlike the noodling of 90s erotica, it feels psychologically real, as two people remain unable to articulate their lingering pain through words. There was no such thing as an intimacy co-ordinator in 1973; and it is telling that Roeg remained friends with both actors. Above all, he managed to do the undoable – he made a film that was actually sexy. The intimacy co-ordinators of today with their dreams of 'explicit rutting' should go back to their day jobs.
Telegraph
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Greta Scacchi: Sex scenes used to be beautiful ... now they're just odd
Sex scenes have degenerated from soft focus and beautiful in the 1980s to 'explicit rutting' today, according to Greta Scacchi. The actress, who made her name playing a string of femmes fatales, said the portrayal of sex had changed for the worse and was now an ugly thing to watch. 'In my 20s, the female voice was still struggling to emerge, directors were mostly male and simulated love-making was obligatory. But in the '80s, it was soft focus and made to look beautiful and slowed down, whereas now I find it really gratuitous – this explicit rutting stuff is very odd to see. 'I find it so uninteresting, ugly and very compromising for the actors,' said 65-year-old Scacchi. 'It sounds funny coming from me, because I got labelled for nudity and sex scenes, but I don't believe it was a deserved label.' Speaking to Radio Times, the British-Italian star of White Mischief and Presumed Innocent said that she would not have benefited from an intimacy coordinator when she started her career. 'No, I don't at all. Actors don't want to be choreographed into positions unless there's a real antipathy or a communication problem. Luckily, I didn't have that. 'Charles Dance on White Mischief was a very disciplined actor and so am I – we could talk and be frank,' she said. 'We were both, at the time, very beautiful and confident about ourselves physically. He was always very considerate and made sure I was comfortable.' Scacchi said the only discomfort she ever felt was with voyeuristic directors. 'That's where you need the intimacy coordinator,' she said. Her children were teased over her sex scenes, and the actress speculated that it must be '100 times worse for the kids today' because such scenes can be taken out of context and plastered all over social media. She turned down the chance to star in Basic Instinct, rejecting it as a 'male fantasy'. The role went to Sharon Stone. Scacchi is now appearing in Darby and Joan, a cosy crime drama in which she plays a widowed English nurse who teams up with an Australian ex-detective, played by Bryan Brown. The pair have a will-they-won't-they relationship, but Scacchi said she and Brown had refused to entertain the idea of a love scene, given the age of their characters. She revealed that there was tension between the actors and the writers, because the latter wanted to 'sneak a French kiss into an episode' and had also written a scene in which the two share a bed platonically on one occasion. Scacchi explained: 'If you're in your 60s or 70s and you have a kiss or a spoon, the landscape would change forever. The writer was saying, 'We don't want to show these people as being old and unable to enjoy a one-night stand,' and I said, 'Well, we don't enjoy a one-night stand'. 'One day, Bryan and I saw there was an intimacy coordinator booked and we had to say, 'Sorry, you've come under false pretences. It's not happening.''
Daily Mirror
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Eighties film icon unimpressed by 'gratuitous' modern day sex scenes
Greta Scacchi did not hold back on her thoughts on bedroom scenes and intimacy coordinators English-Italian actor Greta Scacchi says she wouldn't have benefited from an intimacy coordinator when she started her career in the 80s in Hollywood films including White Mischief, Heat and Dust and The Player. Asked if it would have helped, Greta, 65, said: 'I don't at all. Actors don't want to be choreographed into positions unless there's a real antipathy or a communication problem. Luckily, I didn't have that. The most discomfort I've had in those situations was with directors and their own… appetites, let's say. It sometimes gets muddied by voyeurism, and that leads to us being shown stuff that a lot of us don't want to see. That's where you need the intimacy coordinator.' Since 2022 Greta's screen appearances have been a little different. In cozy Australian murder mystery Darby and Joan on U&Drama in the UK, she stars as widowed English nurse Joan Kirkhope. She teams up with Australian ex-detective Jack Darby (played by Bryan Brown). The pair have a will-they, won't-they relationship in the series but Greta says both actors think it would be a mistake if their characters got together. Asked if things have changed today on TV, Greta highlighted in the Radio Times that sex scenes on screen were now very different. She said: 'In my 20s, the female voice was still struggling to emerge, directors were mostly male and simulated lovemaking was obligatory. But in the 80s, it was soft focus and made to look beautiful and slowed down, whereas now I find it really gratuitous – this explicit rutting stuff is very odd to see. I find it so uninteresting, ugly and very compromising for the actors. It sounds funny coming from me, because I got labelled for nudity and sex scenes, but I don't believe it was a deserved label. 'I had a bed scene with Laurence Olivier [in 1984's The Ebony Tower] and that's where it started. I got that label. It made me wish I'd used a stage name.' Last year when promoting her work for Netflix show Bodies, Greta also looked back at her earlier work on screen. She told the Guardian: 'It was very clear to me even then that I was always being invited to play a male fantasy. I had to work very hard to punch some integrity into the idea of being a woman when I was placed inside that male gaze. "I've seen that change a lot, and there are so many more female directors getting attention, which is great, but the way older women get portrayed is often still very odd. Where are the glamorous – or even not glamorous – representations of today's older women? Where are the women who went through women's lib?' Greta was born in Milan, Italy but spent her childhood in England. She began working in theatre when she spent two years of her teens in Australia, where she began working in theatre. Her films include White Mischief, The Player and Emma. In 2024 Scacchi played Mrs Hardcastle in a 1930s-style update of Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer at the Orange Tree theatre, Richmond. On theatre work, she said: 'It's like my sacred space. As you get older, life itself continues to throw more challenges and dramas your way, and doing theatre, with its pace, its timings of rehearsals and its rules, makes me feel a bit more in control.' Greta has been in two long term relationships that resulted in children. She had a four year relationship with actor Vincent D'Onofrio, with whom she has a daughter named Leila George. They split soon after they had their first child in 1992. The split reportedly left her so distraught she was unable to work for four years - just when her Hollywood career was taking off. Later, she began a relationship with her first cousin, Carlo Mantegazza, and they have a son Matteo, born in 1997. This relationship ended more than a decade ago but was only confirmed years later in 2022 by her publicist. * The full interview with Greta is in the Radio Times, out now.
