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Perth Now
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
‘It's unlike anything I've ever done before': Mark Hamill teases ‘sadistic' villain in The Long Walk
Mark Hamill has said his role as the Major in The Long Walk is 'unlike anything [he's] ever done before'. The 73-year-old actor stars as the antagonist in the upcoming movie adaptation of Stephen King's 1979 horror novel of the same name, and Hamill has now reflected on his 'sadistic' character. During an interview with Discussing Film, the Star Wars actor said: 'Well, he's amoral. I mean, for you to be able to do what he does … he's got to be some kind of sociopath. 'There's no sort of backstory for him, but you know he's a really troubled person. And sadistic and … just all those terrible things.' Hamill added The Long Walk was completely different to his other recent projects, like the Tom Hiddleston-starring fantasy film The Life of Chuck and the upcoming animated flick The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants. He continued: 'It's unlike anything I've ever done before and that's what I like. It's like Life of Chuck, which is aeons away from what I do in this. 'And then I'm doing a voice in The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants. I love that title, [it] sounds like it's important, but it's the same glorified nonsense that we've come to expect.' In The Long Walk, 100 teenage boys are forced to participate in a relentless walking contest where falling below a set pace means death. As the gruelling journey unfolds, the competitors face both physical torment and psychological collapse in a fight for survival. The movie - which was co-produced and directed by Francis Lawrence and written by J.T. Mollner - stars Cooper Hoffman, Ben Wang and Charlie Plummer, and is slated to hit screens on September 12, 2025. Hamill's Major is the military commander who oversees the walk, and the actor said he was drawn to the role after spending his teenage years in Japan, where his school was next to a U.S. military base. The Batman: The Animated Series star told Variety: 'I said, 'I know who this guy is: I've seen him firsthand'. I'd walk across the parking lot, seeing the officers putting these guys through their paces in blazing hot sun, and they were just brutal. Like if you vomit, they force you to eat it. It's horrible.' Reflecting on The Long Walk, Hamill said he hopes 'everyone will hate [his] guts' due to his portrayal as the Major. He told abc's On The Red Carpet: 'The premise is horrific and off-putting. But the real heart and soul is the story of these young guys and what they experience during the long walk. 'I'm just a bad a**. If I do my job right, everyone will hate my guts, that's okay.' Hamill's co-star Garrett Wareing - who portrays teen Stebbins in The Long Walk - warned the weight of the movie's emotional story would hit audiences hard. He said: 'It's freaky-gets me in my gut every time. That feeling doesn't leave you.'
The Irish Sun
4 days ago
- The Irish Sun
Paedo kidnapped me & kept me prisoner for months – I was tied to a bed, beaten & raped until tip-off saved me
AGED 13, Jessyca Mullenberg was abducted by a man who had been secretly abusing her for years. Now, 30 years after a TV show led to her rescue from his evil clutches, Jessyca, 43, reveals what happened during her months in captivity – and the lasting impact of her ordeal. Advertisement 6 Held captive for 105 days, Jessyca Mullenberg reflects on the trauma that changed her life forever (posed by model) Credit: Getty 6 Aged 13, Jessyca was abducted by a man who had been secretly abusing her for years Credit: Jessyca Mullenberg 6 Steven Oliver groomed and abducted Jessyca, keeping her captive for 105 days - he was later jailed for 40 years for his crimes Credit: abc Waking up, 13-year-old Jessyca Mullenberg looked down and was gripped with fear. 'I realised I was tied to the front seat of the car by brown rope,' she remembers. 'I was terrified.' She'd been abducted by Steven Oliver, a 39-year-old Advertisement Over the next 105 days, Jessyca would be subjected to multiple rapes, beatings and brainwashing. The nightmare would only come to an end when the FBI discovered her whereabouts after a tip-off. Today, 30 years on from finding herself at the centre of a kidnapping story that rocked America, Jessyca is a mum-of-two and a sexual abuse awareness advocate. She has dedicated herself to stopping any child going through what she did. Jessyca was eight years old when unmarried Oliver, then 34, came into her life. Advertisement He was a neighbour in the small town of Altoona, Wisconsin, where she lived with her mother Monica and stepfather Jake. Oliver worked as a teaching assistant at her school and was the father of one of her classmates, Ryan. Abducted in Plain Sight - Trailer for Netflix documentary about Jan Broberg, kidnapped twice by paedophile neighbour Robert Berchtold 'Oliver would invite me, my brothers and all the neighbourhood kids to his house to play football,' she says. 'Almost immediately, he started grooming me, first by making me sit on his lap.' He would make up a reason why Jessyca was in trouble and would tell her to go and stand in his kitchen, while everyone was still outside. Advertisement 'In the kitchen, he'd touch my breasts and bottom, and get me to touch him. If I did it wrong, he'd punch me,' she says. Over the coming months, the abuse in the kitchen escalated to forced oral sex and rape. 'I was eight, so I had no idea what he was doing to me,' explains Jessyca. 'He said if I told anyone, he'd kill my brothers and the rest of my family. I was so young that I totally believed him.' In the summer of 1993, after two years of abuse, Jessyca's family moved 100 miles across state because her stepfather had a new job. Advertisement 'I was so relieved, because I thought the abuse would stop,' she says. But Oliver was determined not to lose his grip on his young victim, so he began renting a trailer with Ryan close to her father's home – her parents had split when she was four and her father lived around 100 miles from Jessyca's new home. 'I stayed with my dad every weekend, and couldn't believe it the first time I visited and saw Oliver. His trailer was right across the road. I felt sick knowing he was so determined not to let me go.' Oliver, still working as a teacher's aide, found a new way to be alone with Jessyca, in order to continue abusing her. 'He told all the parents in my dad's neighbourhood he'd been selected by a publishing company to start a weekly writing workshop for kids. We'd all submit poems and short stories, we even did a play,' recalls Jessyca. Advertisement 'He'd single us out for one-to-one tuition, and mine was always longer, so the abuse just continued without anyone knowing. I was so scared of him.' In September 1995, when Jessyca was 13 and she'd been going to the 'workshop' for a few months, Oliver told her that one of her short stories had been chosen for publication, and they needed to travel 200 miles for a meeting at the publishing company's office. There was no way to escape – no one could hear me shouting Jessyca She says her father agreed to the trip, unaware he was handing his daughter over to her abuser. 'Even with everything that had been going on, I still believed the trip was real. Why would I not? Oliver had even fooled the adults,' she says. They left early in the morning, and Jessyca fell asleep, but when she woke up and discovered she was restrained, she realised there was no meeting – she'd been kidnapped. Oliver used the journey to ensure she memorised their cover story. Advertisement 'He told me he was my father 'Dave Johnson', and I was his daughter 'Cindy', and we were moving to start over our lives after my brother and mother had died in a car accident.' Oliver repeatedly told her what he'd do to her and her family if she tried to alert anyone to the kidnapping. 'We stopped on a bridge to take a break,' remembers Jessyca. 'He threw a rock over the bridge and told me that what happened to the rock would happen to my lifeless body if I said anything to anyone or tried to get away from him.' He held a pocket knife to my back and told me that if I screamed or shouted, he would kill me and then kill my family Jessyca After a nine-hour drive, they arrived at Kansas City airport in Missouri, where Oliver forced Jessyca on to a plane to Houston at knifepoint. 'He held a pocket knife to my back and told me that if I screamed or shouted, he would kill me and then kill my family,' says Jessyca. Advertisement 'He wouldn't have been able to do this today with all the security checks, but back then you could get a ticket under any name and didn't need proof of identity.' Once they landed, Oliver found them a cheap hotel to stay in, and he went about changing Jessyca's appearance so she wouldn't be recognised. 6 Jessyca's stepdad Jake and mum Monica, with a missing poster during the search for the abducted teen Credit: Getty 6 Jessyca, now 43, has devoted her life to preventing other children from enduring the same trauma she faced Credit: Marisa Wojcik/Leader-Telegram via AP 'He cut my hair short and dyed it from blonde to brunette,' she remembers. 'He also went clothes shopping and came back with lots of baggy clothes, which made me look like a boy.' Advertisement After two days, they moved to another hotel near Houston airport, and as they checked in, Oliver wasted no time telling staff his cover story about the fatal car accident and that they were a father and daughter down on their luck. The hotel staff took pity and asked if he'd be interested in a vacant position as a painter and decorator for the hotel. Agents kept asking me if I was Jessyca Mullenberg, but by then, that name didn't mean anything to me. Jessyca after being freed Oliver jumped at the opportunity, particularly because the position included free accommodation in a block of old, abandoned rooms that were separate from the rest of the hotel. Jessyca's heart sank as Oliver marched her towards one of the small, windowless rooms. 'I was locked inside day and night, there was no way to escape. We were in a part of the hotel where no one else was staying, so no one would hear me banging on the door or shouting,' she remembers. Advertisement When Oliver got back at night, he'd rape her, as well as hit her and tie her to the bed. In the first week of her captivity, Jessyca tried to call her home using the phone in the room while Oliver was working, but the calls never connected. 'It was an old rotary phone, and he'd switched all the numbers around, so I just kept dialling wrong numbers. 'I started to believe that my old life was slipping away, and I couldn't even remember my home number,' she says. Oliver tormented Jessyca psychologically, too, repeatedly telling her that her parents had given up searching for her. Advertisement But in fact, her desperate family had never stopped looking, and when they were told by the FBI that Oliver might have taken her out of the state, they printed thousands of missing person posters that were then attached to trucks travelling nationwide , in the hope someone might recognise her. In the end, it was an episode of prime-time TV show America's Most Wanted that would save Jessyca from Oliver's abuse. The show had featured her abduction earlier that year, but a repeat episode aired on the evening of December 28, 1995. One of the hotel staff was watching at home and recognised Oliver as the maintenance man staying in the hotel with the young girl he claimed was his daughter. The next morning, FBI stormed the hotel room, arrested Oliver and took Jessyca to safety. By that point, Oliver had completely brainwashed her. Advertisement 'Agents kept asking me if I was Jessyca Mullenberg, but by then, that name didn't mean anything to me.' Dr Darrel Turner is a forensic psychologist who specialises in predatory behaviour and has consulted for the FBI. He says: 'The more an offender can diminish the child's frame of reference of what's normal and what's not, the more impact they will have on the victim and their ability to appreciate what's happening to them.' Darrel adds: 'It's similar to the abductions of Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart, who were also just children when they were removed from their family homes and isolated so that the perpetrators could exploit the power differential that exists and exert their terrible influence. "This and the trauma Jessyca had experienced explains her lack of memory.' Advertisement After hours of talking and them showing photos of my family, I finally remembered what my real name was. Jessyca after being freed 'After hours of talking and them showing photos of my family, I finally remembered what my real name was,' recalls Jessyca. By the time her mother's plane had touched down in Houston the following afternoon, she was beginning to comprehend just what had happened to her during those 105 days in Oliver's clutches. 'It's pure ecstasy,' said her mother Monica when the pair were reunited at the airport. 'We waited so long for the nightmare to be done. We've waited for the miracle to happen.' Bravely, Jessyca agreed to testify at Oliver's trial in 1996, and gave a graphic account of what had happened to her in the time she'd been kept captive. Oliver was sentenced to 40 years in prison for kidnapping and interstate transportation of a minor for illegal sexual purposes. He's still in jail to this day, aged 68. Advertisement Unfortunately, Jessyca's trauma didn't end with Oliver's imprisonment, and as well as the mental scars he'd inflicted, there were physical ones. 'In my early 20s, I needed jaw surgery, because he had hit me so hard in the face, so many times, that my bones began to deteriorate, making it very hard to talk or eat, and I was suffering from non-stop headaches every day,' she says. Jessyca also suffers from severe PTSD and experiences flashbacks of her ordeal. 'I have a fear of flying after being forced to board the plane in Kansas City,' she says. 'I also can't stand the smell of cigarettes or coffee, because he constantly smelled of those things.' He hit me so hard in the face so many times, I needed jaw surgery Jessyca However, Jessyca's determination not to let Oliver hold any further power over her has been a constant in her life since. Advertisement She went on to study at college and graduated with a degree in psychology, criminal justice and law enforcement. And then, in 2018, she was given the prestigious Hope Award by the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children. Jessyca is now married to tech manager Curt, 48, and despite fears she may not be able to conceive due to the unrelenting sexual assaults she suffered at the hands of Oliver, she defied the odds and has two children of her own. However, as she explains, being a mum can also bring its own terrors. 'When they were growing up, I was waiting for my five-year-old daughter at the school bus stop, but she never got off and the bus driver didn't see her get on. Advertisement "I called my husband, panicking, and rushed to the school in tears. "Thankfully, she was at a school event and there had been a misunderstanding about what time she'd be home, but it was a harrowing experience for me.' But Jessyca is determined that Oliver won't take any more from her life than he has already and is passionate about continuing her advocacy work. 'I speak about what I went through to educate people about the signs of abuse, so it can be stopped early and perpetrators can be caught. "I simply won't let Oliver win. I want to devote my life to preventing another little boy or girl from going through the hell that I did.' Advertisement 6 Despite fears her ordeal would prevent her from having children, Jessyca now has two kids with husband Curt
Elle
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Elle
Selena Gomez Wears Little Black Miu Miu Dress With Velvet Bow Detail
THE RUNDOWN On Thursday, Selena Gomez shared some photos from her appearance on Match Game with Cara Delevingne wearing a black Miu Miu dress. The simple satin form-fitting look was topped with a velvet bow that criss-crossed her chest and over her shoulders, creating a racerback effect. In the caption of behind-the-scenes photos, she wrote, 'I realized I didn't post Marty lol HOWEVER thank you for having all of us on MATCH GAME on abc.' Her stylist, Erin Walsh, shared more shots of the full look, including the earrings and ring jewelry from Agapée. The Only Murders in the Building star was wearing her hair down in a sleek lob with a center part and had on a pale pink manicure. For makeup, the star was wearing her own Rare Beauty line with cat eyeliner, brown eyeshadow, and a warm pink lip. Shortly after sharing the new carousel, Gomez posted a shot of herself de-glammed, walking down the street in Los Angeles with her fiancé, Benny Blanco. They were both wearing comfortable hoodies, with Gomez in white and Blanco in bright blue with Hawaiian shorts. The singer had on a pair of black sunglasses and made a face towards the camera. The couple got engaged in December 2024 and have reportedly already sent out invitations to the wedding. In a joint Rolling Stone interview in March, Blanco joked about planning the big event, saying, 'I think every day she's planned a new wedding in her head. We're very much 'take it one day at a time'-type of people. We're still not over this moment. Literally, while you were talking, she was sitting there staring at her ring.' Blanco added, 'It feels like we got engaged yesterday, but also feels like we got engaged 20 years ago. I've known her since she was 18, and so it's like we got all that stuff out of the way. By the time we're dating, it's like, whoa. My biggest regret is that we didn't get to do this earlier, like we waited this long to be together. But I know it was perfect and it was right.'
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
LeAnn Rimes to star in '9-1-1: Nashville' with Kimberly Williams-Paisley and more
LeAnn Rimes has been cast in the upcoming series " 9-1-1: Nashville." The country singer will join the new drama as a series regular, according to an ABC press release Thursday. The press release stated that the new series, the latest installment in the "9-1-1" franchise, is set in Music City and "explores the high-stakes lives of first responders in one of America's most iconic cultural hubs." Ryan Murphy is a co-executive producer and co-writer on the show with Tim Minear and Rashad Raisani. Chris O'Donnell, Brad Buecker, Brad Falchuk and Angela Bassett are also co-executive producers. In addition to Rimes, "9-1-1: Nashville" will star O'Donnell, Jessica Capshaw and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. "Somebody call 911 (nashville) 🚒," Rimes wrote in the caption of an Instagram post Thursday. "The secret's out! i'm super excited to be joining @ryanmurphyproductions 9-1-1: Nashville alongside @chrisodonnell, @jessicacapshaw & @kimberlywilliamspaisley. i can't wait for you to meet my character. we're going to have some FUN!! here's to a new adventure!" Williams-Paisley celebrated the new series in a separate Instagram post Thursday, writing, "YE-HAW!! I'm thrilled to be joining the cast of 9-1-1 Nashville alongside @chrisodonnell @jessicacapshaw and @leannrimes!!" She continued, "Thanks so much to @ryanmurphyproductions and @abc for bringing me into the fold. I'm also really excited to be working in my own backyard! 🎊✨❤️."
NDTV
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Grey's Anatomy Star Ellen Pompeo Gets Honoured With A Star On The Hollywood Walk Of Fame
Quick Take Summary is AI generated, newsroom reviewed. Ellen Pompeo received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 29, 2025. Pompeo was joined by family, co-stars, and creator Shonda Rhimes at the ceremony Rhimes praised Pompeo's talent and impact in a heartfelt Instagram post. New Delhi: Ellen Pompeo has a massive fan following owing to her iconic character as Meredith Grey in the medical drama series Grey's Anatomy. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was long due for the actress. She was honoured on April 29, 2025, in the Television Category. Ellen looked as happy as ever as she posed at the ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard. She had her loved ones by her side on this special occasion, her husband Chris Ivery and their kids Stella and Elli. Her Grey's Anatomy showrunner Shonda Rhimes who has a huge role to play in this milestone, was also present. Her Grey's Anatomy co-stars James Pickens Jr, Scott Speedman, and Debbie Allen were also present. View this post on Instagram A post shared by ABC (@abc) Shonda Rhimes took to Instagram to share a long post for her friend. She wrote, "Today, the world honors what I've known for years: @ellenpompeo is a star. A force. A light. A woman who carried 21 seasons (!!) with grace and unmatched talent. She's fierce, funny, thoughtful, and deeply caring - a kind friend, a brilliant actor, and an incredible mom. She's a director. She's a producer. She's a role model." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shonda Rhimes (@shondarhimes) Furthermore, Shonda added, "She's literally all of the things! And that intelligence, that savvy, that fearlessness is why we're here today. Ellen, you are a living, breathing icon. You never needed a star to prove it... but it sure is nice to see the truth written in stone. Congratulations, my friend!"
