Trust the first ladies of thr world to make strong, impressive fashion statements wherever they go!

Boris Johnson's wife Carrie Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron's partner Brigitte sure know how to make heads turn at global events such as the G20 summit in Rome.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-alec-baldwin-calls-movie-shooting-death-one-in-a-trillion-episode-425444" hreflang="en">Alec Baldwin calls movie shooting death 'one in a trillion episode'</a>

In light of husband Boris Johnson's eco plea at COP26 on Sunday, pregnant Carrie Johnson recycled a red blazer, which she teamed with a floral dress and kitten heels.

Another first lady who stood out for her impeccable fashion sense was Begona Sanchez, the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. She stepped out in a plaid cropped blazer, matching flared pleated skirt and nude sock boots.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-will-smith-considered-committing-suicide-mentally-i-was-somewhere-else-425244" hreflang="en">Will Smith considered committing suicide: Mentally, I was somewhere else</a>

Rocking the Parisan style, yet again, is French first lady Brigitte Macron. For the occasion, &nbsp;she was seen sporting a navy and black silk shirt, a pleated maxi skirt and power heels.&nbsp;

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Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-wion-exclusive-kubbra-sait-we-are-rushing-representation-it-needs-to-have-a-narrative-425263" hreflang="en">WION exclusive: Kubbra Sait: We are in a rush for representation</a>

Trust the first ladies of thr world to make strong, impressive fashion statements wherever they go! Boris Johnson's wife Carrie Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron's partner Brigitte sure know how to make heads turn at global events such as the G20 summit in Rome.

Trust the first ladies of thr world to make strong, impressive fashion statements wherever they go! Boris Johnson's wife Carrie Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron's partner Brigitte sure know how to make heads turn at global events such as the G20 summit in Rome. Also read: Alec Baldwin calls movie shooting death 'one in a trillion episode' In light of husband Boris Johnson's eco plea at COP26 on Sunday, pregnant Carrie Johnson recycled a red blazer, which she teamed with a floral dress and kitten heels. Another first lady who stood out for her impeccable fashion sense was Begona Sanchez, the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. She stepped out in a plaid cropped blazer, matching flared pleated skirt and nude sock boots. Also read: Will Smith considered committing suicide: Mentally, I was somewhere else Rocking the Parisan style, yet again, is French first lady Brigitte Macron. For the occasion, she was seen sporting a navy and black silk shirt, a pleated maxi skirt and power heels. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Melisma Cox (@melismetta) × Also read: WION exclusive: Kubbra Sait: We are in a rush for representation

Dressed to impress! Carrie Johnson, Brigitte Macron look uber stylish at G20 summit

Dance is both the central theme and a lens to inspect contemporary culture in “Kandis Williams: A Line,” the debut New York solo exhibition of the multimedia artist and the inaugural presentation of 52 Walker, the new space that the David Zwirner gallery has opened in Tribeca.

 
Large-scale collages on grid-lined paper mingle archival photographs of dancers and choreographers — some recognizable to aficionados, such as Alvin Ailey, George Balanchine and Martha Graham — with photographs Williams made in her studio. There, she worked with three Black dancers versed in ballet and modern dance, exploring how they have learned within but also resisted the enduring racial and gender conventions of their training. Some of the collages are marked with annotations, the artist thinking out loud about affect, performance and politics.

 
A video installation, presented on six squat old-school monitors, shows a dancer following lines on a studio floor, working through routines that Williams choreographed, as archival video flickers on a background screen within each screen. Tall plants set about the gallery appear to break the theme, but on close inspection, they are artificial, some leaves imprinted with eyes or colored in flesh tones, returning attention to the body.

 
Williams, 36, grew up in Baltimore and lately has divided time between Berlin and Los Angeles, where she recently won the Hammer Museum’s $100,000 Mohn Award. She is an artist who draws connections; her first museum solo, recently at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, explored migration, tobacco plantations, prison farms and tango. An inveterate researcher, she shares sources and intellectual inspirations in photocopied readers and zines she publishes through Cassandra Press, the imprint she co-founded. Later in the run, the exhibition will add a library area where visitors may browse or borrow pertinent texts.

 
The exhibition keynotes an experimental, even exacting, program that curator Ebony Haynes has set for 52 Walker, a kunsthalle-like venue where shows will run for several months. We visited with Williams and Haynes to talk about dance history, the foregrounding of Black dancers in today’s popular culture, and Williams’ growing interest in choreography. The conversation has been condensed and edited.

 
Siddhartha Mitter: Kandis, what drew you to examine dance so closely now?

 
Williams: Dance is so reflective of social scripts and social impulses that we don’t feel that we have to name but that become wrapped in characters and fictions and passed along as mimetic educational tools for how we are supposed to interact.

 
And we’re in a moment right now. Last year saw a proliferation of us, especially in Black communities worldwide, trying to disassociate and disidentify from caricature, state-sanctioned violence, social scripts that have been destructive to our community. And I don’t think it’s coincidental that we now see, in our art markets and commercial markets, a renewed interest in positioning Black bodies and dancers. Black TikTokers, for example, are pervasively appropriated.

 
Siobhan Burke: We’re also seeing more Black ballet dancers in corporate advertising.

 
Williams: The rush of diversity and inclusion campaigns has put performing Black bodies in places that have to negotiate racist performative expectations and anti-racist sentiments simultaneously. [Dance scholar] Brenda Dixon Gottschild says that the Black body keeps the measure of popular culture.

 
Mitter: Your new collages have titles that abound with references to dance history and ideas. One includes the line “Between cult and theater lies the stage as a moral institution.”

 
Williams: That’s a quote from Oskar Schlemmer, the theorist and propmaster of the Bauhaus theater. When he calls the stage a moral institution, it raises the question of how indebted our social structures are to the lines of the modern theater — and by extension media, which has become a stage. The scholar Katherine McKittrick demonstrates how much visual hierarchy goes back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and how as a result almost every unit of popular measure is some evidence of white supremacy, and thereby some level of erasure. Shakespeare says all the world’s a stage, but whose stage?

 
Mitter: The collages include photographs you made of three dancers you worked with: Catherine Kirk, Damond Garner and Natasha Diamond-Walker. What did that interaction consist of?

 
Williams: I brought them into the studio, and we talked through what forms and shapes their bodies fit, what techniques they’ve been versed in. I think it’s a common conversation in dance that maybe Black dancers and Black body types have certain phenotypic traits that deem them better suited to certain roles or positions. We thought through what their bodies have to go through, or feel, in certain attitudes or techniques.

 
Mitter: So you’re thinking of the way they’ve been trained —

 
Williams: And the accumulation of that training. When I’m directing, I’m sort of directing within that index of muscular and reflexive conditioning. But I’m also working with a person, a person who might hurt themselves in certain attitudes or techniques, or who might really enjoy the pain of certain positions. 
Burke: In the video installation, Natasha Diamond-Walker moves across a stage marked with lines. How did you generate the movement?

 
Williams: Those are all very particular movements. Each, literally point A to point B, is a set of three movements that hit the center, turn into another movement and then finish at the end of the line. I’m using a host of vernacular dance movements: for example, take a part of the [Native American] Buffalo Dance, into a particular kind of jazz motif, into a tree pose. Relying on Natasha’s Martha Graham training, we built a choreography that was both concise and hybrid.

 
Burke: You went into this show with the idea of creating a dance notation — a system of symbols for documenting movement — but ended up going in a different direction.

 
Williams: The idea of a notation is such a fraught space. Because notation so often denies the interiority of the dancer — it flattens the entire experience to the dynamics of the stage. So what I’m kind of doing here is riding the two sides of that line: a notation that could maybe contemplate the dualism of the experience of being a performative Black body.

 
I feel like with this show, I’ve crossed the stage. It’s going to be nice to do more choreographic and performance work.

 
Mitter: Your projects involve extensive and time-consuming research. What are some of your sources for the dance work?

 
Williams: I’m kind of married to this practice at this point, so it feels like good quality time. The Jerome Robbins Dance Division [of the New York Public Library] has been really great. The Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art — I’m trying to shout out my sources! Jacob’s Pillow has a really cool interactive dance website.

 
Mitter: Ebony, how does “A Line” set the tone for the program you want to build?

 
Haynes: As a director and curator, this is what you work for — to work with artists that you respect, and learn something along the way. Nothing’s tied up in a fine bow at the end; that’s not what I’m striving for. I’m trying to do something that hopefully affords more time to produce but also to be in the space. I want to invite people to come in, talk with me, sit with the work. You see it once, but maybe you come back and see it again.

Dance is both the central theme and a lens to inspect contemporary culture in “Kandis Williams: A Line,” the debut New York solo exhibition of the multimedia artist and the inaugural presentation of 52 Walker, the new space that the David Zwirner gallery has opened in Tribeca.

Dance is both the central theme and a lens to inspect contemporary culture in “Kandis Williams: A Line,” the debut New York solo exhibition of the multimedia artist and the inaugural presentation of 52 Walker, the new space that the David Zwirner gallery has opened in Tribeca. Large-scale collages on grid-lined paper mingle archival photographs of dancers and choreographers — some recognizable to aficionados, such as Alvin Ailey, George Balanchine and Martha Graham — with photographs Williams made in her studio. There, she worked with three Black dancers versed in ballet and modern dance, exploring how they have learned within but also resisted the enduring racial and gender conventions of their training. Some of the collages are marked with annotations, the artist thinking out loud about affect, performance and politics. A video installation, presented on six squat old-school monitors, shows a dancer following lines on a studio floor, working through routines that Williams choreographed, as archival video flickers on a background screen within each screen. Tall plants set about the gallery appear to break the theme, but on close inspection, they are artificial, some leaves imprinted with eyes or colored in flesh tones, returning attention to the body. Williams, 36, grew up in Baltimore and lately has divided time between Berlin and Los Angeles, where she recently won the Hammer Museum’s $100,000 Mohn Award. She is an artist who draws connections; her first museum solo, recently at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, explored migration, tobacco plantations, prison farms and tango. An inveterate researcher, she shares sources and intellectual inspirations in photocopied readers and zines she publishes through Cassandra Press, the imprint she co-founded. Later in the run, the exhibition will add a library area where visitors may browse or borrow pertinent texts. The exhibition keynotes an experimental, even exacting, program that curator Ebony Haynes has set for 52 Walker, a kunsthalle-like venue where shows will run for several months. We visited with Williams and Haynes to talk about dance history, the foregrounding of Black dancers in today’s popular culture, and Williams’ growing interest in choreography. The conversation has been condensed and edited. Siddhartha Mitter: Kandis, what drew you to examine dance so closely now? Williams: Dance is so reflective of social scripts and social impulses that we don’t feel that we have to name but that become wrapped in characters and fictions and passed along as mimetic educational tools for how we are supposed to interact. And we’re in a moment right now. Last year saw a proliferation of us, especially in Black communities worldwide, trying to disassociate and disidentify from caricature, state-sanctioned violence, social scripts that have been destructive to our community. And I don’t think it’s coincidental that we now see, in our art markets and commercial markets, a renewed interest in positioning Black bodies and dancers. Black TikTokers, for example, are pervasively appropriated. Siobhan Burke: We’re also seeing more Black ballet dancers in corporate advertising. Williams: The rush of diversity and inclusion campaigns has put performing Black bodies in places that have to negotiate racist performative expectations and anti-racist sentiments simultaneously. [Dance scholar] Brenda Dixon Gottschild says that the Black body keeps the measure of popular culture. Mitter: Your new collages have titles that abound with references to dance history and ideas. One includes the line “Between cult and theater lies the stage as a moral institution.” Williams: That’s a quote from Oskar Schlemmer, the theorist and propmaster of the Bauhaus theater. When he calls the stage a moral institution, it raises the question of how indebted our social structures are to the lines of the modern theater — and by extension media, which has become a stage. The scholar Katherine McKittrick demonstrates how much visual hierarchy goes back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and how as a result almost every unit of popular measure is some evidence of white supremacy, and thereby some level of erasure. Shakespeare says all the world’s a stage, but whose stage? Mitter: The collages include photographs you made of three dancers you worked with: Catherine Kirk, Damond Garner and Natasha Diamond-Walker. What did that interaction consist of? Williams: I brought them into the studio, and we talked through what forms and shapes their bodies fit, what techniques they’ve been versed in. I think it’s a common conversation in dance that maybe Black dancers and Black body types have certain phenotypic traits that deem them better suited to certain roles or positions. We thought through what their bodies have to go through, or feel, in certain attitudes or techniques. Mitter: So you’re thinking of the way they’ve been trained — Williams: And the accumulation of that training. When I’m directing, I’m sort of directing within that index of muscular and reflexive conditioning. But I’m also working with a person, a person who might hurt themselves in certain attitudes or techniques, or who might really enjoy the pain of certain positions. Burke: In the video installation, Natasha Diamond-Walker moves across a stage marked with lines. How did you generate the movement? Williams: Those are all very particular movements. Each, literally point A to point B, is a set of three movements that hit the center, turn into another movement and then finish at the end of the line. I’m using a host of vernacular dance movements: for example, take a part of the [Native American] Buffalo Dance, into a particular kind of jazz motif, into a tree pose. Relying on Natasha’s Martha Graham training, we built a choreography that was both concise and hybrid. Burke: You went into this show with the idea of creating a dance notation — a system of symbols for documenting movement — but ended up going in a different direction. Williams: The idea of a notation is such a fraught space. Because notation so often denies the interiority of the dancer — it flattens the entire experience to the dynamics of the stage. So what I’m kind of doing here is riding the two sides of that line: a notation that could maybe contemplate the dualism of the experience of being a performative Black body. I feel like with this show, I’ve crossed the stage. It’s going to be nice to do more choreographic and performance work. Mitter: Your projects involve extensive and time-consuming research. What are some of your sources for the dance work? Williams: I’m kind of married to this practice at this point, so it feels like good quality time. The Jerome Robbins Dance Division [of the New York Public Library] has been really great. The Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art — I’m trying to shout out my sources! Jacob’s Pillow has a really cool interactive dance website. Mitter: Ebony, how does “A Line” set the tone for the program you want to build? Haynes: As a director and curator, this is what you work for — to work with artists that you respect, and learn something along the way. Nothing’s tied up in a fine bow at the end; that’s not what I’m striving for. I’m trying to do something that hopefully affords more time to produce but also to be in the space. I want to invite people to come in, talk with me, sit with the work. You see it once, but maybe you come back and see it again.

Kandis Williams envisions dancing bodies without borders

At Carole King's induction ceremony to the Roll Hall of Fame, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift had such really amazing things to say about the inductee. What really stole everyone's hearts, however, is her rendition of King's smash hit 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow'.

At Carole King's induction ceremony to the Roll Hall of Fame, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift had such really amazing things to say about the inductee. What really stole everyone's hearts, however, is her rendition of King's smash hit 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow'. The ceremony took place at Rockey Mortgage Fieldhouse on Saturday night in Cleveland. Also read: Jon Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams are Covid-19 positive; drop out of events Swift went on stage in a glittering, all-black attire and sang a an electronic-inclined version of Carole King’s 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' that topped the music charts in 1960 that King wrote with her first husband, Gerry Goffin. She had also recorded for her own album in 1971. In her speech, Swift said, "Carole King is the greatest songwriter of all time." And went on to reveal that her father once told her of a woman he was dating and that King’s breakup song 'It’s Too Late' was the song that reminded him of her. Also read: Dhindora review: One Bhuvan Bam, 10 versions of him... all hilarious! Swift added that King’s lyrics "speak to the true and honest … It is only right for them to be passed down like precious heirlooms from parents to children." Taylor Swift later said that she salutes Carole King for "navigating the politics of an era that didn’t make space for a female genius. Slowly but surely Carole King worked to create one, and it will be hers forever." Also read: Pack your bags! 10 best travel destinations for 2022 revealed, Cook Islands tops list Watch Grammy-winning singer Taylor Swift’s live rendition of Carole King’s 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Gem 🇦🇺 -fan account (@gemmyswift_) × View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor swift | Fan account🧣 (@taylorswiift.zone) × View this post on Instagram A post shared by Joana 🏹 (@theportugueseswiftie) × View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift Brasil 🧣 (@taylorswiftbr) ×

Taylor Swift delivers moving performance at Carole King's Roll Hall induction: Watch

Filmmaker brothers Anthony and Joe Russo have revealed how actor Robert Downey Jr had reacted when he first heard about his character's fate in 'Avengers: Endgame'.

In the latest book 'The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe' by authors Tara Bennett and Paul Terry, Joe and Anthony have reportedly revealed Downey Jr's reaction upon learning about the details of his death in 'Endgame'.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-dhindora-review-one-bhuvan-bam-10-versions-of-him-all-hilarious-425346" hreflang="en">Dhindora review: One Bhuvan Bam, 10 versions of him... all hilarious!</a>

"When we started winding down the pitch, and getting to his death, Robert started crying. And when we were done, he said, 'That's f***ing awesome.' That's when we knew that we had to do it. Because he felt it," Joe said, as per reports.&nbsp;

"In a way, it's almost like a death in the family. When you're saying to someone, 'All these people you've loved and have hung out with for 10 years? That's all gonna go away because we want to tell a story a certain way'," Joe added.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-wion-exclusive-kubbra-sait-we-are-rushing-representation-it-needs-to-have-a-narrative-425263" hreflang="en">WION exclusive: Kubbra Sait: We are in a rush for representation</a>

Anthony further added that getting Downey Jr's approval on Tony Stark's end was of paramount importance to them. "What we wanted to do is communicate the entire pitch to Robert, to sort of take his temperature on it, because he had so much creative ownership over the character. We were like, 'If Robert gets this, if Robert feels this, then we know we're in a good place'."

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-wion-exclusive-koozhangal-maker-it-was-big-of-vicky-kaushal-to-congratulate-us-on-our-oscar-selection-425377" hreflang="en">WION exclusive: 'Koozhangal' maker: Big of Vicky Kaushal to congratulate us</a>

Filmmaker brothers Anthony and Joe Russo have revealed how actor Robert Downey Jr had reacted when he first heard about his character's fate in 'Avengers: Endgame'.

Filmmaker brothers Anthony and Joe Russo have revealed how actor Robert Downey Jr had reacted when he first heard about his character's fate in 'Avengers: Endgame'. In the latest book 'The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe' by authors Tara Bennett and Paul Terry, Joe and Anthony have reportedly revealed Downey Jr's reaction upon learning about the details of his death in 'Endgame'. Also read: Dhindora review: One Bhuvan Bam, 10 versions of him... all hilarious! "When we started winding down the pitch, and getting to his death, Robert started crying. And when we were done, he said, 'That's f***ing awesome.' That's when we knew that we had to do it. Because he felt it," Joe said, as per reports. "In a way, it's almost like a death in the family. When you're saying to someone, 'All these people you've loved and have hung out with for 10 years? That's all gonna go away because we want to tell a story a certain way'," Joe added. Also read: WION exclusive: Kubbra Sait: We are in a rush for representation Anthony further added that getting Downey Jr's approval on Tony Stark's end was of paramount importance to them. "What we wanted to do is communicate the entire pitch to Robert, to sort of take his temperature on it, because he had so much creative ownership over the character. We were like, 'If Robert gets this, if Robert feels this, then we know we're in a good place'." Also read: WION exclusive: 'Koozhangal' maker: Big of Vicky Kaushal to congratulate us

Robert Downey Jr cried when he heard the 'Avengers: Endgame' pitch: Russo Brothers

A white shark nudged closer, gliding just above actress Cobie Smulders, like a fan asking for a selfie. Smulders welcomed the intrusion. “This is cool,” she said, rapt, as the shark slid past in the waters of the New York Aquarium.

 
Smulders, adored for her nine seasons on the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” has loved aquariums for as long as she can remember. As a mermaid-obsessed child in British Columbia, she visited the Vancouver aquarium often and spent weekends on her father’s sailboat, wondering about the life below the water’s surface. The University of Victoria accepted her to its marine biology program.

 
But a few months before school began, she fell in with some theater actors and deferred for a year. And then another year. And then another.

 
An avid scuba diver and an ambassador for Oceana, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans, Smulders never gave up on the water. She participates in beach cleanups near the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, actor Taran Killam, and their two daughters. And she campaigns against the single-use plastics that clog waterways.

 
“It’s a human conversation that needs to be talked about more loudly,” she said.

 
She still has mermaid fantasies. “I still think it could be a possibility,” she said. And she still loves aquariums, though only those that favor conservation.

 
On a recent trip to New York City to promote the FX limited series “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” she took a car to Coney Island to visit the aquarium’s shark exhibit.

 
She breezed in from the boardwalk just before noon, showing her vaccine card to a giddy employee. “I thought I recognized you!” the woman said as she checked Smulders’ ID. Rather than dressing for the beach, Smulders had chosen a monochrome look: belted black Chanel blazer, black jeans and black boots with stamped metal buckles that shone in the October sunlight. Pearls plucked from some very talented oysters hugged her neck.

 
In the first building, she cooed over yellow snappers and pointed out some angelfish, then admired the stripes on some zebrafish. “Mother Nature knows what’s up,” she said approvingly.

 
A cow nose ray caught her eye, as did a yellow rose goby. “I want to be the person who gets to name these,” she said. “You can have a lot of fun with that job.”

 
Smulders, 39, seems to have fun with most jobs. On “Impeachment,” which revisits the impeachment of Bill Clinton, she plays right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, a member of the Elves, a group of conservative lawyers who advised Paula Jones’ team.

 
With hair like a Westminster-winning Afghan hound, legs like the Eiffel Tower and a voice as clipped and polished as a high-end manicure, her version of Coulter finds pleasure everywhere she goes, usually because she brings multiple bottles of wine along. And yet she remains as coldblooded as the aquarium’s sharks.

 
“You’re all too nice,” her Coulter says of her fellow Elves during a late-night strategy scene.

 
Initially, Smulders had resisted the role. The “Impeachment” producers had approached her a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the first in which Smulders, a proud Canadian who recently became a U.S. citizen, could vote. Smulders votes a liberal ticket, so sharing head space with Coulter, who has written books such as “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism,” didn’t seem healthy or fun.

 
But Killam was already attached to the series as Steve Jones, Paula Jones’ husband. And “Stumptown,” the moody procedural on ABC in which Smulders starred, was canceled because of the pandemic, freeing up her schedule.

 
So after Donald Trump lost the election, Smulders taped an audition. Playing an ultraconservative — especially an ultraconservative with a miniskirt wardrobe and a Champagne habit — no longer felt so dark to her.

 
“She’s the only one who can actually have any fun,” Smulders said of her character. “This confidence that this woman has, to be able to walk into a room and think you’re the smartest person in the room, that you’re the most powerful person in the room, that is the polar opposite of me and my life.”

 
In the shark building, which Smulders had entered after passing a harbor seal (“Hi, friend!”) and a waddling penguin (“You can do it, buddy!”), it was clear where the power lay. Crawling into a tunnel just past the coral reef section, she marveled at the zebra sharks and bamboo sharks swimming just inches away. “I want to set up a little cot in there,” she said when she emerged. “Waking up to that? Heaven! Heaven!”

 
Not everyone enjoys intimate encounters with fish that might find you delicious, but Smulders does. On a recent family trip to Oahu, she went for a cage dive with huge Galápagos sharks. “That was a crazy thing,” she said. She enjoys humbler marine life, too. Polyps are an obsession, as is algae, which has a mutualistic relationship with reefs.

 
Further into the shark exhibit, past a re-creation of a shipwreck, Smulders stopped at Hudson Canyon’s Edge, a dramatic wall of water. She admired the rays, floating past like cheerful ghosts, and a whiskered fish that swam beneath them. “I love a little mustache on a fish,” she said. A loggerhead cruised by, pausing to admire her Tod’s bag. Sharks surrounded her, some of them grinning toothily. Smulders smiled at each predator.

 
“Isn’t it just so peaceful here?” she said.

A white shark nudged closer, gliding just above actress Cobie Smulders, like a fan asking for a selfie. Smulders welcomed the intrusion. “This is cool,” she said, rapt, as the shark slid past in the waters of the New York Aquarium.

A white shark nudged closer, gliding just above actress Cobie Smulders, like a fan asking for a selfie. Smulders welcomed the intrusion. “This is cool,” she said, rapt, as the shark slid past in the waters of the New York Aquarium. Smulders, adored for her nine seasons on the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” has loved aquariums for as long as she can remember. As a mermaid-obsessed child in British Columbia, she visited the Vancouver aquarium often and spent weekends on her father’s sailboat, wondering about the life below the water’s surface. The University of Victoria accepted her to its marine biology program. But a few months before school began, she fell in with some theater actors and deferred for a year. And then another year. And then another. An avid scuba diver and an ambassador for Oceana, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans, Smulders never gave up on the water. She participates in beach cleanups near the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, actor Taran Killam, and their two daughters. And she campaigns against the single-use plastics that clog waterways. “It’s a human conversation that needs to be talked about more loudly,” she said. She still has mermaid fantasies. “I still think it could be a possibility,” she said. And she still loves aquariums, though only those that favor conservation. On a recent trip to New York City to promote the FX limited series “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” she took a car to Coney Island to visit the aquarium’s shark exhibit. She breezed in from the boardwalk just before noon, showing her vaccine card to a giddy employee. “I thought I recognized you!” the woman said as she checked Smulders’ ID. Rather than dressing for the beach, Smulders had chosen a monochrome look: belted black Chanel blazer, black jeans and black boots with stamped metal buckles that shone in the October sunlight. Pearls plucked from some very talented oysters hugged her neck. In the first building, she cooed over yellow snappers and pointed out some angelfish, then admired the stripes on some zebrafish. “Mother Nature knows what’s up,” she said approvingly. A cow nose ray caught her eye, as did a yellow rose goby. “I want to be the person who gets to name these,” she said. “You can have a lot of fun with that job.” Smulders, 39, seems to have fun with most jobs. On “Impeachment,” which revisits the impeachment of Bill Clinton, she plays right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, a member of the Elves, a group of conservative lawyers who advised Paula Jones’ team. With hair like a Westminster-winning Afghan hound, legs like the Eiffel Tower and a voice as clipped and polished as a high-end manicure, her version of Coulter finds pleasure everywhere she goes, usually because she brings multiple bottles of wine along. And yet she remains as coldblooded as the aquarium’s sharks. “You’re all too nice,” her Coulter says of her fellow Elves during a late-night strategy scene. Initially, Smulders had resisted the role. The “Impeachment” producers had approached her a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the first in which Smulders, a proud Canadian who recently became a U.S. citizen, could vote. Smulders votes a liberal ticket, so sharing head space with Coulter, who has written books such as “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism,” didn’t seem healthy or fun. But Killam was already attached to the series as Steve Jones, Paula Jones’ husband. And “Stumptown,” the moody procedural on ABC in which Smulders starred, was canceled because of the pandemic, freeing up her schedule. So after Donald Trump lost the election, Smulders taped an audition. Playing an ultraconservative — especially an ultraconservative with a miniskirt wardrobe and a Champagne habit — no longer felt so dark to her. “She’s the only one who can actually have any fun,” Smulders said of her character. “This confidence that this woman has, to be able to walk into a room and think you’re the smartest person in the room, that you’re the most powerful person in the room, that is the polar opposite of me and my life.” In the shark building, which Smulders had entered after passing a harbor seal (“Hi, friend!”) and a waddling penguin (“You can do it, buddy!”), it was clear where the power lay. Crawling into a tunnel just past the coral reef section, she marveled at the zebra sharks and bamboo sharks swimming just inches away. “I want to set up a little cot in there,” she said when she emerged. “Waking up to that? Heaven! Heaven!” Not everyone enjoys intimate encounters with fish that might find you delicious, but Smulders does. On a recent family trip to Oahu, she went for a cage dive with huge Galápagos sharks. “That was a crazy thing,” she said. She enjoys humbler marine life, too. Polyps are an obsession, as is algae, which has a mutualistic relationship with reefs. Further into the shark exhibit, past a re-creation of a shipwreck, Smulders stopped at Hudson Canyon’s Edge, a dramatic wall of water. She admired the rays, floating past like cheerful ghosts, and a whiskered fish that swam beneath them. “I love a little mustache on a fish,” she said. A loggerhead cruised by, pausing to admire her Tod’s bag. Sharks surrounded her, some of them grinning toothily. Smulders smiled at each predator. “Isn’t it just so peaceful here?” she said.

Cobie Smulders communes with sharks

Music legends, Jon Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams, have cancelled their performances after learning that they are Covid-19 positive.

'It’s My Life' concert by singer Jon Bon Jovi was slated to take place in Miami that was immediately cancelled while a huge crowd waited outside for Jovi's gig.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-alec-baldwin-calls-movie-shooting-death-one-in-a-trillion-episode-425444" hreflang="en">Alec Baldwin calls movie shooting death 'one in a trillion episode'</a>

The event, titled 'Runaway With JBJ' and put on by Runaway Tours, was supposed to be a three-day event from October 29 to 31 and had included an acoustic storytelling performance with Jovi, a Q&amp;A session followed by a photo-op, and a Halloween costume welcome party as well, reports claim.&nbsp;

Jon Bon Jovi's representative told a global news portal that the musician is fully vaccinated and doing well.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-aamir-khan-mourns-puneeth-rajkumar%E2%80%99s-demise-won-us-all-with-his-warmth--passion-425455" hreflang="en">Aamir Khan mourns Puneeth Rajkumar’s demise: Won us all with his warmth</a>

Meanwhile, Bryan Adams was scheduled to appear at Tina Turner’s 'Rock and Roll Hall of Fame' induction ceremony on October 30 and was also gearing up to perform a medley of songs including 'It’s Only Love'--which's a collaboration between Adams and Turner from his 1984 album, 'Reckless'--but he tested positive for Covid-19 at the last minute and was unable to attend.&nbsp;

Bryan Adams representative told the same news portal that had also reported about Jovi's health, that Adams is fully vaccinated and is asymptomatic.&nbsp;

As per reports, country singer Keith Urban is filling in for Adams at the ceremony to perform with R&amp;B artiste H.E.R. and will be recreating Turner-Adams' song.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/zayn-malik-will-fight-to-avoid-custody-battle-over-khai-with-gigi-hadid-425463" hreflang="en">Zayn Malik ‘will fight to avoid custody battle’ over Khai with Gigi Hadid</a>

&nbsp;

Music legends, Jon Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams, have cancelled their performances after learning that they are Covid-19 positive. 'It’s My Life' concert by singer Jon Bon Jovi was slated to take place in Miami that was immediately cancelled while a huge crowd waited outside for Jovi's gig.

Music legends, Jon Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams, have cancelled their performances after learning that they are Covid-19 positive. 'It’s My Life' concert by singer Jon Bon Jovi was slated to take place in Miami that was immediately cancelled while a huge crowd waited outside for Jovi's gig. Also read: Alec Baldwin calls movie shooting death 'one in a trillion episode' The event, titled 'Runaway With JBJ' and put on by Runaway Tours, was supposed to be a three-day event from October 29 to 31 and had included an acoustic storytelling performance with Jovi, a Q&A session followed by a photo-op, and a Halloween costume welcome party as well, reports claim. Jon Bon Jovi's representative told a global news portal that the musician is fully vaccinated and doing well. Also read: Aamir Khan mourns Puneeth Rajkumar’s demise: Won us all with his warmth Meanwhile, Bryan Adams was scheduled to appear at Tina Turner’s 'Rock and Roll Hall of Fame' induction ceremony on October 30 and was also gearing up to perform a medley of songs including 'It’s Only Love'--which's a collaboration between Adams and Turner from his 1984 album, 'Reckless'--but he tested positive for Covid-19 at the last minute and was unable to attend. Bryan Adams representative told the same news portal that had also reported about Jovi's health, that Adams is fully vaccinated and is asymptomatic. As per reports, country singer Keith Urban is filling in for Adams at the ceremony to perform with R&B artiste H.E.R. and will be recreating Turner-Adams' song. Also read: Zayn Malik ‘will fight to avoid custody battle’ over Khai with Gigi Hadid

Jon Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams are Covid-19 positive; drop out of events

If first-dance songs at weddings counted extra toward streaming numbers, Ed Sheeran — the carrot-topped British troubadour behind such soft-rock swooners as “Thinking Out Loud” and “Perfect” — would have had a monopoly on the top of the charts for the better part of the past decade.

 
Not that he needs much help in that department: The ubiquitous Sheeran was Spotify’s second-most-streamed artist of the 2010s (behind only Drake), and in 2017 — the year he released the blockbuster “÷” — he was the bestselling musician in the world. As a songwriter, Sheeran is something of a modern pop mathematician, gifted with an ability to reduce seemingly disparate genres (adult-contemporary pop, British hip-hop, Gaelic folk) down to their least common denominators.

 
Since his 2011 debut, “+,” he has presented himself proudly as a hopeless romantic. “See I could do without a tan on my left hand, where my fourth finger meets my knuckle,” a then-21-year-old Sheeran sang on the sparse, unabashedly sentimental ballad “Wake Me Up.” In some sense, his fourth solo studio album, “=,” pronounced “equals” (one wonders what will happen when he soon runs out of arithmetic signs), has the potential to be the fullest realization of the Ed Sheeran ethos yet — the first since his December 2018 marriage to his childhood friend Cherry Seaborn. Honeymoon mode: Engage.

 
“I have grown up, I am a father now, everything has changed but I am still the same somehow,” Sheeran sings on the opener, “Tides,” in a flagrant display of telling rather than showing. Musically, though, “Tides” is one of the most effective songs on the album, a stomping, surging lite-rocker arranged around a neat formal trick. After verses that rush through a list of Sheeran’s fears and neuroses, the track suddenly seems to suspend itself in midair during the chorus, long enough for Sheeran to reveal to his loved ones, “Time stops to still, when you are in my arms it always will.” (Sheeran recycles the effect later in the album, on “Love in Slow Motion.”)

 
More than any of his previous LPs, “=” finds Sheeran mining the slick, synthesized sounds of ’80s pop. While he works again with writer and producer Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol, he adds a new collaborator on more than half the tracks: Fred again.., a British dance-music artist.

 
But the retro aesthetic is most indebted to an album that is only a year and a half old, the Weeknd’s massively successful “After Hours.” His silhouette has lately cast a long shadow across his fellow male pop stars (Justin Bieber, the Kid Laroi), though it’s most apparent on Sheeran’s current hit, “Bad Habits,” a pulsating, strobe-lit lament in the tradition of a Weeknd song: “It started under neon lights and then it all got dark,” Sheeran sings, recounting another night of empty, bleary-eyed partying.

 
Where the Weeknd’s music often revels in decadence and nihilism, Sheeran’s depictions of wild nights are often accompanied by a potent dose of morning-after guilt and the eventual possibility of redemption — usually a kind of quasi-religious salvation that can be attained through the love of a good woman. As he puts it on “The Joker and the Queen,” a music-box piano ditty on “=” that stretches a poker metaphor exhaustingly far, “When I fold, you see the best in me.”

 
“=” is the kindest, gentlest Sheeran album, which is something of a shame. Each of his previous records had at least one song that complicated his image as a heart-on-his-sleeve nice guy, whether that was the surprisingly venomous music industry sendup “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” or “New Man,” his previous solo album’s sassy kiss-off to both a former flame and her subsequent boyfriend.

 
The soulful grain that sometimes adds texture to his smooth croon is also seldom heard on this record. The driving conflict of “=” rarely strays from or goes deeper than a familiar, repeatedly stressed mantra: Life comes at you fast, but it slows to the tempo of a wedding waltz when you’re in love.

 
An Ed Sheeran album wouldn’t be complete without a mawkish tear-jerker, and here it’s “Visiting Hours,” as in, he wishes heaven had them. Sheeran follows that indulgent weepie with a literal lullaby, the lilting, Jack Johnson-esque “Sandman.” He has grown up, he is a father now, in case you had somehow forgotten.

 
At least the best song on the album is also the one that seems destined to be his next you’ll-hear-it-till-you’re-sick-of-it smash: “Overpass Graffiti,” a moody, synth-streaked ’80s throwback that sounds like a more melancholy update of Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks.” Here, Sheeran proves that even as a married man, he’s still able to tap into old heartbreak: “There are times when I can feel your ghost, just when I’m almost letting you go,” he sings, his voice convincingly weighted with nostalgia.

 
Earlier, in that rush of insecurities that forms the verses of “Tides,” Sheeran admits that in the past he has been “too busy trying to chase the high and get the numbers up.” That confession might suggest that he’s ready to put algorithmic crowd-pleasing in the past, but it turns out to be an empty promise.

 
Ultimately, “=” neither adds to nor subtracts from the trusty formula for success that he long ago worked out. It is the sleek sound of stasis.

If first-dance songs at weddings counted extra toward streaming numbers, Ed Sheeran — the carrot-topped British troubadour behind such soft-rock swooners as “Thinking Out Loud” and “Perfect” — would have had a monopoly on the top of the charts for the better part of the past decade.

If first-dance songs at weddings counted extra toward streaming numbers, Ed Sheeran — the carrot-topped British troubadour behind such soft-rock swooners as “Thinking Out Loud” and “Perfect” — would have had a monopoly on the top of the charts for the better part of the past decade. Not that he needs much help in that department: The ubiquitous Sheeran was Spotify’s second-most-streamed artist of the 2010s (behind only Drake), and in 2017 — the year he released the blockbuster “÷” — he was the bestselling musician in the world. As a songwriter, Sheeran is something of a modern pop mathematician, gifted with an ability to reduce seemingly disparate genres (adult-contemporary pop, British hip-hop, Gaelic folk) down to their least common denominators. Since his 2011 debut, “+,” he has presented himself proudly as a hopeless romantic. “See I could do without a tan on my left hand, where my fourth finger meets my knuckle,” a then-21-year-old Sheeran sang on the sparse, unabashedly sentimental ballad “Wake Me Up.” In some sense, his fourth solo studio album, “=,” pronounced “equals” (one wonders what will happen when he soon runs out of arithmetic signs), has the potential to be the fullest realization of the Ed Sheeran ethos yet — the first since his December 2018 marriage to his childhood friend Cherry Seaborn. Honeymoon mode: Engage. “I have grown up, I am a father now, everything has changed but I am still the same somehow,” Sheeran sings on the opener, “Tides,” in a flagrant display of telling rather than showing. Musically, though, “Tides” is one of the most effective songs on the album, a stomping, surging lite-rocker arranged around a neat formal trick. After verses that rush through a list of Sheeran’s fears and neuroses, the track suddenly seems to suspend itself in midair during the chorus, long enough for Sheeran to reveal to his loved ones, “Time stops to still, when you are in my arms it always will.” (Sheeran recycles the effect later in the album, on “Love in Slow Motion.”) More than any of his previous LPs, “=” finds Sheeran mining the slick, synthesized sounds of ’80s pop. While he works again with writer and producer Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol, he adds a new collaborator on more than half the tracks: Fred again.., a British dance-music artist. But the retro aesthetic is most indebted to an album that is only a year and a half old, the Weeknd’s massively successful “After Hours.” His silhouette has lately cast a long shadow across his fellow male pop stars (Justin Bieber, the Kid Laroi), though it’s most apparent on Sheeran’s current hit, “Bad Habits,” a pulsating, strobe-lit lament in the tradition of a Weeknd song: “It started under neon lights and then it all got dark,” Sheeran sings, recounting another night of empty, bleary-eyed partying. Where the Weeknd’s music often revels in decadence and nihilism, Sheeran’s depictions of wild nights are often accompanied by a potent dose of morning-after guilt and the eventual possibility of redemption — usually a kind of quasi-religious salvation that can be attained through the love of a good woman. As he puts it on “The Joker and the Queen,” a music-box piano ditty on “=” that stretches a poker metaphor exhaustingly far, “When I fold, you see the best in me.” “=” is the kindest, gentlest Sheeran album, which is something of a shame. Each of his previous records had at least one song that complicated his image as a heart-on-his-sleeve nice guy, whether that was the surprisingly venomous music industry sendup “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” or “New Man,” his previous solo album’s sassy kiss-off to both a former flame and her subsequent boyfriend. The soulful grain that sometimes adds texture to his smooth croon is also seldom heard on this record. The driving conflict of “=” rarely strays from or goes deeper than a familiar, repeatedly stressed mantra: Life comes at you fast, but it slows to the tempo of a wedding waltz when you’re in love. An Ed Sheeran album wouldn’t be complete without a mawkish tear-jerker, and here it’s “Visiting Hours,” as in, he wishes heaven had them. Sheeran follows that indulgent weepie with a literal lullaby, the lilting, Jack Johnson-esque “Sandman.” He has grown up, he is a father now, in case you had somehow forgotten. At least the best song on the album is also the one that seems destined to be his next you’ll-hear-it-till-you’re-sick-of-it smash: “Overpass Graffiti,” a moody, synth-streaked ’80s throwback that sounds like a more melancholy update of Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks.” Here, Sheeran proves that even as a married man, he’s still able to tap into old heartbreak: “There are times when I can feel your ghost, just when I’m almost letting you go,” he sings, his voice convincingly weighted with nostalgia. Earlier, in that rush of insecurities that forms the verses of “Tides,” Sheeran admits that in the past he has been “too busy trying to chase the high and get the numbers up.” That confession might suggest that he’s ready to put algorithmic crowd-pleasing in the past, but it turns out to be an empty promise. Ultimately, “=” neither adds to nor subtracts from the trusty formula for success that he long ago worked out. It is the sleek sound of stasis.

Ed Sheeran sticks with a familiar formula on ‘=’

Sequels and spinoffs and origin stories fill the multiplexes, but it’s vanishingly rare to see two feature-length dramas centered on the same real-world character. Enter “The Souvenir,” two films directed by Joanna Hogg on a subject that’s also not common onscreen: a young woman finding her way in life and coming into her own.

 
In “The Souvenir,” released in 2019, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is a film school student in 1980s London. Her relationship with Anthony, a witty, debonair older man, goes off the rails as it emerges that he’s addicted to heroin. “The Souvenir Part II,” which opened Friday, follows a solo Julie working out her voice as a person and as a director — a new rich chapter of experience where a single film might have declared “The End.”

 
“You don’t normally have that opportunity with the story, to have a break in the middle and think about what you’re doing and approach things differently the second way,” Hogg said in an interview at a downtown hotel the day after her movie’s New York Film Festival premiere last month. (Part II takes place only a few days after Part I but was shot two years later.)

 
Until recently, her films have been like a much-beloved secret. “Joanna Hogg — where have you been all my movie-loving life?” Manohla Dargis wrote when the director’s first three features were finally released in the United States in 2014. A.O. Scott called the first part “an absolute joy to watch.” Distributed by the brand-savvy A24, “The Souvenir Part II” is the latest entry in Hogg’s ardently admired oeuvre.

 
Her fans include Ari Aster, director of “Midsommar,” who said in an email, “At her best, she lends a subtle, deeply individual strangeness to the quotidian.” He praised her as “a fastidious and texture-obsessed diarist in the best sense.” Another fan: Barack Obama, who counted “Part I” among his favorite movies of 2019.

 
Scottish novelist Ali Smith (“Summer”), who once screened Hogg’s work at an arts festival, said via email, “Her films are beautiful things in the world, and witty, hyper-intelligent, scalpel-sharp, simultaneously merciless and deeply humane.” Smith added, “She takes class apart, she has a clear eye across the traditions that skewer us or vitalize us.”

 
Julie’s story draws closely on Hogg’s memories. Like Julie, Hogg studied filmmaking in the 1980s, at the National Film and Television School in England, and dated a devastatingly charming man with an all-consuming drug addiction. And Julie’s background, like Hogg’s, is solidly upper middle class. Visits to the country home of Julie’s parents punctuate both films; artifacts, clothing and photos from Hogg’s life appear throughout, too. “Part I” broaches the notion of privilege, as Julie faces teachers skeptical of her initial proposal to make a film about a struggling port city. “Part II” sees her coming out of her shell and, as Hogg put it, “joining the world, joining life.”

 
Hogg went on to a career in British television and did not direct her first theatrical feature until 2007 at age 47: “Unrelated,” starring Tom Hiddleston, also making his feature debut. “The Souvenir Part II” imagines a different trajectory for Julie, giving her a freedom Hogg did not have at the time.

 
“I didn’t get to make a film at film school that spoke about the relationship that I’d been in,” the director said. Friendly and low-key in a subdued dark top and pants, she chose her words firmly but with a dry sense of understatement that would fit without a rustle right into a Joanna Hogg film.

 
“It was important for her to be less naïve and therefore more in control of her life and therefore her story.” 
The ties of friends and family are further entwined through Hogg’s cast. The director knew Swinton Byrne as the daughter of an old schoolmate, Tilda Swinton. (Hogg is Swinton Byrne’s godmother.) Swinton starred in Hogg’s real graduate film, “Caprice,” and plays Julie’s doting mother in both parts of “The Souvenir.”

 
Yet Swinton Byrne was cast less than a month before shooting on “Part I” began. Hogg was visiting Swinton about playing Julie’s mother but still didn’t have a Julie.

 
“I was getting onto a train to go back to London, and Honor was arriving from London coming home,” Hogg said. The two chatted on the platform about “what it is to be in your early 20s,” and for Hogg it just “clicked.”

 
“I feel like I was very like Julie when I was a bit younger. You know how insecure it is,” Swinton Byrne, 23, said, bubbly over the phone from Edinburgh, where she’s studying psychology after a teaching stint in Namibia, among other things. (“My mom says that I’m still not fully baked yet,” she said, laughing.) 
Swinton Byrne’s Julie reckons with the past in “The Souvenir Part II” but spends a lot of time on a soundstage, leading her crew and explaining motivations to her actors. (Her classmates include a hilariously biting Richard Ayoade.)

 
Hogg “dramatizes the fragmentary life of the imagination, completing a story that was full of hesitations in the first place,” critic Molly Haskell said in an email, invoking Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet. “To my mind, the only remotely analogous cinematic experiment of recent years is Richard Linklater’s&lt;em&gt; ‘&lt;/em&gt;Before’ trilogy.”

 
Hogg’s two-part idea — which she dates at least to a journal entry in 1988 — wasn’t a sure thing. She had planned to shoot both films at the same time, until a financier pulled out. Another twist involved Robert Pattinson, who was slated for a role (later reworked) in “Part II” but was tied up with “Tenet” instead. (No hard feelings from Hogg: “I hope that I’ll work with him in the future.”)

 
“I wanted desperately to make them at the same time, because I thought there was a danger that if I just made the first one, I wouldn’t get the opportunity to make the second one,” Hogg recalled.

 
Today, she is grateful for the extra time and even believes the second part would have been “a shadow of its current self” if she’d shot both movies together.

 
It’s easy to see this ability to adapt and find an alchemy in the shifts of reality as part of her filmmaking style. Despite her movies’ precise ear for the spoken word, Hogg doesn’t write traditional screenplays, giving actors the space to come up with dialogue. She lets scenes unfold at length, often with roomwide shots that allow us to soak in the give-and-take.

 
One tragicomic sequence in her “Archipelago,” starring Hiddleston, observes a family dither dysfunctionally over where to sit at a restaurant. (“Never has the term ‘faffing about’ been so perfectly illustrated,” critic Jonathan Romney wrote approvingly in The Independent.)

 
Alex Heeney, who co-wrote a monograph about Hogg, told me, “Hogg’s films are less about duration than they are about how people orbit each other and how their spaces facilitate or prevent this.” In “The Souvenir,” she added, Julie “has to work to become the protagonist in her own life, and that’s not taken lightly.”

 
Hogg is already editing her next film, “The Eternal Daughter,” a ghost story starring Swinton. In the meantime, Hogg’s “Souvenir” star, Swinton Byrne, seemed still to be reflecting on her character’s two-part journey.

 
“It is like watching a friend get up on her feet after a really intense breakup or intense loss,” she said. “It’s what I waited for a long time, to see Julie, who I see as a friend, become a full person.”

Sequels and spinoffs and origin stories fill the multiplexes, but it’s vanishingly rare to see two feature-length dramas centered on the same real-world character.

Sequels and spinoffs and origin stories fill the multiplexes, but it’s vanishingly rare to see two feature-length dramas centered on the same real-world character. Enter “The Souvenir,” two films directed by Joanna Hogg on a subject that’s also not common onscreen: a young woman finding her way in life and coming into her own. In “The Souvenir,” released in 2019, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is a film school student in 1980s London. Her relationship with Anthony, a witty, debonair older man, goes off the rails as it emerges that he’s addicted to heroin. “The Souvenir Part II,” which opened Friday, follows a solo Julie working out her voice as a person and as a director — a new rich chapter of experience where a single film might have declared “The End.” “You don’t normally have that opportunity with the story, to have a break in the middle and think about what you’re doing and approach things differently the second way,” Hogg said in an interview at a downtown hotel the day after her movie’s New York Film Festival premiere last month. (Part II takes place only a few days after Part I but was shot two years later.) Until recently, her films have been like a much-beloved secret. “Joanna Hogg — where have you been all my movie-loving life?” Manohla Dargis wrote when the director’s first three features were finally released in the United States in 2014. A.O. Scott called the first part “an absolute joy to watch.” Distributed by the brand-savvy A24, “The Souvenir Part II” is the latest entry in Hogg’s ardently admired oeuvre. Her fans include Ari Aster, director of “Midsommar,” who said in an email, “At her best, she lends a subtle, deeply individual strangeness to the quotidian.” He praised her as “a fastidious and texture-obsessed diarist in the best sense.” Another fan: Barack Obama, who counted “Part I” among his favorite movies of 2019. Scottish novelist Ali Smith (“Summer”), who once screened Hogg’s work at an arts festival, said via email, “Her films are beautiful things in the world, and witty, hyper-intelligent, scalpel-sharp, simultaneously merciless and deeply humane.” Smith added, “She takes class apart, she has a clear eye across the traditions that skewer us or vitalize us.” Julie’s story draws closely on Hogg’s memories. Like Julie, Hogg studied filmmaking in the 1980s, at the National Film and Television School in England, and dated a devastatingly charming man with an all-consuming drug addiction. And Julie’s background, like Hogg’s, is solidly upper middle class. Visits to the country home of Julie’s parents punctuate both films; artifacts, clothing and photos from Hogg’s life appear throughout, too. “Part I” broaches the notion of privilege, as Julie faces teachers skeptical of her initial proposal to make a film about a struggling port city. “Part II” sees her coming out of her shell and, as Hogg put it, “joining the world, joining life.” Hogg went on to a career in British television and did not direct her first theatrical feature until 2007 at age 47: “Unrelated,” starring Tom Hiddleston, also making his feature debut. “The Souvenir Part II” imagines a different trajectory for Julie, giving her a freedom Hogg did not have at the time. “I didn’t get to make a film at film school that spoke about the relationship that I’d been in,” the director said. Friendly and low-key in a subdued dark top and pants, she chose her words firmly but with a dry sense of understatement that would fit without a rustle right into a Joanna Hogg film. “It was important for her to be less naïve and therefore more in control of her life and therefore her story.” The ties of friends and family are further entwined through Hogg’s cast. The director knew Swinton Byrne as the daughter of an old schoolmate, Tilda Swinton. (Hogg is Swinton Byrne’s godmother.) Swinton starred in Hogg’s real graduate film, “Caprice,” and plays Julie’s doting mother in both parts of “The Souvenir.” Yet Swinton Byrne was cast less than a month before shooting on “Part I” began. Hogg was visiting Swinton about playing Julie’s mother but still didn’t have a Julie. “I was getting onto a train to go back to London, and Honor was arriving from London coming home,” Hogg said. The two chatted on the platform about “what it is to be in your early 20s,” and for Hogg it just “clicked.” “I feel like I was very like Julie when I was a bit younger. You know how insecure it is,” Swinton Byrne, 23, said, bubbly over the phone from Edinburgh, where she’s studying psychology after a teaching stint in Namibia, among other things. (“My mom says that I’m still not fully baked yet,” she said, laughing.) Swinton Byrne’s Julie reckons with the past in “The Souvenir Part II” but spends a lot of time on a soundstage, leading her crew and explaining motivations to her actors. (Her classmates include a hilariously biting Richard Ayoade.) Hogg “dramatizes the fragmentary life of the imagination, completing a story that was full of hesitations in the first place,” critic Molly Haskell said in an email, invoking Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet. “To my mind, the only remotely analogous cinematic experiment of recent years is Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ trilogy.” Hogg’s two-part idea — which she dates at least to a journal entry in 1988 — wasn’t a sure thing. She had planned to shoot both films at the same time, until a financier pulled out. Another twist involved Robert Pattinson, who was slated for a role (later reworked) in “Part II” but was tied up with “Tenet” instead. (No hard feelings from Hogg: “I hope that I’ll work with him in the future.”) “I wanted desperately to make them at the same time, because I thought there was a danger that if I just made the first one, I wouldn’t get the opportunity to make the second one,” Hogg recalled. Today, she is grateful for the extra time and even believes the second part would have been “a shadow of its current self” if she’d shot both movies together. It’s easy to see this ability to adapt and find an alchemy in the shifts of reality as part of her filmmaking style. Despite her movies’ precise ear for the spoken word, Hogg doesn’t write traditional screenplays, giving actors the space to come up with dialogue. She lets scenes unfold at length, often with roomwide shots that allow us to soak in the give-and-take. One tragicomic sequence in her “Archipelago,” starring Hiddleston, observes a family dither dysfunctionally over where to sit at a restaurant. (“Never has the term ‘faffing about’ been so perfectly illustrated,” critic Jonathan Romney wrote approvingly in The Independent.) Alex Heeney, who co-wrote a monograph about Hogg, told me, “Hogg’s films are less about duration than they are about how people orbit each other and how their spaces facilitate or prevent this.” In “The Souvenir,” she added, Julie “has to work to become the protagonist in her own life, and that’s not taken lightly.” Hogg is already editing her next film, “The Eternal Daughter,” a ghost story starring Swinton. In the meantime, Hogg’s “Souvenir” star, Swinton Byrne, seemed still to be reflecting on her character’s two-part journey. “It is like watching a friend get up on her feet after a really intense breakup or intense loss,” she said. “It’s what I waited for a long time, to see Julie, who I see as a friend, become a full person.”

A filmmaking life gets a sequel

The music awards season is here and fans are psyched about the American Music Awards (AMAs) 2021 nominations. This year, global popstars Olivia Rodrigo and The Weeknd lead from the front with the highest number of nominations. While Rodrigo got a total of seven nominations in different categories, The Weeknd got six.&nbsp;

Korean all-boys pop band, BTS, received a major nomination this year: under its main category, the Artist of the Year.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-shah-rukh-khan-leaves-for-arthur-road-jail-ahead-of-aryan-khans-release-today-425181">Shah Rukh Khan leaves for Arthur Road jail ahead of Aryan Khan's release</a>

Trending artists Doja Cat, Bad Bunny and Giveon receive five nominations per person, while regulars Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande were also nominated for major categories such as Artist of the Year and Favourite Male Pop Artist of the Year. &nbsp;

The American Music Awards 2021 main event will reportedly be held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, November 21.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-yusuf-hussain-veteran-bollywood-actor-dies-of-covid-at-73-425183" hreflang="en">Yusuf Hussain, veteran Bollywood actor, dies of Covid at 73</a>

Check out the complete list of nominations here:&nbsp;

ARTIST OF THE YEAR

 
Ariana Grande 
BTS 
Drake 
Olivia Rodrigo 
Taylor Swift 
The Weeknd

 
NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR

 
24kGoldn 
Giveon 
Masked Wolf 
Olivia Rodrigo 
The Kid LAROI

 
COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR

 
24kGoldn ft. iann dior “Mood” 
Bad Bunny &amp; Jhay Cortez “DÁKITI” 
Chris Brown &amp; Young Thug “Go Crazy” 
Doja Cat ft. SZA “Kiss Me More” 
Justin Bieber ft. Daniel Caesar &amp; Giveon “Peaches”

 
FAVORITE TRENDING SONG

 
Erica Banks “Buss It” 
Måneskin “Beggin’” 
Megan Thee Stallion “Body” 
Olivia Rodrigo “drivers license” 
Popp Hunna “Adderall (Corvette Corvette)”

 
FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEO

 
Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak) “Leave The Door Open” 
Cardi B “Up” 
Lil Nas X “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” 
Olivia Rodrigo “drivers license” 
The Weeknd “Save Your Tears”

 
FAVORITE MALE POP ARTIST

 
Drake 
Ed Sheeran 
Justin Bieber 
Lil Nas X 
The Weeknd

 
FAVORITE FEMALE POP ARTIST

 
Ariana Grande 
Doja Cat 
Dua Lipa 
Olivia Rodrigo 
Taylor Swift

 
FAVORITE POP DUO OR GROUP

 
AJR 
BTS 
Glass Animals 
Maroon 5 
Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak)

 
FAVORITE POP ALBUM

 
Ariana Grande “Positions” 
Dua Lipa “Future Nostalgia” 
Olivia Rodrigo “SOUR” 
Taylor Swift “evermore” 
The Kid LAROI “F*CK LOVE”

 
FAVORITE POP SONG

 
BTS “Butter” 
Doja Cat ft. SZA “Kiss Me More” 
Dua Lipa “Levitating” 
Olivia Rodrigo “drivers license” 
The Weeknd &amp; Ariana Grande “Save Your Tears (Remix)”

 
FAVORITE MALE COUNTRY ARTIST

 
Chris Stapleton 
Jason Aldean 
Luke Bryan 
Luke Combs 
Morgan Wallen

 
FAVORITE FEMALE COUNTRY ARTIST

 
Carrie Underwood 
Gabby Barrett 
Kacey Musgraves 
Maren Morris 
Miranda Lambert

 
FAVORITE COUNTRY DUO OR GROUP

 
Dan + Shay 
Florida Georgia Line 
Lady A 
Old Dominion 
Zac Brown Band

 
FAVORITE COUNTRY ALBUM

 
Chris Stapleton “Starting Over” 
Gabby Barrett “Goldmine” 
Lee Brice “Hey World” 
Luke Bryan “Born Here Live Here Die Here” 
Morgan Wallen “Dangerous: The Double Album”

 
FAVORITE COUNTRY SONG

 
Chris Stapleton “Starting Over” 
Chris Young &amp; Kane Brown “Famous Friends” 
Gabby Barrett “The Good Ones” 
Luke Combs “Forever After All” 
Walker Hayes “Fancy Like”

 
FAVORITE MALE HIP-HOP ARTIST

 
Drake 
Lil Baby 
Moneybagg Yo 
Polo G 
Pop Smoke

 
FAVORITE FEMALE HIP-HOP ARTIST

 
Cardi B 
Coi Leray 
Erica Banks 
Megan Thee Stallion 
Saweetie

 
FAVORITE HIP-HOP ALBUM

 
Drake “Certified Lover Boy” 
Juice WRLD “Legends Never Die” 
Megan Thee Stallion “Good News” 
Pop Smoke “Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon” 
Rod Wave “SoulFly”

 
FAVORITE HIP-HOP SONG

 
Cardi B “Up” 
Internet Money ft. Gunna, Don Toliver &amp; NAV “Lemonade” 
Lil Tjay ft. 6LACK “Calling My Phone” 
Polo G “RAPSTAR” 
Pop Smoke “What You Know Bout Love”

 
FAVORITE MALE R&amp;B ARTIST

 
Chris Brown 
Giveon 
Tank 
The Weeknd 
Usher

 
FAVORITE FEMALE R&amp;B ARTIST

 
Doja Cat 
H.E.R. 
Jazmine Sullivan 
Jhené Aiko 
SZA

 
FAVORITE R&amp;B ALBUM

 
Doja Cat “Planet Her” 
Giveon “When It’s All Said And Done… Take Time” 
H.E.R. “Back of My Mind” 
Jazmine Sullivan “Heaux Tales” 
Queen Naija “missunderstood”

 
FAVORITE R&amp;B SONG

 
Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak) “Leave The Door Open” 
Chris Brown &amp; Young Thug “Go Crazy” 
Giveon “Heartbreak Anniversary” 
H.E.R. “Damage” 
Jazmine Sullivan “Pick Up Your Feelings”

 
FAVORITE MALE LATIN ARTIST

 
Bad Bunny 
J Balvin 
Maluma 
Ozuna 
Rauw Alejandro

 
FAVORITE FEMALE LATIN ARTIST

 
Becky G 
Kali Uchis 
KAROL G 
Natti Natasha 
ROSALÍA

 
FAVORITE LATIN DUO OR GROUP

 
Banda MS de Sergio Lizárraga 
Calibre 50 
Eslabon Armado 
La Arrolladora Banda El Limón De Rene Camacho 
Los Dos Carnales

 
FAVORITE LATIN ALBUM

 
Bad Bunny “EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO” 
Kali Uchis “Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios)” 
KAROL G “KG0516” 
Maluma “PAPI JUANCHO” 
Rauw Alejandro “Afrodisíaco”

 
FAVORITE LATIN SONG

 
Bad Bunny &amp; Jhay Cortez “DÁKITI” 
Bad Bunny x ROSALÍA “LA NOCHE DE ANOCHE” 
Farruko “Pepas” 
Kali Uchis “telepatía” 
Maluma &amp; The Weeknd “Hawái (Remix)”

 
FAVORITE ROCK ARTIST

 
AJR 
All Time Low 
Foo Fighters 
Glass Animals 
Machine Gun Kelly

 
FAVORITE INSPIRATIONAL ARTIST

 
CAIN 
Carrie Underwood 
Elevation Worship 
Lauren Daigle 
Zach Williams

 
FAVORITE GOSPEL ARTIST

 
Kanye West 
Kirk Franklin 
Koryn Hawthorne 
Maverick City Music 
Tasha Cobbs Leonard

 
FAVORITE DANCE/ELECTRONIC ARTIST

 
David Guetta 
ILLENIUM 
Marshmello 
Regard 
Tiësto

The music awards season is here and fans are psyched about the American Music Awards (AMAs) 2021 nominations. This year, global popstars Olivia Rodrigo and The Weeknd lead from the front with the highest number of nominations.

The music awards season is here and fans are psyched about the American Music Awards (AMAs) 2021 nominations. This year, global popstars Olivia Rodrigo and The Weeknd lead from the front with the highest number of nominations. While Rodrigo got a total of seven nominations in different categories, The Weeknd got six. Korean all-boys pop band, BTS, received a major nomination this year: under its main category, the Artist of the Year. Also read: Shah Rukh Khan leaves for Arthur Road jail ahead of Aryan Khan's release Trending artists Doja Cat, Bad Bunny and Giveon receive five nominations per person, while regulars Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande were also nominated for major categories such as Artist of the Year and Favourite Male Pop Artist of the Year. The American Music Awards 2021 main event will reportedly be held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, November 21. Also read: Yusuf Hussain, veteran Bollywood actor, dies of Covid at 73 Check out the complete list of nominations here: ARTIST OF THE YEAR Ariana Grande BTS Drake Olivia Rodrigo Taylor Swift The Weeknd NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR 24kGoldn Giveon Masked Wolf Olivia Rodrigo The Kid LAROI COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR 24kGoldn ft. iann dior “Mood” Bad Bunny & Jhay Cortez “DÁKITI” Chris Brown & Young Thug “Go Crazy” Doja Cat ft. SZA “Kiss Me More” Justin Bieber ft. Daniel Caesar & Giveon “Peaches” FAVORITE TRENDING SONG Erica Banks “Buss It” Måneskin “Beggin’” Megan Thee Stallion “Body” Olivia Rodrigo “drivers license” Popp Hunna “Adderall (Corvette Corvette)” FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEO Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak) “Leave The Door Open” Cardi B “Up” Lil Nas X “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” Olivia Rodrigo “drivers license” The Weeknd “Save Your Tears” FAVORITE MALE POP ARTIST Drake Ed Sheeran Justin Bieber Lil Nas X The Weeknd FAVORITE FEMALE POP ARTIST Ariana Grande Doja Cat Dua Lipa Olivia Rodrigo Taylor Swift FAVORITE POP DUO OR GROUP AJR BTS Glass Animals Maroon 5 Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak) FAVORITE POP ALBUM Ariana Grande “Positions” Dua Lipa “Future Nostalgia” Olivia Rodrigo “SOUR” Taylor Swift “evermore” The Kid LAROI “F*CK LOVE” FAVORITE POP SONG BTS “Butter” Doja Cat ft. SZA “Kiss Me More” Dua Lipa “Levitating” Olivia Rodrigo “drivers license” The Weeknd & Ariana Grande “Save Your Tears (Remix)” FAVORITE MALE COUNTRY ARTIST Chris Stapleton Jason Aldean Luke Bryan Luke Combs Morgan Wallen FAVORITE FEMALE COUNTRY ARTIST Carrie Underwood Gabby Barrett Kacey Musgraves Maren Morris Miranda Lambert FAVORITE COUNTRY DUO OR GROUP Dan + Shay Florida Georgia Line Lady A Old Dominion Zac Brown Band FAVORITE COUNTRY ALBUM Chris Stapleton “Starting Over” Gabby Barrett “Goldmine” Lee Brice “Hey World” Luke Bryan “Born Here Live Here Die Here” Morgan Wallen “Dangerous: The Double Album” FAVORITE COUNTRY SONG Chris Stapleton “Starting Over” Chris Young & Kane Brown “Famous Friends” Gabby Barrett “The Good Ones” Luke Combs “Forever After All” Walker Hayes “Fancy Like” FAVORITE MALE HIP-HOP ARTIST Drake Lil Baby Moneybagg Yo Polo G Pop Smoke FAVORITE FEMALE HIP-HOP ARTIST Cardi B Coi Leray Erica Banks Megan Thee Stallion Saweetie FAVORITE HIP-HOP ALBUM Drake “Certified Lover Boy” Juice WRLD “Legends Never Die” Megan Thee Stallion “Good News” Pop Smoke “Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon” Rod Wave “SoulFly” FAVORITE HIP-HOP SONG Cardi B “Up” Internet Money ft. Gunna, Don Toliver & NAV “Lemonade” Lil Tjay ft. 6LACK “Calling My Phone” Polo G “RAPSTAR” Pop Smoke “What You Know Bout Love” FAVORITE MALE R&B ARTIST Chris Brown Giveon Tank The Weeknd Usher FAVORITE FEMALE R&B ARTIST Doja Cat H.E.R. Jazmine Sullivan Jhené Aiko SZA FAVORITE R&B ALBUM Doja Cat “Planet Her” Giveon “When It’s All Said And Done… Take Time” H.E.R. “Back of My Mind” Jazmine Sullivan “Heaux Tales” Queen Naija “missunderstood” FAVORITE R&B SONG Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak) “Leave The Door Open” Chris Brown & Young Thug “Go Crazy” Giveon “Heartbreak Anniversary” H.E.R. “Damage” Jazmine Sullivan “Pick Up Your Feelings” FAVORITE MALE LATIN ARTIST Bad Bunny J Balvin Maluma Ozuna Rauw Alejandro FAVORITE FEMALE LATIN ARTIST Becky G Kali Uchis KAROL G Natti Natasha ROSALÍA FAVORITE LATIN DUO OR GROUP Banda MS de Sergio Lizárraga Calibre 50 Eslabon Armado La Arrolladora Banda El Limón De Rene Camacho Los Dos Carnales FAVORITE LATIN ALBUM Bad Bunny “EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO” Kali Uchis “Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios)” KAROL G “KG0516” Maluma “PAPI JUANCHO” Rauw Alejandro “Afrodisíaco” FAVORITE LATIN SONG Bad Bunny & Jhay Cortez “DÁKITI” Bad Bunny x ROSALÍA “LA NOCHE DE ANOCHE” Farruko “Pepas” Kali Uchis “telepatía” Maluma & The Weeknd “Hawái (Remix)” FAVORITE ROCK ARTIST AJR All Time Low Foo Fighters Glass Animals Machine Gun Kelly FAVORITE INSPIRATIONAL ARTIST CAIN Carrie Underwood Elevation Worship Lauren Daigle Zach Williams FAVORITE GOSPEL ARTIST Kanye West Kirk Franklin Koryn Hawthorne Maverick City Music Tasha Cobbs Leonard FAVORITE DANCE/ELECTRONIC ARTIST David Guetta ILLENIUM Marshmello Regard Tiësto

American Music Awards 2021: BTS, Ariana Grande nominated for Artist of the Year; read for details

Veteran Bollywood actor Yusuf Hussain has passed away, his son-in-law, director Hansal Mehta confirmed the news on Twitter.

The late actor was being treated at Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital, where he breathed his last on the morning of October 30, Mehta told Indian news agency PTI.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-shah-rukh-khan-leaves-for-arthur-road-jail-ahead-of-aryan-khans-release-today-425181">Shah Rukh Khan leaves for Arthur Road jail ahead of Aryan Khan's release</a>

Hansal Mehta, who is married to his daughter safeena, took to his Twitter to express his sorrow over the passing of his father-in-law. he wrote, "I had completed 2 schedules of Shahid. And we were stuck. I was troubled. A non-existent career as a filmmaker was almost finished completely. He just came up to me and said I have a fixed deposit and it is of no use to me if you are so troubled. He wrote a cheque. Shahid was completed. That was Yusuf Husain. Not my father-in-law but a father. He was life if life itself had to have a physical form."

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RIP Yusuf Husain. <a href="https://t.co/laP0b1U732">pic.twitter.com/laP0b1U732</a>
— Hansal Mehta (@mehtahansal) <a href="https://twitter.com/mehtahansal/status/1454205559628972037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 29, 2021</a></blockquote>
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"Today he is gone. To remind all those women in heaven that they are 'Duniya ki sabse khubsurat ladki' and all the men that they are 'Haseen naujwaan'. And then to end with a booming 'love you love you love you'. Yusuf Saab I owe this new life to you. I am truly orphaned today. Life will never be the same. I will miss you terribly. My Urdu will remain broken. And yes - love you love you love you!" the director further added.

Yusuf Hussain had a career in Bollywood spanning decades. Some of his noteworthy films included 'Vivaah', 'Dhoom 2', 'Khoya Khoya Chand', 'Crazy Cukkad Family', 'Road To Sangam' among others.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-call-my-agent-bollywood-review-fun-flirty-and-unapologetically-frivolous-425099" hreflang="en">'Call My Agent: Bollywood' review: Fun, flirty and unapologetically frivolous</a>

Hussain, who was married thrice, had told TOI in an earlier interview that he was still in the look out for a soulmate. He had reportedly said, "Yes, I have married thrice but I’m probably still looking for that perfectly understanding partner. But I’m 60 plus now, maybe that search will never end!" 
&nbsp;

Veteran Bollywood actor Yusuf Hussain has passed away, his son-in-law, director Hansal Mehta confirmed the news on Twitter. The late actor was being treated at Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital, where he breathed his last on the morning of October 30, Mehta told Indian news agency PTI.

Veteran Bollywood actor Yusuf Hussain has passed away, his son-in-law, director Hansal Mehta confirmed the news on Twitter. The late actor was being treated at Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital, where he breathed his last on the morning of October 30, Mehta told Indian news agency PTI. Also read: Shah Rukh Khan leaves for Arthur Road jail ahead of Aryan Khan's release Hansal Mehta, who is married to his daughter safeena, took to his Twitter to express his sorrow over the passing of his father-in-law. he wrote, "I had completed 2 schedules of Shahid. And we were stuck. I was troubled. A non-existent career as a filmmaker was almost finished completely. He just came up to me and said I have a fixed deposit and it is of no use to me if you are so troubled. He wrote a cheque. Shahid was completed. That was Yusuf Husain. Not my father-in-law but a father. He was life if life itself had to have a physical form." RIP Yusuf Husain. pic.twitter.com/laP0b1U732 — Hansal Mehta (@mehtahansal) October 29, 2021 × "Today he is gone. To remind all those women in heaven that they are 'Duniya ki sabse khubsurat ladki' and all the men that they are 'Haseen naujwaan'. And then to end with a booming 'love you love you love you'. Yusuf Saab I owe this new life to you. I am truly orphaned today. Life will never be the same. I will miss you terribly. My Urdu will remain broken. And yes - love you love you love you!" the director further added. Yusuf Hussain had a career in Bollywood spanning decades. Some of his noteworthy films included 'Vivaah', 'Dhoom 2', 'Khoya Khoya Chand', 'Crazy Cukkad Family', 'Road To Sangam' among others. Also read: 'Call My Agent: Bollywood' review: Fun, flirty and unapologetically frivolous Hussain, who was married thrice, had told TOI in an earlier interview that he was still in the look out for a soulmate. He had reportedly said, "Yes, I have married thrice but I’m probably still looking for that perfectly understanding partner. But I’m 60 plus now, maybe that search will never end!"

Yusuf Hussain, veteran Bollywood actor, dies of Covid at 73

Will Smith may have the whole world at his feet, but that did not mean he did not have his demons to fight.&nbsp;

In the recently released trailer of 'Will Smith: The Best Shape of My Life'--a YouTube originals docuseries on him--the actor can be heard discussing the highs and lows of his life, his mental health journey and the work that needed to be done to stay healthy.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/zayn-malik-reportedly-charged-with-harassment-against-yolanda-gigi-hadid-425229" hreflang="en">Zayn Malik reportedly charged with harassment against Yolanda &amp; Gigi Hadid</a>

"When I started this show, I thought I was getting into the best shape of my life, physically. But, mentally, I was somewhere else.&nbsp;And I ended up discovering a whole lot of hidden things about myself... That was the only time in my life that I ever considered suicide," said Will Smith in the trailer. Although he did not mention the exact phase he was referring to.&nbsp;

The video clip, which has garnered massive attention because of the 'King Richard' actor's confession, sees him winding it up with an excerpt from his&nbsp;memoir to his family.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-amitabh-bachchans-heartfelt-note-for-puneeth-rajkumar-calls-him-family-425197" hreflang="en">Amitabh Bachchan's heartfelt note for Puneeth Rajkumar, calls him 'family'</a>

"What you've come to understand as Will Smith, the alien-annihilating MC, bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction, a carefully crafted and honed character designed to protect myself, to hide myself from the world. To hide the coward," he reads, while fighting back tears.&nbsp;

Will Smith shared the trailer to Instagram handle on Friday, captioning it as, "Not every project works out the way you want it to. #bestshapeofmylife."

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'Will Smith: The Best Shape of My Life' is slated to release exclusively on YouTube on November 8.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-remembering-puneeth-rajkumar-the-philanthropist-a-man-with-a-golden-heart-425211" hreflang="en">Remembering Puneeth Rajkumar, the philanthropist: A man with a golden heart</a>

Will Smith may have the whole world at his feet, but that did not mean he did not have his demons to fight. In the recently released trailer of 'Will Smith: The Best Shape of My Life'--a YouTube originals docuseries on him--the actor can be heard discussing the highs and lows of his life, his mental health journey and the work that needed to be done to stay healthy.

Will Smith may have the whole world at his feet, but that did not mean he did not have his demons to fight. In the recently released trailer of 'Will Smith: The Best Shape of My Life'--a YouTube originals docuseries on him--the actor can be heard discussing the highs and lows of his life, his mental health journey and the work that needed to be done to stay healthy. Also read: Zayn Malik reportedly charged with harassment against Yolanda & Gigi Hadid "When I started this show, I thought I was getting into the best shape of my life, physically. But, mentally, I was somewhere else. And I ended up discovering a whole lot of hidden things about myself... That was the only time in my life that I ever considered suicide," said Will Smith in the trailer. Although he did not mention the exact phase he was referring to. The video clip, which has garnered massive attention because of the 'King Richard' actor's confession, sees him winding it up with an excerpt from his memoir to his family. Also read: Amitabh Bachchan's heartfelt note for Puneeth Rajkumar, calls him 'family' "What you've come to understand as Will Smith, the alien-annihilating MC, bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction, a carefully crafted and honed character designed to protect myself, to hide myself from the world. To hide the coward," he reads, while fighting back tears. Will Smith shared the trailer to Instagram handle on Friday, captioning it as, "Not every project works out the way you want it to. #bestshapeofmylife." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Will Smith (@willsmith) × 'Will Smith: The Best Shape of My Life' is slated to release exclusively on YouTube on November 8. Also read: Remembering Puneeth Rajkumar, the philanthropist: A man with a golden heart

Will Smith considered committing suicide: Mentally, I was somewhere else

The sudden and untimely demise of India's superstar from the Kannada film fraternity, Puneeth Rajkumar, have left people shaken.

His death has not only&nbsp;left the South Indian film industry grieving, even Bollywood actors are feeling the pain, too.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-shah-rukh-khan-leaves-for-arthur-road-jail-ahead-of-aryan-khans-release-today-425181">Shah Rukh Khan leaves for Arthur Road jail ahead of Aryan Khan's release</a>

Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan took to Twitter to express his grief over the death of a 'family' member, saying, "a day of remorse and prayer .. two close to the family passed away today .. it is too dark .."

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T 4079 - .. a day of remorse and prayer .. two close to the family passed away today .. it is too dark ..
— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) <a href="https://twitter.com/SrBachchan/status/1454156055986925568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 29, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Kannada cinema superstar <a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/kannada-actor-puneeth-rajkumar-passes-away-dulquer-salmaan-other-celebs-pay-heartfelt-tribute-424995">Puneeth Rajkumar</a>, popularly known as Appu, passed away at the age of 46 due to a cardiac arrest.&nbsp;

As per the reports, Rajkumar was hospitalised at Bengaluru's Vikram Hospital on Friday, October 29, after the actor began experiencing chest pain at the gym.&nbsp;

His mortal remains will reportedly be put to rest beside the grave of his father, the legendary Kannada actor Dr Rajkumar, in Bengaluru.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-yusuf-hussain-veteran-bollywood-actor-dies-of-covid-at-73-425183" hreflang="en">Yusuf Hussain, veteran Bollywood actor, dies of Covid at 73</a>

An order in this regard was issued by senior IAS officer N. Manjunath Prasad, principal secretary to the chief minister, on Friday.&nbsp;

Puneeth Rajkumar's mortal remains are kept for the general public to pay homage at Kanteerava Stadium till Saturday evening.

Thousands of people from across the state are pouring in to pay their last respects to the late superstar.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-american-music-awards-2021-bts-ariana-grande-nominated-for-artist-of-the-year-read-for-details-425193" hreflang="en">AMAs 2021: BTS, Ariana Grande nominated for Artist of the Year; read for more</a>

Several celebrities like Jr NTR, R Madhavan, Dulquer Salmaan, Suniel Shetty, Chiranjeevi, Anil Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn, Taapsee Pannu, Riteish Deshmukh, among others, have expressed their sadness over his death on social media.&nbsp;

The Prime minister of India Narendra Modi and the Vice President Venkaiah Naidu have offered their condolences to his bereaved family.&nbsp;

The sudden and untimely demise of India's superstar from the Kannada film fraternity, Puneeth Rajkumar, have left people shaken. His death has not only left the South Indian film industry grieving, even Bollywood actors are feeling the pain, too.

The sudden and untimely demise of India's superstar from the Kannada film fraternity, Puneeth Rajkumar, have left people shaken. His death has not only left the South Indian film industry grieving, even Bollywood actors are feeling the pain, too. Also read: Shah Rukh Khan leaves for Arthur Road jail ahead of Aryan Khan's release Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan took to Twitter to express his grief over the death of a 'family' member, saying, "a day of remorse and prayer .. two close to the family passed away today .. it is too dark .." T 4079 - .. a day of remorse and prayer .. two close to the family passed away today .. it is too dark .. — Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) October 29, 2021 × Kannada cinema superstar Puneeth Rajkumar, popularly known as Appu, passed away at the age of 46 due to a cardiac arrest. As per the reports, Rajkumar was hospitalised at Bengaluru's Vikram Hospital on Friday, October 29, after the actor began experiencing chest pain at the gym. His mortal remains will reportedly be put to rest beside the grave of his father, the legendary Kannada actor Dr Rajkumar, in Bengaluru. Also read: Yusuf Hussain, veteran Bollywood actor, dies of Covid at 73 An order in this regard was issued by senior IAS officer N. Manjunath Prasad, principal secretary to the chief minister, on Friday. Puneeth Rajkumar's mortal remains are kept for the general public to pay homage at Kanteerava Stadium till Saturday evening. Thousands of people from across the state are pouring in to pay their last respects to the late superstar. Also read: AMAs 2021: BTS, Ariana Grande nominated for Artist of the Year; read for more Several celebrities like Jr NTR, R Madhavan, Dulquer Salmaan, Suniel Shetty, Chiranjeevi, Anil Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn, Taapsee Pannu, Riteish Deshmukh, among others, have expressed their sadness over his death on social media. The Prime minister of India Narendra Modi and the Vice President Venkaiah Naidu have offered their condolences to his bereaved family.

Amitabh Bachchan, in heartfelt note for Puneeth Rajkumar, calls him 'family'

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