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Sleb Safari: Cher and Meryl are the perfect James Bonds

Maeve Connoly

Maeve Connolly

Maeve is the deputy digital editor at The Irish News. She has worked for the company since 2000.

Cher and Meryl Streep could be the next James Bonds if they job share
Cher and Meryl Streep could be the next James Bonds if they job share Cher and Meryl Streep could be the next James Bonds if they job share

CHER has been sharing a story about the time she and Meryl Streep intervened when a woman was being attacked on a New York street in the early 80s.

Cher told the story on the Late Late Show with James Corden and it got Sleb Safari to thinking that we might have found the next James Bond.

Over to Cher: “Meryl had just had Mamie and we were downtown in her apartment and she said ‘I want some ice cream’ and I said ‘OK, But is it dangerous down here?’ and she said ‘No no’ it’s Little Italy on one side and Chinatown on the other, we’ll be as safe as two peas in a pod.” Scene well set Cher, you may continue.

“And so we walk out and the first thing we see is some guy hitting cars with a brick and we walk down the street and we hear screaming and we come around the corner and this gigantic man is ripping the clothes off of this girl,” she said. The two peas decided on a course of action.

“Meryl starts screaming and I start screaming and we run towards this gigantic man and he turns and starts running towards us and just out of, I don’t know, we split and he ran through us and then we went up to the girl and all of her clothes were torn and she was clutching her bag.

“So we're putting her together, kind of trying to get her to look a little bit, you know, like she hasn't just been ravished, and she looks at us and goes ‘Oh my God I was saved by Meryl Streep and Cher. I’m an actress and I work in a cafe where we sing and all my friends are going to be so jealous’.”

The drama! The dialogue! Where is that woman now?

It sounds to Sleb Safari like Cher and Meryl are both eligible for the position of James Bond once Daniel Craig hangs up his tuxedo and back brace. Perhaps they could job share? Meryl would eradicate baddies by out acting them in every scene and Cher's secret weapon would be the vocoder.

There is, however, another contender for the role of James Bond and that’s Ms Emily Blunt.

Emily Blunt knows her way around a pretend gun after starring in Sicario
Emily Blunt knows her way around a pretend gun after starring in Sicario Emily Blunt knows her way around a pretend gun after starring in Sicario

Husband John Krasinski made the cracking suggestion, telling the Evening Standard: “I think a woman Bond would be amazing... Emily would be an amazing Bond. Would she do it? I don’t know. But I would love to see her do it.”

He’s right, Emily would be a kick ass Bond but so too would Cher and Meryl.

The two legends deserve to job share for at least a couple of films and then Emily could step into the breach. The notion of James Bond being Mary Poppins – or the other way around – is too delicious. We need to see James singing A Spoonful of Sugar as she decants a vial of poison into a villain's cocktail and bursting into a rousing rendition of Jolly Holiday as she dispatches a villain over a cliff. Take that Clark Kent.

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan share a bond forged in fire

Dakota Johnson, she of Fifty Shades fame, says she and Jamie Dornan are friends for life.

“I feel we will be friends forever,” she said.

“Jamie and I have gone through this whole journey together and he is the closest to knowing what the experience has been like and vice versa. If we didn’t get along as well as we do it would have been so much more difficult.

“Shooting intimate scenes is not comfortable, and they are amplified as the story moves on; so if I hadn’t trusted him or felt safe it would have been a nightmare.”

Dakota, what you’ve described there is an unbreakable bond forged through a shared trauma.

Dalriada Festival Competition Winners

Congratulations to the winners of a family pass to the Dalriada Festival:

Sharon Hobbs from Belfast

Deirdre Taylor from Bangor

Josephine Yendall from Carnlough

Margaret Diamond from Castledawson

Mo Curistan from Newtownabbey

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