LOOKING for an acting job? Got a bit of experience under your belt? You're in luck because the James Bond scouts are out and about and they're under pressure to be a little bit more open minded about casting so the Articlave Am-drammers could be in with a shot.
Making a James Bond film is at the more intense end of the acting spectrum. Lots of action, lots of stunts, a broken leg here, a concussion there. Very Tom-Cruisey, so to speak.
The thought of wearing deodorant and heels is enough to put Sleb Safari off returning to the office so full marks to whoever agrees to become 007.
Playing James Bond isn't just a job. It's an acceptance that each film will necessitate at least one surgery. If not your knee, your shoulder etc. Working in accounts doesn't sound too bad after all, does it?
Daniel Craig hobbled his way through five Bonds and has bowed out with No Time To Die. Who could forget how enthusiastic he was about making another Bond after finishing the fourth with a broken leg as a souvenir. Daniel told Time Out magazine he would "rather break this glass and slit my wrists". It was a day the PR team will never forget.
And now they really do need to find his replacement. The list of male actors being talked about is long and embraces diversity. Regé-Jean Page's name is in the mix, along with Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, Henry Golding, Luke Evans, John Boyega, Tom Hiddleston and Richard Madden. Get Nick Mohammed on that list pronto please.
The list of female actors is much, much shorter, and the debate rages about whether there should be a female Bond or a role created for a female actor that births a franchise as legendary as Bond.
If they're going to go in a new direction why not go the whole hog and take Bond back to his roots, the ones sent up in the Austin Powers films.
Sleb Safari has a very clear vision of a new Bond and a new Q - Fr Peter and Sr Michael from Derry Girls. She'd be in the background rolling her eyes and muttering "dose" every time Peter, the name's Father Peter, opened his mouth and when he ends up strapped to a missile dangling over a shark tank it will be Sr Michael in her gi dishing out judo justice who saves 007.
If the Bond people are serious about making strides, one quick and easy decision would be to end their practice of giving villains a facial disfigurement. It's unnecessary, it's clichéd and it's unkind to people with a disfigurement. Now, that would be a step in the right direction.
Hungry boars target Shakira
Shakira, Colombian singer and Super Bowl 2020 half-time artist, says she was mugged by wild boars and if Shakira says that's what happened Sleb Safari believes her because Shakira's hips don't lie.
Shakira was walking through a park in Barcelona with one of her sons when wild boar grabbed her handbag and ran off with it. Boars have little need of a handbag nor its contents. A pen, purse, phone, tampon, lip balm, tissues (usage uncertain), face mask... none are of use to a boar, wild or otherwise. Yet, rather than leave them to their rummaging, Shakira ran after the animals and they dropped the bag and took to their heels.
Apparently it's not the first time wild boar have attacked visitors to this particular park as they move into urban areas looking for food. If they'd realised who they were mugging they could have sold Shakira's bag plus contents and done a huge food shop.
Blake Lively enters the soft drinks market
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds
It's a truth universally acknowledged that you're not really a movie star until you have your own brand of alcohol. If it's not tequila it's wine, and if it's not wine it's gin.
Blake Lively doesn't drink alcohol. Her husband, Ryan Reynolds, does. He is an investor in, and the face of, Aviation gin. Blake refuses to let her teetotaldom hold her back and has launched a range of alcohol-free sparkling drinks called Buzz Kill. Wait, Sleb Safari didn't have its glasses on when it read the press release, the range is actually called Betty Buzz.
"Over the past many years of mixing but not drinking cocktails, it became clear mixers are the unsung heroes of the drink world and deserve just as much love as alcohol," Blake says, adding "Why should alcohol get all the fun?" Why indeed.
It should come as no surprise that Ryan says the drinks pair deliciously with his gin. One can but presume the Lively-Reynolds children will be putting their name to an ice cube range before long.
