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      Chiwetel Ejiofor on the Shakespeare Play That ‘Revolutionized’ Him

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      The “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” actor talks about the ways John Coltrane, Paul Cézanne and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie influence him.Chiwetel Ejiofor went to see “Bridget Jones’s Diary” back in 2001, fully expecting to be bombarded by female energy.Instead, he left the theater stunned by how much he related to her, he said: “feeling all of that chaos and a little bit out of step with the world but somehow with optimism and hopefulness and a sort of fake-it-till-you-make-it spirit.”So when the director Michael Morris asked him to discuss “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” the franchise’s latest installment, over tea in London, Ejiofor didn’t have to fake anything.“I loved the whole world of it,” he said.This time around, Renée Zellweger’s Bridget is a widowed mother of two, and Ejiofor is Mr. Wallaker, her son’s science teacher and a potential love interest.Not that he would dare attempt to replace Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). “They’re iconic,” he said.But portraying a distinct character at a different, perhaps more challenging time in Bridget’s life “made it incredibly fun to play,” he said — if occasionally poignant. “You can’t hold onto your 30-something self obviously, but if you still maintain a bit of that quality, it assists you in navigating these waters.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Isabella Rossellini: “Conclave” Scene Stealer and First-Time Oscar Nominee

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      “Her name is Georgia O’Keeffe,” Isabella Rossellini said, as she dove her hands into the outrageously fluffy and dense coat of a Lincoln Longwool sheep, a rare English breed. Next up, weaving around the patio furniture, was Toto, a fleecy Finn. “Toto always wags his tail,” she said, giving him a pat. Rossellini’s flock of heritage animals had eagerly come trotting over as soon as they spotted her: The matriarch and founder of Mama Farm was home.Rossellini, the model turned actress turned animal behaviorist (“ethologist” is the term she uses), was giving a tour of her operation, nestled on 30 acres in a village in the middle of Long Island, one bright afternoon last week. There were goats and ducks and 150 chickens, now kept safely in their coops to protect them from bird flu. Before she picked me up at the train station, she had checked on the bees personally — “because everyone’s afraid of them,” she said — making sure they had food and were warm enough. “They have to keep themselves at 97 degrees, even if it is 20 outside,” Rossellini said. “They do like the penguins — they create a ball, and vibrate to create heat.”Rossellini’s mother, Ingrid Bergman, was nominated for seven Oscars and won three. If Rossellini wins on March 2, they would become the first mother-daughter pair to win.Thea Traff for The New York TimesBesides being a caretaker and trove of animal facts, Rossellini is also, at 72, a first-time Oscar nominee, as a supporting actress, for her small but pivotal role in “Conclave.” As Sister Agnes, an alert Mother Superior who holds her tongue until her morals lead her otherwise, Rossellini has some of the best lines in the movie. The Vatican-set dramatic thriller, about choosing a new pope, is also up for seven other awards, including best picture.For Rossellini, who imagined that notable acting jobs were in her rearview, it was an unexpected, and overwhelming, recognition. She is now in the record books, as one of the few mother-daughter pairs to be nominated: Her mother, Ingrid Bergman, was up for seven Oscars and won three, starting in 1944. If Rossellini goes home with the prize, it would make them the first winning mother-daughter twosome in history. Rossellini’s father, the neorealist filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, also landed one nomination, in 1950.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Barbie Hsu, Taiwanese Actress and Star of ‘Meteor Garden,’ Dies at 48

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      Her role in the teen drama catapulted her to fame as a pop idol. She was also a TV host and appeared in films.Barbie Hsu, a Taiwanese actress, television host and pop star who catapulted to Pan-Asian popularity in 2001 as the star of the Cinderella-style teenage drama “Meteor Garden,” died on Feb. 2 in Tokyo. She was 48.Her death was announced to TVBS News in Taiwan by her sister Dee Hsu, who said the cause was complications of the flu. The family had been vacationing in Japan.In “Meteor Garden,” an adaptation of the Japanese manga “Boys Over Flowers,” Ms. Hsu played Dong Shan Cai, a naïve yet headstrong student from a poor family who is terrorized by a group of four handsome boys who call themselves F4 after she enrolls in the elite private school they attend. She reluctantly enters high society when F4’s leader, Dao Ming Si (played by Jerry Yan), falls for her.With her expressive eyes and elfin features, Ms. Hsu was a natural for the role, and she exploded in popularity across swaths of Asia, where she was known by the nickname Big S.Fans were particularly drawn to her character’s relatable and resilient nature. “I am like a blade of grass,” she said in one episode. “No matter how many times you cut me down, I will grow back and live again.”The four male stars used the series’ influence to promote their boy band, also called F4 — for “Flower Four” — making “Meteor Garden” an early example of the genre known as idol drama, formulaic but addictive love stories featuring pop stars. Ms. Hsu’s character became the genre’s classic protagonist.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ben Whishaw, as Paddington Once More, Is Here to Make You Feel Better

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      With “Paddington in Peru,” the British actor voices the beloved bear for the third time. His calming charm remains the franchise’s calling card.Paddington was not part of my childhood. I was a Muppet kid, and Fozzie was my comfort bear of choice.Instead, Paddington came to me as an adult. In 2015, an exceedingly polite, marmalade-slurping fellow in a floppy felt hat and blue duffel coat arrived in theaters and offered an uplifting story about tolerance and pluck. Three years later, the euphorically reviewed “Paddington 2” delivered a reassuring — calming — message about the ugly chaos of modern life: Keep believing in goodness. It’s still out there.So when I recently had the opportunity to talk to Paddington himself, I couldn’t help but turn the interview into a therapy session.It wasn’t actually Paddington, of course. I was on a video call with the British actor Ben Whishaw. He voices Paddington in the PG-rated franchise, the third installment in which, “Paddington in Peru,” arrives in theaters in the United States and Canada on Friday. Our chat was supposed to be about an imaginary world where optimistic bears carry umbrellas and tuck sandwiches under their hats. On the day we spoke, however, my mind was consumed by the real world — the Los Angeles fires, the turmoil of a changing presidential administration, my mother needing heart surgery.Paddington! Say it’s all going to be OK!“I understand,” Whishaw said gently, sounding identical to Paddington in every syllable. “You feel like nothing is stable anymore.”Nicole Kidman with the title character in the first “Paddington” movie.Weinstein CompanyWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The BAFTAs Rising Star Award Has a Public Option

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      The EE Rising Star Award is the only honor presented at the British equivalent of the Oscars that is voted on by the British public.“It’s nice that the audience are getting to have a say in Britain’s biggest award-giving ceremony,” James McAvoy said at the 2006 British Academy Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs.The Scottish actor, then 26, had just been named the inaugural winner of BAFTA’s Orange Rising Star Award. Introducing the newly minted prize, the British actor Patrick Stewart explained that it was presented to “a young actor or actress of any nationality who has demonstrated exceptional talent and ambition” and that it was the only accolade of the evening voted on by the British public.Sunday’s ceremony marks the 20th anniversary of the prize, now known as the EE Rising Star Award, which the British public has bestowed on an entire generation of up-and-coming actors and actresses, including Tom Hardy, Eva Green, Letitia Wright, Daniel Kaluuya and Kristen Stewart.This year’s nominees include Marisa Abela, the star of the Amy Winehouse biopic “Back to Black,” David Jonsson, who plays a sympathetic android in “Alien: Romulus,” and Mikey Madison, the star of Sean Baker’s “Anora,” who is also in the running for a leading actress award. (Many Rising Star Award contenders have been nominated in a BAFTA performance category as well, but none has managed the feat of winning both, so far.)David Jonsson has also been nominated for the prize; he played a sympathetic android in “Alien: Romulus.”Isabel Infantes/Reuters“I think that the Rising Star Award has been very smart,” Xan Brooks, a film critic for The Guardian, said in a phone interview. Especially in today’s influencer-social media culture of effervescent fame, Brooks contended that “there is a place for a Rising Star Award in the British awards firmament.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Turn as Trump Made Sebastian Stan an Unlikely Oscar Nominee

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      For years, it seemed fair to assume that the actor Sebastian Stan could make a career on both sides of Hollywood. There was dabbling in juicy supporting roles — he played the ex-husbands of both Tonya Harding and Pamela Anderson — while comfortably returning to the action-hero part for which he is best known: Bucky Barnes. As the erstwhile sidekick of Captain America, Stan has been a regular in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies since 2011 (including “Thunderbolts*,” which hits theaters in May). There are surely worse fates than simply maintaining that balance.“There’s a group of actors — I’ll put Colin Farrell in this group as well — that are so handsome that in some sense it works against them,” said Jessica Chastain, Stan’s friend and castmate in “The Martian” and “The 355.”While being too good-looking a movie star may be world’s-smallest-violin territory, a whirlwind year with two standout unconventional performances now has the 42-year-old cast in a very different light. It has also already brought in some leading-man hardware, with more maybe to come.In the surreal comedy “A Different Man,” an actor who has a condition that distorts his facial features has a medical procedure to make himself instead look classically attractive — specifically, to look like Sebastian Stan. Stan’s gutsy subversion of his looks won him the Silver Bear for leading performance at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival and the Golden Globe for acting in a comedy or musical last month.Sebastian Stan, an Oscar nominee for his portrayal of President Trump in “The Apprentice,” called the movie “a fresh lens on him — but also on an American truth that doesn’t always get picked apart in this way.”Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesThe other movie, “The Apprentice,” is about a showy, morally questionable real estate mogul in 1970s and ’80s New York named Donald J. Trump. Stan plays Trump, his looks this time buried underneath both considerable physical makeup and all the figurative baggage viewers bring to the subject. From the movie’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last May, it was unclear if the film would find distribution and open in theaters, let alone be a part of awards season discussion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Actor Fred Savage’s New Role Is as a Watch Entrepreneur

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      The actor, who spent his childhood in “The Wonder Years,” has established a watch assessment service.Fred Savage, the actor best known for his childhood role in the television comedy “The Wonder Years,” has taken on a new part in real life: watch collector and entrepreneur.In the past six months or so, he attended Geneva Watch Days, WatchTime New York and the Dec. 6 Important Watches auction at Sotheby’s New York. He also is a member of Classic Watch Club, a collectors’ group in Manhattan, and owns about 50 watches.“Watch collecting started as a hobby, because I was really interested in these mechanical objects that still worked and looked so great a hundred years after they were manufactured,” Mr. Savage, 48, said during a phone interview (wearing, he noted, a Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox GT). “The deeper I’ve gotten into watches, my knowledge has grown. It has really enriched my life — almost every aspect of my life — because of the people that it has introduced me to.”And late last month Mr. Savage officially introduced Timepiece Grading Specialists, or TGS, a business that rates a watch’s condition for authentication or valuation purposes. Fees start at $250 per watch, which would include a detailed report with photos; appraisals, servicing and storage are available at additional cost. The business began accepting watches for evaluation last fall in a kind of soft launch, and three of the watches sold at the Sotheby’s sale in December had TGS assessments.Timepiece Grading Specialists is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, in the offices of Stoll & Company, which handles the horological work.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesMr. Savage said his company was meant to fill a void in the watch community. “I realized that, with the huge marketplace that’s like the Wild West, nobody’s looking out for the collector,” he said. “I looked at all these other collectible verticals: Whether it’s comic books or coins or baseball cards or sports cards or shoes or video games, every one of these collectibles has one, if not multiple, third-party authentication and grading services.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Demi Moore, On the Verge of Her First Oscar

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      Demi Moore is the star of one of the goriest, most audacious films ever nominated for an Oscar, the feminist body-horror satire “The Substance.” Onscreen, Moore, 62, dissolves and mutates in often grisly ways — nude, and in extreme close-up. And she could not be more self-actualized about it.The role required “wrestling with the flashes of my own insecurity and ego,” Moore explained. “I was being asked to share those things that I don’t necessarily want people to see.”She was speaking in a video interview last week, dressed in casual black and big glasses, twisting and tucking her legs under her, on her office couch, with every thought. Filming through that discomfort was a “gift — silver lining, blessing, whatever you want to call it,” she continued. “Once you put it all out there, what else is there? There’s nothing to hide. Being able to let go was another layer of liberation for me.” The following night, she won the Critics Choice prize for best actress.Her career and cultural resurgence is overdue, said Ryan Murphy, the showrunner and a friend who at long last convinced her to work with him in last year’s “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.” She had the beauty and aura of an old-school movie star, he said, with the professional discipline to match, but the flexibility of a seeker: “Game to do anything,” he said. “She’s a pathfinder. We all talk about what she’s done for the business and for other women.”“The universe told me that you’re not done,” Moore said in her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, talking about her role in “The Substance” that has her on the verge of an Oscar.And, he added, “she is one of the most emotionally intelligent people that you’ll ever meet. Whenever I have an emotional dilemma or I need advice, I do not go to my shrink — I go to her.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More