Arrested Daryl vows to fight on

Daryl Hannah has vowed she won't give up her latest environmental campaign after she was arrested for protesting outside the White House in Washington and led away in handcuffs.

The Blade Runner star was released a couple of hours later after she paid a fine, but admits she will carry on with her campaign to stop a planned oil pipeline that will stretch from Canada to America's Gulf Coast.

She told Canada's CTV network: "There have been hundreds of people arrested over the last week and a half, and more to come in the next few days.

"I want to add my body and my voice to the thousands of others who are laying themselves on the line and saying, 'No, we do not want to be party to this incredibly destructive path.'

"We're becoming more dependent on fossil fuels and now we're becoming dependent on the most dirty of the fossil fuels."

Blythe's celebrity spirit

Gwyneth Paltrow's mother, actress Blythe Danner, has become a celebrity spokeswoman for post-menopausal osteoporosis after discovering she suffers from the bone disorder.

The Meet The Fockers star was shocked when she was diagnosed with the thinning bone condition and she has since researched the problem and now realises it is common among all women in their 50s and 60s.

She explains, "One in two women over the age of 50 will have a fracture-related osteoporosis. When I heard that, I thought, 'Woah! I better get on the case.'"

Danner is behind the launch of a new website, act2reducefractures.com, which offers advice and tips for fellow sufferers and proactive steps those approaching 50 about how to avoid osteoporosis.

Spall's sailing mishap

Actor Timothy Spall was rescued by a lifeboat crew after he got lost at sea while sailing in the dark, it has emerged.

The Harry Potter star, who is a keen sailor, is currently filming scenes for BBC TV series Timothy Spall: Back At Sea, which follows Spall and his wife travelling around the coast of Britain on their barge boat.

But on Wednesday Spall had to radio for help after accidentally sailing into busy shipping lanes in the Medway estuary in Kent. A lifeboat was called out and rescuers guided him back in to safety.

Spall told The Sun: "I feel foolish, but it's better to feel foolish and alive than clever and dead. I was terrified and very grateful to the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution). These guys risk their lives for idiots like us."

Mr Nice Guy

Everyone, it seems is a critic.  When Hollywood superstar and all round good guy Tom Hanks stopped to fill up at a Californian petrol station he met a couple who had gone to see his latest movie Larry Crowne at the cinema.  Seriously underwhelmed by the experience, they told him what they thought so Hanks - the very opposite of a screen diva - offered to refund their $25 on the spot, which they gratefully accepted. 

Be careful what you encore

More on Harrison Ford’s worryingly deadpan sense of humour.  The man who was Han Solo and Indiana Jones – and currently is the exceedingly grumpy Colonel Dolarhyde in Cowboys & Aliens – responds to a question about the spoof film pitch in this YouTube clip.

 

It prompts the thought that he must, over the course of a movie career that dates back to 1966, have really been offered some sequels as ludicrously misconceived as Air Force One 2.

“What’s ludicrous about Air Force One 2?” he growls.  “I’m in negotiations right now. I happen to think it will work.”

The Ford visage breaks into a smile after a worrying few moments, as he reveals a winning sense of self deprecation.

“You know, I’m trying to think if there was ever a sequel pitch that I didn’t go for. I don’t think so... when we did the sequels of Indiana Jones, my ambition was that we take advantage of the audiences’ knowledge of the character and extend and complicate that knowledge.

“That led to bringing in Indiana’s father and finally bringing in the son he never knew... those kinds of things. I wasn’t the only one who was ambitious for that but it’s something I felt very strongly about.”

So it’s safe to say Air Force One 2 won’t be getting off the ground any time soon, in case you were wondering.

Anne's Emmerdale secret

Brooklyn-born Anne Hathaway has revealed her secret weapon to get the Yorkshire accent she sports in her new weepie One Day: she watched the ITV1 soap Emmerdale to try to get it right.

"Emmerdale's great," she told the Daily Telegraph. "We don't have programmes like that in America so it was actually quite exotic for me."

Hathaway, who stars as working class lass Emma in Lone Scherfig's adaptation of David Nicholls' popular book, has come under fire from critics, offended by her attempt to flatten her vowels. She has also admitted that adapting to Emma's accent was "a challenge", especially since her character moves from Edinburgh to London to Paris over the 22-year course of the story.

"One of the things I was struck by was that so often when people leave Yorkshire they don't hang on to the accent," Hathaway told the Associated Press news agency.

 "The accent evens out and starts to mimic some new sounds from where they're from, so you can have 10 people from Yorkshire and they have 10 completely utterly different accents. But I worked with a dialect coach and just kind of tried my best".

It's not the first time that Hathaway has taken inspiration from an unlikely source while researching a role. Last week she told Interview magazine that she had prepared to play Cat Woman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises by watching home videos of cats on YouTube.

Why Spall got small

Actor Rafe Spall lost five-and-a-half stone (34.9 kg) on a crash diet after filmmakers bombarded him with offers to play fat men in movies.

The Shaun of the Dead star slimmed down dramatically after his waistline expanded so much he was only offered parts that suited his size.

Spall, who plays Anne Hathaway's comedian boyfriend in the new romantic drama One Day, told The Independent: "Because I was always a fat child, I got fatter and fatter and I ended up 18 stone and with a 40in waist.

"I was a young, fat actor for maybe two years and then I started getting sent parts for very fat people, and I thought I wanted to change this... I wanted the parts skinnier boys were playing."

Gaga goes gaga for Bollywood

Lady Gaga has admitted she's gone gaga on Bollywood films.

The flamboyant pop diva said, “I love how theatrical they are, and that’s my favorite part - that they are so surreal and full of fantasy.” 

In an interview recorded in Singapore last month but aired this weekend, she told Simi Garewal, host of Star Channel's India's Most Desirable, that she loved Bollywood for “its heightened sense of reality and surreal genius.” 

Lady Gaga said she was looking forward to going to India on a promotional visit in October and hoped to get to know some of the country's top stars, in addition to sampling Indian cuisine.

“I love Indian food. I love spicy curry. I used to eat Indian food in New York,” she told Garewal.

Horror guy

So, farewell then, Jimmy Sangster.

Jimmy who? Welsh-born Sangster, who has died aged 83, was a key figure in the rise and rise of Hammer Films, writing and or directing some of the British studio's biggest hits from the mid-50s starting with home-grown versions of Dracula and Frankenstein.

Just a brief roll call of his credits perfectly conjure up a deliciously lurid idea of his specialist craft: The Trollenberg Terror, Jack the Ripper, The Man Who Could Cheat Death, Paranoiac, Nightmare, Taste of Fear, Hysteria ... the list goes on.

Even the title of his 1997 memoirs had a memorable ring: "Do you want it good or Tuesday?"

No news yet of how the great man finally succumbed but it's unlikely to have been as spectacularly as some of the bizarre deaths he devised for his characters.

Sharpening the Blade

Thirty years after Blade Runner, the cult sci-fi thriller which seems to have spawned more cuts than a van load of prime beef, it's reported that the subject matter is about to get a completely fresh makeover by the man who created it - Ridley, now Sir Ridley, Scott.

Scott, now 73, and currently hard at work on the futuristic Prometheus, which apparently has echoes of the director's most enduring classic, Alien, won't be the first filmmaker to return to his own original subject matter.

Directors from Michael Haneke (Funny Games) to George Sluizer (The Vanishing) have gone down the same route albeit within a shorter time period, so it's unlikely we'll see the likes of Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young or Daryl Hannah recreating their iconic roles from 1982.

Taking the Michael

More than 20 years after they last turned a book by prolific children's author Michael Morpurgo into a film (When the Whales Came in 1989), there are now two currently either in production or on the verge of release.

Huge excitement awaits the imminent arrival of War Horse (pictured below), which Steven Spielberg has directed straight without the benefit of the amazing equine puppetry which has so distinguished the hit stage show.

However, its setting of The Great War is shared with the latest Morpurgo book-to-screen transfer, Private Peaceful, which has now started shooting in Ipswich and around Suffolk. The youthful case includes George Mackay, Alexandra Roach and ubiquitous former Skins actor Jack O'Connell, 21, already on at least his third film this year.

Is there a doctor in the house?

The storming box office performance of The Inbetweeners Movie confirms the four actors from the BAFTA nominated E4 series as stars, with the crudely hilarious movie taking £2.5 million on its first day of release in the UK.

Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison and Joe Thomas are ready to move on to even bigger and better things now, now they have finally said goodbye to characters they were cast as originally in 2008.

“These four young comic actors are the best four young comic actors of their generation,” says Iain Morris, who with writing partner Damon Beesley created The Inbetweeners, scripting three series and now the film. “They’ve made those characters their own.”

But, given that the original audition process was so long and so many actors were seen there must have been some who got away who are now well known for other things.

“Matt Smith, the best Doctor Who of all time, was up for the role of Will. He was really, really brilliant and so funny, just a brilliant actor.  And clever. He had all the comic timing you wanted, all the dramatic sense you might need.”

“We spent a long time in development,” Beesley adds. “I think if we had to make a decision very quickly and we were going off to shoot, we would definitely have gone with Matt at that point.  But it just became a very long drawn out thing, and he had other projects on the go. Quite big projects, as it turned out, but we loved him.”

Health warnings for airline movies

Virgin Atlantic has begun issuing "emotional health warnings" before some in-flight movies after a survey revealed that people are more likely to find themselves weeping when airborne.

Toy Story 3, the Adam Sandler comedy Just Go With It and the Reese Witherspoon/Robert Pattinson romance Water for Elephants are among the first films to receive the alerts, which will advise passengers to keep a box of tissues handy and press the call button if they need a shoulder to cry on.

According to a survey on the airline's Facebook page, 41% of men said they had buried themselves in blankets to hide their tears from fellow passengers, but women were more likely to pretend they had something in their eye. Overall, 55% said they had experienced heightened emotions while flying, with travellers from Wolverhampton the most likely to join the "mile high blub club".

Toy Story 3 was the top in-flight tearjerker movie, while Brokeback Mountain and the Clint Eastwood drama Gran Torino also made the top 10.

The top 10 tearjerkers

1. Toy Story 3

2. The Blind Side

3. Eat Pray Love

4. My Sister's Keeper

5. Seven Pounds

6. Brokeback Mountain

7. The Notebook

8. Gran Torino

9. Invictus

10. Billy Elliot

Gerard Depardieu thrown off plane

French actor Gerard Depardieu was thrown off a Paris to Dublin flight and told to book another one after he was caught short after the seat belt sign was switched on for take-off.

With the lavatories closed, the 62-year-old - said to be "somewhat the worse for wear" - called out "I need to p***, I need to p***". But the cabin crew told him he would have to wait until the plane was airborne. So the star of Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean de Florette and Green Card decided to take matters into his own hands. It is understood he tried to relieve himself into an empty bottle at the back of the plane but also splashed the floor. 

Irate passengers were told the City Jet Avro RJ85 would be grounded for two hours while staff cleaned the carpet and Depardieu, who was travelling with two companions, was ordered off the flight with his luggage.

An outraged female passenger told France's Europe 1 radio she was "outraged" by an actor who "thinks he is not like others, that he has to abide by their rules. He could have waited a couple of minutes." 

City Jet confirmed that an incident took place but declined to name the individual involved. Depardieu's agent declined to comment on the incident.