Re-cycling Ryan

Bradley Wiggins - The Movie? Surely it's only a matter of time after
the charismatic Brit's astonishing win in the Tour de France.

But who to portray the man who has added the UK's first ever
Yellow Jersey to a a string of Olympic cycling golds over
the last dozen years?

Trouble is, this country's hottest young actors, such as Tom
Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne, Ed Stoppard and Dan Stevens
are, frankly, far too posh - and, to be honest, a bit too fey -
to portray the no-nonsense thirtysomething from North London.

So, in the great tradition of
cinema, and perhaps the
promiseof a healthy injection
of studio funds,we look instead
to Hollywood-- and no
further than Oscar-nominated
lookalike Ryan Gosling who with
a spectacular set of sideburns
would be Wiggo to the 'T'.

And as if fate destined, we note
where Gosling was actually born.
London, no less, albeit London,
Ontario. It's a no brainer.

Ben joins the queue for Q

After Peter Burton, Desmond Llewelyn and John Cleese, the ever-busy British star Ben Whishaw is the latest Q in the new James Bond adventure Skyfall, which is set to hit our screens in October.

Whishaw will be seen on TV this month in BBC 2’s Richard II and later this year on the big screen in Cloud Atlas alongside including Tom Hanks, Jim Sturgess and Halle Berry. He will also be seen in the second series of The Hour for the BBC, in which he stars opposite Dominic West and Romola Garai. 

His big breakthrough came in the hugely popular BBC drama Criminal Justice which saw him pick up the award for best actor at the 2009 Royal Television Society Awards, Best Actor at the International Emmy Awards 2009 and was nominated for Best Actor at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards.

His films include roles in Bright Star, The Tempest, Brideshead Revisited, I’m Not There, Stoned, Layer Cake, Enduring Love, The Trench, Mauvaise Passé, and the lead roles in My Brother Tom and Perfume opposite Alan Rickman and Dustin Hoffman.

Daniel Craig is back as 007 in Skyfall but his loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, Bond must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost. 

Killing machine

And they just keep on re-booting. Latest for a Hollywood makeover is Paul Verhoeven's 1987 heavy metal classic RoboCop, so successful it even spawned two (increasingly naff) sequels.

Taking on the role of part man-part machine Alex Murphy, played in the first two RoboCop movies by intense American actor Peter Weller, will be Joel Kinnaman (below), best known as the twitchy lawman sidekick in the American TV version of The Killing.

For the 2013 release, directed by Jose (Elite Squad) Padilha, Kinnaman will be joined in the futuristic world of 2029 Detroit by Gary Oldman, as RoboCop inventor, and Samuel L Jackson, as the city's top media mogul.

A star is shorn

So, farewell then, Peter O'Toole. No, he's not, thankfully, yet shuffled off this mortal coil but rather, on the cusp of his 80th birthday, just announced his retirement from acting.

Eight times Oscar-nominated and the winner of an Honorary statuette in 2003 for his body of work, Irish-born O'Toole has been a film star for more than 50 years when he made his first significant movie in 1958, The Day They Robbed The Bank of England.

But it was subsequent roles in bigger budget, much higher-profile titles like Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, Lord Jim, What's New Pussycat? The Lion in Winter and My Favourite Year that properly cemented his legacy.

"It's my belief," he said, bowing out of the Biz of Show, "that one should decide for oneself when it's time to end one's stay. It's time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me; it won't come back."

Instead, the cricket lover and one-time hellraiser will concentrate instead on the third volume of his memoirs.

Di another day

Naomi Watts is no stranger to recreating real-life characters on the big screen. But even playing Helen Gandy, Hoover's faithful secretary in in J Edgar, or CIA operative Valerie Plame in Fair Game - both hardly household faces - won't have quite prepared her for the "visibility" of her latest movie assignment

The British born, Aussie raised actress has just started filming Diana, formerly called Caught in Flight, which, according to the press release, is an account of the "most fulfilling years" of the late Princess Diana.

Watts, at 44 actually eight years older than Diana when the latter died in a Paris car crash 15 years ago, is joined in the film, directed by Oliver (Downfall) Hirschbiegel) by Douglas Hodge, Juliet Stevenson and Naveen Andrews.

Below is a first image by Laurie Sparham of Watts as the tragic Princess wearing a gown by Azagury and jewels by Chopard.