1.
London Underground
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The London Underground is a public rapid transit system serving London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. The network has expanded to 11 lines, and in 2015–16 carried 1.34 billion passengers, the 11 lines collectively handle approximately 4.8 million passengers a day. The system has 270 stations and 250 miles of track, despite its name, only 45% of the system is actually underground in tunnels, with much of the network in the outer environs of London being on the surface. In addition, the Underground does not cover most southern parts of Greater London, the current operator, London Underground Limited, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London, the statutory corporation responsible for the transport network in Greater London. As of 2015, 92% of operational expenditure is covered by passenger fares, the Travelcard ticket was introduced in 1983 and Oyster, a contactless ticketing system, in 2003. Contactless card payments were introduced in 2014, the LPTB was a prominent patron of art and design, commissioning many new station buildings, posters and public artworks in a modernist style. Other famous London Underground branding includes the roundel and Johnston typeface, to prepare construction, a short test tunnel was built in 1855 in Kibblesworth, a small town with geological properties similar to London. This test tunnel was used for two years in the development of the first underground train, and was later, in 1861, the worlds first underground railway, it opened in January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. It was hailed as a success, carrying 38,000 passengers on the opening day, the Metropolitan District Railway opened in December 1868 from South Kensington to Westminster as part of a plan for an underground inner circle connecting Londons main-line termini. The Metropolitan and District railways completed the Circle line in 1884, built using the cut and this opened in 1890 with electric locomotives that hauled carriages with small opaque windows, nicknamed padded cells. The Waterloo and City Railway opened in 1898, followed by the Central London Railway in 1900, the Metropolitan Railway protested about the change of plan, but after arbitration by the Board of Trade, the DC system was adopted. When the Bakerloo was so named in July 1906, The Railway Magazine called it an undignified gutter title, by 1907 the District and Metropolitan Railways had electrified the underground sections of their lines. In January 1913, the UERL acquired the Central London Railway, the Bakerloo line was extended north to Queens Park to join a new electric line from Euston to Watford, but World War I delayed construction and trains reached Watford Junction in 1917. During air raids in 1915 people used the stations as shelters. An extension of the Central line west to Ealing was also delayed by the war, the Metropolitan promoted housing estates near the railway with the Metro-land brand and nine housing estates were built near stations on the line. Electrification was extended north from Harrow to Rickmansworth, and branches opened from Rickmansworth to Watford in 1925, the Piccadilly line was extended north to Cockfosters and took over District line branches to Harrow and Hounslow. In 1933, most of Londons underground railways, tramway and bus services were merged to form the London Passenger Transport Board, the Waterloo & City Railway, which was by then in the ownership of the main line Southern Railway, remained with its existing owners. In the same year that the London Passenger Transport Board was formed, in the following years, the outlying lines of the former Metropolitan Railway closed, the Brill Tramway in 1935, and the line from Quainton Road to Verney Junction in 1936
2.
Fare evasion
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It is a problem in many parts of the world, and revenue protection officers operate on many systems. Often ticket barriers, manned or automatic, are in place at stations etc. to ensure only those with valid tickets may access the transport, fare evasion and fare fraud is generally a crime in most jurisdictions. The fare not paid, compared to potential penalties and hassle, is generally considered “not worth it”, one method of fare evasion is jumping over the turnstiles which mark the entryway into a subway system, hence the term, “turnstile jumping”. Other methods include adults traveling on children’s tickets, or using discounted tickets or free passes that the passenger is not entitled to, the most extreme method is train surfing. Another issue occurs on the bus, passengers would either bypass the bus driver or simply enter through the door of the bus. This is commonly found under the New York City Bus system which causes its operators to lose millions of dollars a year. In most countries passengers board a bus from any door, validate their tickets at machines and have no contact with the driver thus increasing the potential for fare evasion, fare evasion can be a chronic problem in transit systems, especially large systems like New York or Paris. Indeed, industry standard revenue ‘leakage’ is reportedly 3%~6%, evasion is so rampant in some cities that conversion from POP to turnstiles is being proposed or seriously considered. To understand evasion, it is imperative to first understand interactions between fare control hardware, fare tariff, and passengers, evasion occurs when passengers gain access from unpaid to paid side by interacting with fare controls in manners inconsistent with tariff. Transit’s tariff is complex, sometimes requiring legitimate revenue passengers to defeat fare controls with behaviors that resemble evasion to casual observers, additionally, entry procedures are not always strictly followed, though usually no actual revenue losses takes place. There are, therefore, real debates about what constitutes evasion, different observation methodologies were used to estimate evasions, staff interviews, operator counts, surveyor counts, and third party audits. Panic bars on emergency exit doors, which sound an alarm when the door is opened, are in all stations of the New York City Subway, panic bars were also installed on Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston and on Chicago Transit Authority. This provided an impetus for renewed interests in evasion, because evaders could enter through gates when already opened by exiting passengers, closed-circuit television monitoring is used by many public transport companies to combat vandalism and other public order crimes. Using CCTV to apprehend fare-dodgers in the act requires full-time human monitoring of the cameras, sophisticated CCTV systems discriminate the scenes to detect and segregate suspicious behaviour from numerous screens and to enable automatic alerting. However, the attentiveness of the surveillance personnel may be threatened by false reliance on automatics, a penalty fare is a special fare charged at a higher than normal price because the purchaser did not comply with the normal ticket purchasing rules. Typically penalty fares are incurred by passengers failing to purchase a ticket before travelling or by purchasing a ticket which does not cover their whole journey. Penalty fares are not fines, and are used when no legal basis for prosecuting fare evasion exists, prosecution is deemed too drastic and costly, on some systems, fare evasion is considered a misdemeanor. In such cases, police officers and in some cases transit employees are authorized to issue tickets which usually carry a heavy fine, then, charged persons can then be tried in court
3.
Rachel Weisz
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Rachel Hannah Weisz is a British-American actress. Weisz began her career in the early 1990s, appearing in Inspector Morse, Scarlet and Black. She made her debut in Death Machine. Her first Hollywood appearance was in Chain Reaction, opposite Keanu Reeves and her stage breakthrough was the 1994 revival of Noël Cowards play Design for Living, which earned her the London Critics Circle Award for the most promising newcomer. Weiszs performances also include the 1999 Donmar Warehouse production of Tennessee Williams Suddenly, Last Summer and her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the latter play earned her the Olivier Award for Best Actress. Weisz appeared in the film, The Mummy in 1999, other films that followed are, Enemy at the Gates, About a Boy, Constantine and Darren Aronofskys The Fountain. For her supporting role in the drama thriller The Constant Gardener, opposite Ralph Fiennes, she received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, in 2006, Weisz received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year. She starred in Oz the Great and Powerful in 2013, in 2015, she appeared in two Cannes Film Festival films, Youth and The Lobster. Weisz portrays Deborah Lipstadt in Denial, the film is based on Lipstadts book and is directed by Mick Jackson. Weisz was born in Westminster, London, and grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb and her father, George Weisz, is a mechanical engineer/inventor from Hungary. Her mother, Edith Ruth, was a teacher-turned-psychotherapist from Vienna and her parents left for the United Kingdom around 1938, before the outbreak of the Second World War, to escape the Nazis. Scholar Rev. James Parkes helped her mother and her mothers family leave Austria for England and her father is from a Jewish family, her maternal grandfather, Alexander Teich, was also Jewish, and had been a secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students. Her mothers ancestry is Austrian Jewish, Viennese and Italian, Weiszs mother formally converted to Judaism when marrying Weiszs father. She has a sister, Minnie Weisz, who is a photographic artist. Weiszs parents valued the arts and encouraged their children to form opinions of their own by introducing them to family debates, Weisz left North London Collegiate School and attended Benenden School for one year, completing A-levels at St Pauls Girls School. Known for being an English rose, Weisz started modelling when she was 14, in 1984, she gained public attention when she turned down an offer to star in King David with Richard Gere. Her education concluded at Trinity Hall, Cambridge where she graduated with a second-class honours and it won a Guardian Student Drama Award at the 1991 Edinburgh Festival Fringe for an improvised piece called Slight Possession, directed by David Farr. Dirty Something, a BBC Screen Two, hour-long film made in 1992, was Rachel Weiszs first film, playing Becca who met, the opening scenes were filmed at the festival
4.
The Day Today
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The Day Today is a British comedy television show which parodies television current affairs programmes, broadcast in 1994 on BBC2. For The Day Today, Peter Baynham joined the writing team, the principal cast of On the Hour was retained for The Day Today. The Day Today is composed of six episodes and a selection of shorter. The six half-hour episodes were originally broadcast from 19 January to 23 February 1994 on BBC2, the Day Today has won many awards, including Morris winning the 1994 British Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. All six episodes are available on BBC DVD, having previously issued on VHS. Each episode is presented as a news programme, and the episodes rely on a combination of ludicrous fictitious news stories, covered with a serious. Each episode revolves around one or two stories, which are pursued throughout the programme, along with a host of other stories usually only briefly referred to. The final episode features reports from the fictitious documentary The Office, other non-news segments of the programme include the occasional physical cartoons of current events set in the studio. The programme occasionally features producer Armando Iannucci and writer Peter Baynham, John Thomson, Graham Linehan, Tony Haase, and Minnie Driver also appear. Michael Alexander St John provides the voiceover stings, as he did in On the Hour, much of the programmes humour derives from its excessively brash style of reporting, and its unnecessarily complex format. Morris presents aggressively, often arguing with reporters and guests on-air, the programme frequently lambasts Conservative government politicians in office at the time of the programmes production. Those repeatedly lampooned by the series include John Major, Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten, Douglas Hurd, Virginia Bottomley, Michael Portillo, each episode ends in a familiar style for news reports, with the camera panning out as the studio lights dim on Morris. The programme features surreal news items, examples include, Reports that explosive-packed terrorist dogs were being released in London by the IRA. These bomb dogs wreak havoc, and prompt the British police to begin executing any dog on sight and this story is accompanied by a clip of Steve Coogan impersonating a Gerry Adams-esque Sinn Féin leader, spouting rhetoric while inhaling helium to subtract credibility from his statement. Coverage of a feud between John Major and the Queen, coverage of an ongoing rail crisis, following a train trapped on the tracks in Hampshire. Trapped by a signal post, the stranded train rapidly becomes the scene of anarchy and paganism. In the fifth episode, Morris provokes a war between Hong Kong and Australia, and much of the episode revolves around the resulting conflict, subsequent reports of the war, delivered from Eastmanstown in the Upper Cataracts on the Australio-Hong-Kong border, are humorously blown out of proportion. Morris has several computers giving him the news instantly from around the world and he is always confrontational and aggressive, frequently picking fights with his staff and guests while on-air, and his efforts to resolve problems frequently make bad situations even worse
5.
Time Out Group
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Time Out Group is a digital and print publisher of web sites, apps, magazines and guidebooks covering events, entertainment and culture in cities around the world. Julio Bruno is the Group CEO of Time Out Group, based in cities such as London, New York and Paris, Time Out Group provides entertainment, food, and drink recommendations to an international audience through print and digital platforms. Time Out was established in 1968, by founder Tony Elliott and has developed into a global platform that inspires and enables people to experience the best of the city. Operating in 108 cities, across 39 countries, it has a global audience reach of 156 million across all platforms. Time Out provides original content for users to find things to do in the city as well as curated lists of the best films, food, attractions, art, culture, shopping. Time Out recently curated sci-fi films, a sex survey. Time Out Market, launched in 2014 in Lisbon, enables people to discover, book, live, the original Time Out magazine was first published in 1968 by Tony Elliott with Bob Harris as co-editor. The magazine was a one-sheet pamphlet with listings for London. The magazine started as a publication that had an alternative viewpoint on issues such as gay rights, racial equality. Early issues had a print run of around 5,000, the brand was expanded to North America with Time Out New York magazine also known as TONY in 1995 followed by Time Out New York Kids in 1996. The success of taking the Time Out brand abroad led to the expansion of the magazine worldwide, the brand grew to include travel magazines, city guides, and books. Time Out was able to withstand print competition, however, its integration of a digital platform during the online revolution proved to be a challenge. When Time Out New York launched it did not have a website and was competing against well-established online publications such as Citysearch and The Village Voice. Financial loss and the necessity to expand the Time Out brand led Tony Elliott to sell half of Time Out London and 66 percent of TONY to private equity group Oakley Capital in May 2011. The company continued to grow digitally and launched an app for New York. The iPad app was initially sponsored by MasterCard, in July 2015, Time Out Group announced a £7 million investment in Flypay, a pay-at-table mobile app that will integrate its technology into Time Outs media platform. In June 2016, Time Out Group underwent an IPO and trades under the symbol TMO on Londons AIM stock exchange, Time Out Magazine is available in 39 cities including London, New York, Istanbul, Dubai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Lisbon. Time Out London Magazine is a weekly publication based in London. Time Out provides event listings and editorial on film, theatre, Time Out New York was the brands first magazine launch in North America and debuted in 1995
6.
Simon Pegg
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Simon John Pegg is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He co-wrote and starred in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy of films, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and he and Nick Frost wrote and starred in the sci-fi film Paul. Pegg portrayed Benji Dunn in the Mission, Impossible film series and Montgomery Scott in Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond, co-writing the latter. Pegg was born and raised in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, the son of Gillian Rosemary, a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham. His parents divorced when he was seven and he took the surname of his stepfather after his mother remarried, Pegg attended Castle Hill Primary School, Brockworth Comprehensive Secondary School, and The Kings School, Gloucester. Pegg moved to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire when he was 16 and studied English Literature and Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon College. He graduated from the University of Bristol in 1991 with a BA in Theatre, Film, while there, he performed as a member of a comedy troupe called David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus, alongside David Walliams, Dominik Diamond, and Jason Bradbury. Peggs early appearances in TV series and films include Asylum, Six Pairs of Pants, Faith in the Future, Big Train, between 1998 and 2004, Pegg was regularly featured on BBC Radio 4s The 99p Challenge. He played various roles during the tour of Steve Coogans 1998 live stage show The Man Who Thinks Hes It, in 1999, he created and co-wrote the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced with Jessica Stevenson. The series was directed by Edgar Wright, with whom Pegg and Stevenson had previously worked on Asylum, for his performance in this series, Pegg was nominated for a British Comedy Award as Best Male Comedy Newcomer. At George A. Romeros invitation, Pegg and Wright made cameo appearances in Romeros zombie film, in 2004, Pegg starred in a spin-off of the television show Danger. 50,000 Zombies. in which he played a hunter named Dr. Fell. He played mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, the Strontium Dog and he also narrated the first series of the making-of documentary series Doctor Who Confidential. When the film Mission, Impossible III was subsequently made, Pegg appeared in it as Benji Dunn and he reprised the role of Benji Dunn in the 2011 film Mission, Impossible – Ghost Protocol and the 2015 film Mission, Impossible – Rogue Nation. In 2006, he played Gus in Big Nothing alongside David Schwimmer, the same year, Pegg and Wright completed their second film, Hot Fuzz, released in February 2007. In 2007, Pegg starred in The Good Night and Run Fatboy Run directed by David Schwimmer and co-starring Thandie Newton, in 2008, he wrote the dialogue for an English language re-release of the cult 2006 animated Norwegian film, Free Jimmy. Pegg received screenwriting credit for this, and Pegg also voiced one of the characters in the English-language version. Pegg co-wrote the script for a film called Paul, about two men who encounter a comedic extraterrestrial alien during a road trip across the US
7.
Bob Hoskins
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Robert William Bob Hoskins was an English actor. He also directed two feature films and he was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the same role. In 2009, Hoskins won an International Emmy Award for Best Actor for his appearance on the BBC One drama The Street, in 2012, Hoskins retired from acting due to his battle with Parkinsons disease, and he died from pneumonia on 29 April 2014, at age 71. Hoskins was born in Bury St Edmunds, West Suffolk, on 26 October 1942 to Robert Hoskins, a bookkeeper and lorry driver, and Elsie Hoskins, from two weeks old, he was brought up in Finsbury Park, London. He left school at the age of 15 with a single O-Level and worked as a porter, lorry driver and he started on a 3-year accountancy course but dropped out. In 1968, Hoskins acting career began at the Victoria Theatre and he portrayed a servant named Peter in a production of Romeo and Juliet. In 1969, he worked at the Unity Theatre in London, One evening, he was waiting in the Unity Theatre bar for his friend, the actor Roger Frost, to finish an audition. Whilst drinking at the bar, he was given a script and told and he got the part, with Frost ending up his understudy. Frost recalled, Bob was a natural and he just got up on stage and was brilliant. His first major role was in On the Move, an educational series intended to tackle adult illiteracy, in which he portrayed Alf Hunt. According to eventual producer George Auckland, up to 17 million people watched the series, Hoskins breakthrough television role came in the original BBC version of Dennis Potters innovative 6-part fantasy-drama Pennies from Heaven as adulterous sheet music salesman Arthur Parker. Later, he portrayed Iago in Jonathan Millers BBC Television Shakespeare production of Othello and he also delivered comic turns in Terry Gilliams Brazil and as Mario in Super Mario Bros. He had a role as Pink Floyds manager in The Wall. He was slated to be a replacement in The Untouchables if Robert De Niro had not decided to portray Al Capone. In 1988, Hoskins played private investigator Eddie Valiant in the Disney, Touchstone, Hoskins was nominated for a Golden Globe award for this performance and won a British Evening Standard award. He returned to television in productions for the BBC, including Flickers, David Copperfield as Wilkins Micawber and he portrayed Nikita Khrushchev as a political commissar in Enemy at the Gates. Hoskins received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Mrs Henderson Presents, Hoskins also directed two films, both of which he starred in, The Raggedy Rawney and Rainbow. In 2009, he made a return to television in Jimmy McGoverns drama serial The Street, for this role, he received his only Emmy when he won Best Actor at the 2010 International Emmys
8.
Ewan McGregor
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Ewan Gordon McGregor OBE is a Scottish actor. His first professional role was in 1993, when he won a role in the Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar. Camerlengo Father Patrick McKenna in Angels and Demons, Dr. Alfred Jones in the romantic comedy-drama Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and Lumière in an adaptation of Beauty. He received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for both Moulin Rouge, and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. McGregor has also starred in productions of Guys and Dolls. He was ranked number 36 on Empire magazines The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list in 1997, in a 2004 poll for the BBC, McGregor was named the fourth most influential person in British culture. He has been involved in charity work and has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 2004, in 2016, he received the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award. McGregor was born in Perth, Scotland and brought up in Crieff and his mother, Carol Diane, is a retired teacher of Crieff High School and latterly deputy head teacher of Kingspark School in Dundee. His father, James Charles Stewart Jim McGregor, is a physical education teacher and careers master of Morrisons Academy. He has a brother, Colin, who is a former Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force. He is the nephew of actor Denis Lawson and actress Sheila Gish, McGregor attended the independent Morrisons Academy in Crieff. In 1993, six months prior to his graduation from Guildhall, the same year, he starred in the BBC adaptation of Scarlet and Black with a young Rachel Weisz, and made his film debut in Bill Forsyths Being Human. In 1994, McGregor performed in the thriller Shallow Grave, for which he won an Empire Award, and his international breakthrough followed in 1996 with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyles Trainspotting, an adaptation of Irvine Welshs novel of the same name. McGregor played the romantic lead role in the 1998 British film Little Voice. While the prequels received criticism from Star Wars fans, McGregors performance was widely acclaimed and his uncle, Denis Lawson, had played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy. In 2001, he starred in Moulin Rouge, as the young poet Christian, who falls in love with the terminally-ill courtesan Satine, played by Nicole Kidman. McGregor reprised his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi for the subsequent prequel Star Wars, in 2003, he starred alongside Renée Zellweger in Down With Love. He also portrayed the younger Edward Bloom in the acclaimed film Big Fish alongside Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman
9.
Jude Law
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David Jude Heyworth Law is an English actor. He has received nominations for two Academy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Awards, winning one. In 2007, he received an Honorary César and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts, in 2004, he received Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and British Academy Film Award nominations for his role in Anthony Minghellas epic war film Cold Mountain. Laws other notable films include Gattaca, Enemy at the Gates, artificial Intelligence, Road to Perdition, Alfie, Closer, The Holiday, Contagion, Hugo, Anna Karenina, Side Effects, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. He portrayed Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchies Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes, Law has also had an accomplished career on stage, and has received nominations for three Laurence Olivier Awards and two Tony Awards. He has performed in several West End and Broadway productions, Law was named after a bit of both in the book Jude the Obscure and the Beatles song Hey Jude. He grew up in Blackheath, an area in the Borough of Greenwich, in 1987, Law began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre. He played various roles in the Edinburgh Fringe-awarded play The Ragged Child, One of his first major stage roles was Foxtrot Darling in Philip Ridleys The Fastest Clock in the Universe. Law went on to appear as Michael in the West End production of Jean Cocteaus tragicomedy Les Parents terribles, for this play, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Newcomer, and he received the Ian Charleson Award for Outstanding Newcomer. Following a title change to Indiscretions, the play was reworked and transferred to Broadway in 1995 and this role earned him a Tony Award nomination and the Theatre World Award. In 1989, Law received his first television role, in a film based on the Beatrix Potter childrens book, in 1997, he became more widely known with his role in the Oscar Wilde bio-pic Wilde. Law won the Most Promising Newcomer award from the Evening Standard British Film Awards for his role as Lord Alfred Bosie Douglas, in Andrew Niccols science fiction film Gattaca, Law played the role of a disabled former swimming star living in a eugenics-obsessed dystopia. In Clint Eastwoods Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the role earned him a Bafta award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2001, Law starred as Russian sniper Vasily Zaytsev in the film Enemy at the Gates, in 2002, he played a mob hitman in Sam Mendess 1930s period drama Road to Perdition. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999, both films were directed by Anthony Minghella. Law, an admirer of Sir Laurence Olivier, suggested the actors image be included in the 2004 film Sky Captain, using the science of computer graphics, footage of the young Olivier was merged into the film, playing Dr. Totenkopf, a mysterious scientific genius and supervillain. In 2006, he portrayed the role of Kate Winslets single-parent brother in the film The Holiday, after his appearances in a string of period dramas and science fiction films in the early to mid-2000s, Law said he found it tricky to approach the contemporary role in this film. Like Winslet, the stated, he felt more vulnerable about playing a character who fitted his own look and did not require an accent
10.
Kelly Macdonald
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Kelly Macdonald is a Scottish actress, known for her roles in the films Trainspotting, Gosford Park, Intermission, Nanny McPhee, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 and Brave. For the 2005 TV film The Girl in the Cafe, she was nominated for a Golden Globe and she was part of the cast of the famous miniseries State of Play portraying the role of Della Smith. For her role in the 2007 film No Country for Old Men and she went on to star for five seasons in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire as Margaret Thompson, for which she received a 2011 Emmy Award nomination. Macdonalds career began while she was working as a barmaid in Glasgow and she saw a leaflet advertising an open casting session for Trainspotting and decided to audition, winning the part of Diane, the underage seductress to Ewan McGregors Renton. Other roles include Mary ONeary in Two Family House, and an actress playing Peter Pan in Finding Neverland and she had major roles in Robert Altmans British period piece Gosford Park, where she played an aristocrats maid, and in Intermission, as Deirdre. On radio, she portrayed Mary in the 1999 BBC radio drama Lifehouse, based on Pete Townshends abandoned rock opera, some of the songs for which were released on The Whos album Whos Next. On television, her highest profile roles have been in two BBC dramas, the Paul Abbott serial State of Play, and the one-off Richard Curtis piece The Girl in the Café, both of these were directed by David Yates, and both also starred Bill Nighy. Her agent was originally unsure she was right for the latter part and her persistence paid off, however, as she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She played the lead in The Merry Gentleman, as Kate Frazier, in 2010, she played her first comedy role, in the British independent romantic comedy film The Decoy Bride. The Decoy Bride was released in 2012, in 2011, she played the Grey Lady in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, the final instalment of the Harry Potter film franchise. She replaced Nina Young, the actress in the role. In 2012, she provided the voice of Merida, the heroine of the Disney/Pixar film Brave, from 2010 until its ending in 2014, she starred in the HBO crime drama Boardwalk Empire as Margaret Thompson, the wife of Prohibition-era Atlantic City crime boss Nucky Thompson. She appeared in all five seasons of the series, in 2011, she and the rest of the shows cast were awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. In 2016, she starred in Ricky Gervais Special Correspondents as Claire Maddox, in 2016, she played the lead role in Hated in the Nation, an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror for which she received critical acclaim. On 3 November 2016 Macdonald was featured in the trailer for Danny Boyles T2 Trainspotting confirming she will reprise her role as Diane from the original film and her mother was a garment industry sales executive. In August 2003 Macdonald married musician Dougie Payne, bassist of rock band Travis, the couple have two children, and moved back to their home town of Glasgow in 2014, after living in London and then New York City. Kelly Macdonald at the Internet Movie Database Kelly Macdonald at the TCM Movie Database Kelly Macdonald at the British Film Institutes Screenonline Kelly Macdonald in Skellig on Sky1, Easter 2009
11.
Armando Iannucci
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Armando Giovanni Iannucci, OBE is a Scottish satirist, writer, television director, and radio producer. Born in Glasgow, Iannucci studied at Oxford University and left work on a PhD about John Milton to pursue a career in comedy. Starting on BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4, his work with Chris Morris on the radio series On the Hour was transferred to television as The Day Today. A character from series, Alan Partridge, went on to feature in a number of Iannuccis television and radio programmes including Knowing Me, Knowing You. In the meantime, Iannucci also fronted the satirical Armistice review shows and in 2001 created his most personal work, The Armando Iannucci Shows, for Channel 4. Moving back to the BBC in 2005, Iannucci created the political sitcom The Thick of It as well as the spoof documentary Time Trumpet in 2006. Winning funding from the UK Film Council, he directed an acclaimed feature film, In the Loop. As a result of works, he has been described by The Daily Telegraph as the hardman of political satire. Iannucci created the HBO political satire Veep, and was its showrunner for four seasons from 2012 to 2015, other works during this period include an operetta libretto, Skin Deep, and his radio series Charm Offensive. In March 2012, it was announced that he is working on his first novel, Tongue International and his father, also called Armando, is from Naples, while his mother was born in Glasgow to an Italian family. His father, who came to Scotland in 1950, ran a pizza factory, Iannucci has two brothers and a sister. He was educated at St Peters Primary School, St. Aloysius College, Glasgow, the University of Glasgow, and University College, Oxford, in his teens, he thought seriously about becoming a Roman Catholic priest. He abandoned graduate work on 17th-century religious language, with reference to Miltons Paradise Lost. Iannucci first received fame as the producer for On the Hour on Radio 4. Baynham was closely involved with both Morriss and Lee & Herrings work – simultaneously at one point, between 1995 and 1999, Iannucci produced and hosted The Saturday Night Armistice. In 2000, he created two pilot episodes for Channel 4, which became The Armando Iannucci Shows and this was an eight-part series for Channel 4 broadcast in 2001, written with Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil. The series consisted of Iannucci pondering pseudo-philosophical and jocular ideas and fantasies in between surreal sketches, Iannucci has been quoted as saying it is the comedy series he is most proud of making. He told The Metro in April 2007 The Armando Iannucci Show on Channel 4 came out around 9/11, people had other things on their minds
12.
Jason Flemyng
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Jason Iain Flemyng is an English actor. He has also appeared in prominent roles in theatre and television in the UK. Flemyng speaks French fluently, and has three films in that language. He won the Best Actor Award at the Geneva Film Festival for his role in 1996s Alive, Flemyng was born in Putney, London, the son of Scottish television and film director Gordon Flemyng. He decided he wanted to become an actor appearing in theatrical productions at his school. I always wanted to be an actor, he told the BBC. From the time I fancied a girl who played Dorothy in the production of The Wizard of Oz. I auditioned for the role of the scarecrow so that I could have the most stage time with her, in the 1980s, he was involved with the National Youth Theatre and the political organisation the Young Socialists. He also became involved with Militant, an entryist group active within the Labour Party, Flemyng has subsequently claimed that both his theatrical and political activities at this time were simply a way of meeting girls. In 1990 he was admitted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, following his graduation from LAMDA in the early 1990s he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. One of his first prominent roles on screen was a guest appearance in the American television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 1992 and he was then a regular in the ITV drama series Doctor Finlay from 1993 to 1996. His first film appearance was in the 1994 version of The Jungle Book. Flemyng later claimed to have lost so much money playing poker with the films backers in between takes on set that he had to work on the four days of re-shoots the film required for no fee. He went on to appear in such as The Red Violin and Deep Rising, Snatch, George A. Romeros Bruiser. Flemyng also starred in the short film Feeling Good, written by Dexter Fletcher, the latter film was not a success, but Flemyng commented that, It was a bit of a nightmare. The film cost a fortune and didnt make back the money it was meant to, but I still get a huge kick out of doing films like that and From Hell. Any day you walk onto a set and Sean Connery or Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt is there has to be a good day, in parallel with his film career, Flemyng has continued to take various television roles. He told BBC News Online in 2004 that, Of the 40 feature films Ive made,15 of them failed to make it onto the screen and have ever been seen by cast
