Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Zoom with a view to distant futures
Killing Eve star opens up about her path to acting glory
This is encouraging. Some scientists suggest the social distancing we’ve become used to could go on for several years.
So, eventually, no one will remember meeting anyone.
In 50 years, there will be golden weddings between people who’ve never seen each other. They’ll say: “We fell in love on a WhatsApp video call because we had five of the same books on our shelves. The secret of our long marriage is that every Christmas he texts me an emoji.”
Even couples with three kids will have never been in the same room, as the sperm got sent round by Deliveroo.
Lovingly they’ll explain: “We would have had a fourth child, but the sperm for that one was delivered by Hermes, so it went next door by mistake and they brought it up instead.”
In 30 years, teenagers will speak to each other on FaceTime about a banging party: “OMG it was mobbed, there was one person downstairs and someone else upstairs, I could hardly move.”
Amazon delivery drivers will become gods, and thousands of worshippers on Zoom Songs of Praise will sing hymns such as Bringing Parcels Forth to Man, Praise Lord Dave Who Drives the Van. Hardly
anyone alive will have travelled anywhere, so children will sit eagerly on the floor as grandma tells the story of going all the way to Stockport. And stories will spread that once you cross the border into Derbyshire, all the trees can talk.
We’ll be so used to staying where we are, NASA will launch a 10-year mission to land a man on Cornwall, and no one will believe it’s possible. Most people will believe if you go past Swindon, you fall off the edge. In the Army, no regiment will be allowed more than five people as they’d get too close, and generals will have to give their orders on WhatsApp.
This will lead to Britain getting briefly occupied by a Zoom quiz night from Finland, who take over the government for a month until overthrown by some students sharing film of their kittens on Facebook.
The fake crowd noise will still be played for televised football, but no one will remember what an actual crowd sounds like, so producers will make mistakes, adding other noises such as orangutans and the Isle of Wight ferry. A last-minute winner by Liverpool in the 2068 FA Cup Final will be greeted by the sound of a Toyota Prius when the clutch has gone.
Football will be drastically affected because the only place where people are allowed to physically touch will be during a goal celebration. So couples who want to know what their partner feels like will have to train to professional standard, then both get taken on by the same team and hope one of them scores.
Even this will be discouraged when a couple playing for Barnsley engage in an over-exuberant celebration that involves making love in the centre circle, for which they are both sent off. And 2021 will be known as the good old days.
Singer Paloma Faith admits she was once “told off” for telling Samuel L. Jackson what to do. She signed up the Hollywood legend to voice the intro on her album The Architect.
“I was, like, ‘Can we do another version where you’re like this?’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Maybe you have got the wrong guy’.
“I was like, ‘Sam, no, I am so sorry’, like really hamming up the innocence, ‘You are absolutely the right guy’, and then the PA whispered in my ear and said: ‘Even Quentin
Tarantino does not direct him’.” How awkward.
“I paid £10.48 for a tiny pineapple in an organic grocery store,” says singer Pixie Lott.
“I bought it because it’s called Victoria, and that’s my real name. And also the man at the till was so nice, I just had to buy it.”
I once paid the same at Glastonbury, but called mine Samantha, which proves that it doesn’t take a lockdown to lose your mind…
She’s been hobnobbing with some of Hollywood’s finest since TV assassin Villanelle catapulted her to global fame.
But Killing Eve star Jodie Comer says she’s had to work twice as hard as everyone else because of her working-class roots.
The 27-year-old Liverpudlian actress also says that despite her success, she can’t stop feeling lucky.
“For me personally, self-belief counts for a lot, and perseverance,” Jodie says. “Especially coming from a working-class background, there is the notion that you are going to have to work much harder to be successful.
“People are continuously being surprised by your capabilities.”
LUCKY
Before she hit the big-time, the BAFTA-winning actress worked at
Tesco and collected glasses in a bar.
Speaking to a group of young women for the Girls Up campaign – a movement to advance girls’ skills, rights and opportunities to be leaders – Jodie says: “To this day, as a woman walking into a room, I have this feeling of being lucky to be there. I’m trying to shake that off.
“It’s so important that we encourage girls and allow them to command their own space and believe in themselves.”
Jodie is currently filming new Channel 4 drama Help, alongside Line of Duty star
Stephen Graham.
The actress, who still lives at home with her parents, also offered girls advice to overcome disappointment.
“One thing I try to do is be grateful,” she says. “I find if I’m upset, if something doesn’t go the way I wanted it to, I bring it back to how lucky I am.
“Music uplifts me. A good way to get rid of a mad mood, you’ve got to dance it out. Even if it’s in your bedroom. They’re my coping mechanisms.” Love it.
American comic Larry David once said: “Women love a self-confident bald man.” And, it seems, Jameela Jamil would agree.
She has taken her love for the TV funnyman to new heights by plastering his face over her pyjama bottoms.
BRITNEY Spears has a new army of fans – but it’s the saga of her battles with her dad, not her music, that have triggered the attention.
A megastar at just 16, she had the world at her feet and enjoyed a string of chart hits including Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again.
But, like another No1, things turned Toxic during a 13-year wrangle with her father Jamie over her finances.
Now, after a new bombshell documentary laid bare the controlling influence he has over her £46million empire, Britney is back in the spotlight.
Framing Britney Spears exposes the singer’s long-running fight to wrest control of her estate away from Jamie, 68.
He has controlled 39-year-old Britney’s finances since 2008, after she suffered a series of very public breakdowns.
Last week Jamie lost his battle to keep sole control of her investments in the latest round of their court battle. The documentary has prompted sympathy for Britney and boosted the huge #FreeBritney movement of supportive fans, which increasingly includes celebrities.
SORRY
Many, including actresses Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker, tweeted the #FreeBritney hashtag after watching the documentary on American TV.
Singer Courtney Love tweeted it too, alongside a picture with the message: “We are sorry, Britney.” And fellow singer
Miley Cyrus shouted “We love Britney!” during her pre-Super Bowl performance last Sunday.
Britney was placed under a temporary conservatorship by Jamie and a lawyer called Andrew Wallet in 2008.
It is a form of court-appointed guardianship typically used for elderly and infirm people or those who cannot make decisions for themselves.
Last November, Britney unsuccessfully tried to oust her father from the role – while a legal bid by Jamie to take more control also failed. Instead, a judge appointed wealth management firm the Bessemer Trust as co-conservator.
At the time, Britney’s lawyer had said she was scared of her father and would not resume her showbiz career while he had power over it.
While the details of the agreement remain private, the release of the bombshell documentary in the US – yet to be scheduled in the UK – has dredged up the affair once more. #FreeBritney supporters Babs Gray and Tess Barker, who appear in the documentary, launched a fan podcast exploring the star’s career and her ongoing legal struggle for freedom. They also dissect
Britney’s Instagram posts for “hidden meanings”. Babs says: “We started noticing more and more these very cryptic things she would post, like a hole cut out in a wall, and the caption is ‘There’s always a way out’.
“And it was just like, God, like, what is this? It almost seems kinda dark.” Contrary to the belief of some of her supporters, Britney’s social media manager Cassie Petrey insists the star is in control of her own online posts.
In the documentary, Britney’s welldocumented mental health problems – many of them painfully played out in the public eye – are revisited.
When her divorce from Kevin Federline was finalised in 2007 and she lost custody of their two children, Britney was seen behaving erratically at times.
She shaved her head in public and hit a photographer’s car with an umbrella.
She was in and out of rehab before being placed in psychiatric care.
That came after a stand-off with police in which she refused to hand sons Sean and Jayden – now 15 and 14 – to Kevin.
A year later, the conservatorship was put in place. Critics claim Jamie showed little interest in Britney’s career until she made it big. One record executive recalls in the documentary: “The only thing Jamie ever said was, ‘My daughter’s gonna be so rich, she’s gonna buy me a boat’.”
Britney’s fellow superstar and ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, 40, came off badly in the documentary.
The singers dated from 1999 to 2002 but when they split, audio clips were released of Justin crudely bragging about sleeping with the star.
UNUSUAL
He has now apologised and in a statement to his 60 million Instagram followers said he was “deeply sorry” and wanted to “take accountability”.
Even Jamie’s lawyer, Vivian Lee Thoreen, says it is unusual for someone of Britney’s age to be a conservatee.
But she argues that Jamie has “done a good job of looking after the star’s estate and is acting in her best interests”.
Over the past decade, Britney has launched a number of comebacks, repeatedly touring the world and releasing multiple albums, including Femme Fatale and Britney Jean.
While she hasn’t directly responded to the documentary, she posted a video on Instagram last week of her performing Toxic on stage three years ago.
She told her 27 million online followers: “I’ll always love being on stage.
“But I am taking the time to learn and be a normal person. I love simply enjoying the basics of everyday life!”
The next hearings in the Spears saga are scheduled for March 17 and April 27.
Now #FreeBritney campaigners are even asking the White House to end her conservatorship, submitting petitions with tens of thousands of signatures.
Britney superfan Dustin Strand, 28 said at court in Los Angeles last week: “I want her to be independent, to be able to live her life on her own terms. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I’m here.”