Warning: This articles contains spoilers for The Drama.
Going to see The Drama, the new flick starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, may initially feel like sitting down to a typical romantic comedy.
The film’s marketing revolves heavily around the idea of a gorgeous wedding, surrounded by loved ones, until the bride-to-be reveals a secret a few days before she and her fiancé are set to get married: When she was 15, she planned to carry out a school shooting.
After another mass shooting happened the same day, though, Zendaya’s character, Emma, ultimately didn’t go through with her plans.
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Production company A24 has been coy about the big secret in all of its promotional materials, and viewers are given no forewarning as they settle into their seats about the subject matter that is about to play out onscreen.
The trailer suggests that Emma committed a serious faux pas — but one that might simply reflect a quirk of her personality.
Robert Pattinson and Zendaya at a screening of The Drama last week
Melissa Alexander, whose two kids survived the 2023 Covenant School shooting that left three other children and three adults dead, knew about the plot twist going in.
Still, she walked out of the cinema before The Drama was finished. The film gave her a nightmare later that night.
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Alexander saw the movie Friday night with another Covenant mum in a cinema less than a mile away from the Tennessee school, and the pair walked out about two-thirds of the way in, as Charlie is talking to his friends about Emma’s past.
In the scene, Charlie wonders aloud, given that mass shootings are such a prevalent problem in America, whether there may be a bunch of people who think about committing such a crime but never go through with it.
“There’s not just a bunch of normal people walking around thinking about doing something like this,” Alexander told HuffPost. “It’s a specific type of person. And to diminish it down to everyday people just really annoyed me.
“If somebody is watching this movie, who has some sort of ideations or thoughts about this, I think what it does for them is it helps to normalise it for them.”
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An increasing number of Americans have first-hand experience with the terror of a mass shooting.
So far this year, there have been 32 shootings on campuses across the US, resulting in 15 deaths and 15 injuries, according to Everytown, a gun violence prevention organisation.
Emma explains to Charlie she was bullied in school and got caught up in the “aesthetics” of mass shooters – a definition she never really parses. The movie shows Emma, wearing dark eye makeup, posing with a rifle in front of her webcam. But after a nearby shooting leaves one of her classmates dead, Emma abandons her plans and instead joins her fellow classmates in advocating for gun control.
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Later on, it’s revealed that Emma becomes so involved in gun control activism that she’s arrested for harassing Walmart employees for selling guns.
For Alexander, Emma’s motivating factor – bullying – felt oversimplified and woefully unrealistic. The person who killed six people at the Covenant School was not exacting revenge against peers for bullying: They were 28 and killed three nine-year-olds.
Melissa Alexander, the mother of a Covenant School Shooting survivor, speaking during a discussin about gun legislation at the US Capitol Building in January 2024
Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
“These people are mentally ill, and they don’t just grow up to be a beautiful Hollywood actress like Zendaya,” she said.“That’s not a normal trajectory or the way somebody matures.”
Gun control activists have been among the film’s most vocal critics. One of them, Mia Tretta, was shot during the deadly 2019 mass shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, and also survived the recent deadly shooting at Brown University. She is an advisor for Students Demand Action, an organization of students advocating for the end of gun violence.
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Tretta chastised The Drama’s filmmakers for treating school shootings as a “plot point”.
“It’s a reality I lived through when I was shot at my school at 15 years old, and again as a terrified student at Brown this past December,” she said in a statement to HuffPost.
“Using a planned massacre as a rom-com hook isn’t ‘starting a conversation’, it’s exploiting a crisis. There are ways to show nuance without using trauma as a gimmick. Studios and stars have massive platforms, and they should use them to give dimension to survivors, not perpetrators.”
Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was murdered in the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, hasn’t seen the movie yet, but told HuffPost that he had hope for it given Zendaya’s past acknowledgement of his own activism. The actress once shared a clip of Guttenberg speaking at a Parkland vigil on Instagram.
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But Guttenberg remains wary of any effort to explain away a mass shooter.
“Once somebody makes a decision to commit the act of gun violence, I don’t feel the need to humanise them,” Gutenberg told HuffPost.
March For Our Lives, an organisation started by victims of the Parkland massacre, wrote on X that the marketing for The Drama — as a dark romantic comedy — is “deeply misaligned” with the reality of school shootings.
Zendaya has acknowledged in interviews that the movie has “many elements of a romantic comedy”, but called it “heartbreaking, disturbing to some, emotional, but also so much more than that”. Robert, meanwhile, has said it is “so romantic”.
Entertainment reporters appear to be helping preserve the film’s big twist, though, as the stars have not been pressed to answer for the controversy. Their discussions have instead focused more broadly on the relationship between Emma and Charlie, and the moral lines that people may draw – or not – when it comes to those closest to them.
“I think the movie is exploring more, like, your personal limit, and … the limits for how honest and how flawed you can be in your most private life,” Kristoffer Borgli, the 40-year-old Norwegian who wrote and directed The Drama, told the Popcorn Podcast.
There is little solid research into the minds of mass shooters. Two criminologists who spent a decade researching mass shootings told the US news show 60 Minutes that shooters often experience “horrific trauma” early in life, but can appear very normal in person, like “the kid sitting next to you in class”. They suggested overstigmatising shooters could lead people to believing there is nothing that can be done to help them.
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Julia Moralez knows what it’s like to know someone before they reveal a horrifying secret. She knew the mass shooter who carried out the 2019 mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 people and injured 89 others. The shooter once lived with Moralez, who told HuffPost that when she knew him, he was “polite, kind and well-mannered”. But reports after the shooting revealed he was a white supremacist.
Moralez was initially interested in seeing The Drama, but once she read the spoiler online, she didn’t think she could.
“It seemed edgy for the sake of being edgy,” Moralez told HuffPost. “There were just things I didn’t like and felt exploitative to me personally. Even the title, The Drama, just making light of something that is a real-life situation for a lot of people … just doesn’t sit right with me.”
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The film also goes against statistics that show mass shootings are typically carried out by boys and men. Emma’s gender is only briefly discussed in the movie when, during a class discussion on mass shooters, Emma corrects one of her classmates when they say that mass shooters are almost always boys. Emma chimes in and says that not only do girls do it sometimes, but mass shootings even happen outside of America, too.
But Moralez doesn’t see it that way.
“If you look at the numbers, it’s something that affects men,” Moralez said. “And I think that that’s something that needs to be looked at. And I think that twisting it to [be] a female issue, for the sake of a story, a good drama, is kind of belittling an issue that affects males, especially as someone who knows someone who shot and killed more than 50 people and live-streamed it.”
“I like Zendaya as an actor, but I’m kind of disappointed that she took this role because I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem right to me.”
The plan to reduce the use of jury trials is a “distraction” from the real reasons for the court backlog, a Labour MP has said, as the government braces for the prospect of a major backbench rebellion over the reforms.
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Writing in The House on Friday, Labour MP Cat Eccles said that the proposal is “not only misguided but harmful”, and that the focus should be on addressing “chronic underinvestment, poor coordination, and systemic inefficiencies” in the justice system.
The MP for Stourbridge said she had recently visited Birmingham Crown Court, the second-largest court in the country, where one barrister told her: “You won’t find a single person in this building who thinks juries are an issue.”
Justice Secretary David Lammy has said that the reforms are a bold but necessary way to help tackle the national court backlog in England and Wales.
Under the changes, announced by the Labour government in December, juries would no longer be used for crimes with sentences of less than three years. More extreme offences, such as rape and murder, will still be put before a jury, however.
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The government has sought to stress that around three-quarters of all trials going to the Crown Court will continue to be heard by juries under the proposals, and points to the fact that many countries, including Sweden, Canada and France, only use juries in some cases.
However, ministers are seemingly facing a growing Labour backbench rebellion.
This week, Labour MPs tabled an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill, putting forward plans to introduce specialist rape courts, which would have both a jury and a specialist judge. The amendment, revealed by The Times, is reported to have the support of as many as 90 Labour MPs, and is seen as the main route to “kill off” the jury trials policy.
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The proposals are in the name of Charlotte Nichols, the Labour MP who waived her right to anonymity last month and spoke publicly for the first time about being raped, accusing Lammy of “weaponising” the experiences of others like herself to push through the reforms.
It is supported by Labour MP Stella Creasey, who said on Thursday that it was possible to “cut the backlog and improve the experience of victims in our courts without compromising due process”.
Writing in The House, Eccles listed what she described as the actual reasons for delays in the legal system, citing unused courtrooms, long distances between prisons and court buildings where defendents’ cases are heard, and cases being listed before they are ready for trial.
“Ultimately, the focus on jury trials as the cause of court delays is a distraction,” she wrote.
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“The real issues lie in chronic underinvestment, poor coordination, and systemic inefficiencies that span the entire justice process. Reform is undoubtedly needed, but it must target these root causes, not one of the system’s most vital safeguards.”
Veteran MP Karl Turner recently lost the Labour Party whip after weeks of voicing strong opposition to the jury reforms and severe criticism of the Keir Starmer government.
However, party sources insisted that his suspension was over a pattern of behaviour, not a specific incident.
The use of remand (holding a person in custody before trial or sentencing) is at its highest level in over 50 years. Today, one in four women in prison are being held on remand. Women on remand are less likely than men to be granted bail, and racially minoritised and migrant women are significantly overrepresented in the remand population.
Court delays mean women can wait months in detention, sometimes longer, without knowing their future. Even a short period in custody can lead to a woman losing her job, housing and care of her children.
A briefing by the Howard League for Penal Reform noted that for women remanded by magistrates:
almost two-thirds … go on to be found not guilty or do not receive an immediate custodial sentence.
A new key findings paper by the chief inspector of prisons reinforces the scale of the problem. People on remand now make up 19% of the total adult prison population. Suicide is more common among this group and the report also found that 67% of people on remand report mental health difficulties.
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Together with six other women-led organisations working for justice, Women in Prison has formed The Remand Collective. The other organisations are:
This is a bold new partnership committed to ending the unjust, unsafe and unfair use of remand for women. Together, we are calling for fewer women to be imprisoned whilst awaiting trial or sentencing, and for alternatives that are based in care, safety and trust.
One woman involved in the Remand Collective highlights its importance:
I’ve never been asked what I need to feel safe – only told what’s expected of me. This space was different.
Change is possible and it starts by listening to women and investing in alternatives that keep women safe while upholding justice and dignity.
This year, I’ll be trying sleeping tricks to see whether they actually improve my insomnia. Check back in on this series, Rest Assured, to see how I get on.
I have been struggling with sleep maintenance insomnia for years. That means I struggle to stay asleep, though I usually nod off just fine.
But in the past week, I’ve had trouble nodding off to begin with, thanks to a cold (mild short-term insomnia is a common symptom of the virus).
It originally came from Relax and Win: Championship Performance, a 1981 book by coach Bud Winter. He helped to develop a relaxation technique that he said helped the US Navy airmen-to-be fall asleep in 120 seconds during WWII.
It’s a combination of progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, and visualisation.
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Lie on your back, imagine something pleasant (I went with a treehouse in a rainy forest) and “Move from the top of your body to the bottom when relaxing your muscles, picturing yourself sinking into your bed,” the University of Minnesota Medical School said.
Does the military sleep method actually work?
Speaking to Real Simple, psychologist Dr Victoria Bangieva said that “I don’t know of any study that has looked at the effectiveness or benefits of this method”.
I couldn’t find any that definitely proved its two-minute claim.
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But, as Dr Bangeiva added, “the science behind it is based on proven relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and visualisation”.
Indeed, some studies have shown that progressive muscle relaxation can lead to lead to faster sleep onset, while slow, deep breathing and “imagery distraction” (picturing nice thoughts) can also help you fall asleep sooner.
Still, in the original book, Winter said it took six weeks of practice to achieve a reported 96% success rate. I only had one.
My verdict
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The first night, I found my mind wandering too much: I would relax my muscles one by one, but by the time I reached my elbows, I had forgotten what I was doing and restarted the process at least twice.
By the fourth night, though, even starting the process seemed to make it more relaxing.
And on the final night, I think I fell asleep in about 10 minutes (much better than the two or so hours at the beginning of the week).
Again, my form of insomnia doesn’t usually mean I find the first nod-off hard. But even when I woke up at 3am, I found the “military method” made it slightly easier to fall back to sleep.
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So, no, in my experience, it didn’t lead me to fall asleep in an astounding two minutes, but it was still worth a go.
In the realm of international relations, negotiation is traditionally regarded as the art of extracting the possible from the impossible.
However, in the political lexicon of the current Lebanese administration, this process has devolved into a demonstrable act of political folly – a reckless gambit that transcends mere incompetence to border on a deliberate conspiracy against the very survival of the state.
By scurrying towards ‘direct negotiations‘ with the Israeli enemy, the authorities are not only flouting the 1955 Anti-Israeli Boycott Law, which criminalises the slightest contact. They are placing the entire Lebanese entity, spearheaded by its military, into the firing line of a comprehensive civil war.
The art of exchange or the trap of liquidation?
At its core, negotiation is a trade-off – a quid pro quo. The Israeli enemy – a power that has never offered ‘charitable gifts’ – will not be satisfied with mere technical or maritime border arrangements.
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The transparent Israeli demand, which lies beneath every diplomatic overture, is the total dismantlement of the Resistance.
Here, the ‘political idiocy’ of the government is laid bare: how can a decaying authority negotiate the disarmament of a force that is fundamentally beyond its executive reach? How can it promise what it does not possess, unless it is planning a suicidal bet that gambles with the blood of its own citizens?
The fatal trap
Any negotiated outcome that mandates the Lebanese army to disarm the Resistance, raid its depots, or arrest its combatants is, in reality, a death warrant for the military institution itself.
The administration, believing it can appease ‘foreign agendas’ through such commitments, is effectively pushing the army into an inevitable collision with the very people it is sworn to protect.
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This path leads to three catastrophic certainties:
The Fragmentation of the Military: The collapse of the army along sectarian and ideological lines at the first sign of internal confrontation.
The Disintegration of the State: Lebanon’s transformation from a political entity into an open ‘militia playground’, where the central government loses the final vestiges of control.
An Israeli Playground: Once the army falls and sedition is ignited, Lebanon becomes a security vacuum, totally vulnerable to the enemy’s whims, allowing them to achieve through internal strife what they failed to secure through direct military aggression.
Slaughtered National Pact and legal treachery
The purported consent of the President cannot be used as a shield to bypass this ‘legal treason‘.
The Anti-Israeli Boycott Law is not a mere detail to be sidestepped by a ‘political understanding’; it is a pillar of the Lebanese national doctrine. To circumvent it through direct talks is to demolish the foundation of Lebanon as a state of confrontation.
Furthermore, the ‘National Pact’ (Mithaqiya) is slaughtered the moment a faction in power decides to gamble with the fate of an entire people. By turning the Lebanese people against one another, they seek to satisfy external diktats that view Lebanon as nothing more than a ‘security file’ to be liquidated.
Perpetuating conflict, not ending it
This trajectory does not lead to peace; it perpetuates war in its most hideous form: internal strife.
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The rush to negotiate from a position of profound weakness, devoid of a vision that preserves national unity, renders the government a mere tool for the implementation of the Zionist agenda to fragment Lebanon.
Sovereignty is not reclaimed by tearing the national fabric, and dignity is not preserved by conspiring against those who defend the land.
Those who believe the path to ‘stability’ passes through the destruction of Lebanon’s elements of strength and the dismantling of its army are either political simpletons or agents for hire, driving the country toward the ultimate abyss.
Some researchers think spending too much time on your phone might age your brain faster. One study found that “passive” scrolling may be linked to an increased dementia risk; another found that excessive use could lead to thinning of the cerebral cortex, which processes memories and handles decision-making.
According to a 2025 PNAS study, though, those changes don’t have to be permanent.
In their research, blocking mobile internet for two weeks appeared to result in better subjective well-being, mental health, and sustained attention, “as much as being 10 years younger”.
What did the research involve?
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In this study, 467 participants used an app that turned their smartphones “dumb” again: in other words, it took away their internet access, but kept their ability to make and receive calls and texts. (While they used a specific app, you can enjoy a similar effect by disabling the mobile data and wi-fi on your device).
The average age of the participants was 32.
After the 14-day period, people’s screen time had almost halved (from 314 minutes a day to 161 minutes).
They also had fewer depression and anxiety, an effect the paper said was “more than antidepressants”.
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And subjective well-being, or how good the participants said they felt, leapt up too.
The scientists said they think that some of these results could be due not to digital detoxes per se, but “by the mediators of time use, social connection, self-control, and sleep” that reducing time online facilitates.
But “none of them explained a significant portion of the intervention’s effects on sustained attention,” the researchers said (which, as we mentioned before, was equivalent to a 10-year brain ageing wipe).
You don’t need to be perfect
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Good news for people who aren’t sure they could stick to this scheme: people who didn’t stick really strictly to the programme still saw benefits.
“Even those who did not fully comply with the intervention experienced significant, though more modest, improvements,” the paper reads.
This “suggests that fully blocking mobile internet is not necessary to produce benefits. Rather, simply reducing mobile internet use may be sufficient.”
They ended, “Balancing the practical benefits that smartphones offer against these significant negative consequences is an important task for smartphone users. Our results suggest that, for many people, spending less time with their device can help achieve this balance.”
Maher Rizq Abdullah Naasan lives in the village of al Mughayyir, north east of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. His home is in the south of the village, only 100 metres from his sizable plot of land.
Two kilometres away in the al Khaleel valley is a newly established illegal settler grazing outpost and, unfortunately for Naasan, 60, the settlers have now constructed a dirt track.
He said:
This dirt track runs from the outpost to our area, almost to the edge of my house. Every day, the settlers are with their sheep, damaging the olive trees growing on our land, many of which are more than 100 years old.
The army then turns up to protect the settlers and expels us from our land. They prevent us from taking care of our land and when they see us with our olive trees, they fly a drone overhead.
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Naasan had recently found himself being filmed by a drone. Then, five minutes later, a Hummer vehicle belonging to Israeli occupation soldiers arrived on the scene. They dropped gas bombs on the homes close to Nassan’s. Settlers then appeared and began grazing their livestock on his land.
Several days later on 2 April, at 1pm, the Israeli occupation vehicle again arrived in the area, this time with five soldiers inside and went straight to Naasan’s house.
He said:
I didn’t leave the house because if I did, they would have assaulted me. These aren’t regular soldiers but a militia dedicated to protecting settlers. My car was parked in front of my home and I have video footage documenting what they did to it.
They searched the car first, then opened the bonnet and put a substance in the oil reservoir to destroy the engine. They cut all the wires and cables inside the car, including to the battery, and they damaged the fan. After that they withdrew.
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Israeli attacks on Palestinians exceeded 23,800 in 2025
‘The goal is to seize our land and surround our homes’
Naasan, who said there was no reason for this behaviour because his car was legal, added that the drone was hovering above him taking pictures when he made the video of his damaged vehicle.
The reason for all this harassment is to remove us from our land, and for the occupation’s soldiers and settlers to let us know that they can do whatever they want.
The goal, in general, is slow evacuation — to seize our land and surround our homes. The army is protecting these settlers while their livestock are eating the olive trees. They have plenty of land already but now come to ours to make us leave it.
Surveillance cameras have now been placed on a tall tower to monitor Naasan and other Palestinians when they go to their land.
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“The soldiers then arrive and start firing heavy gas at us,” Naasan added.
A 2022 report by Israeli human rights organisations, Kerem Navit and Peace Now, says that huge areas of land are stolen through the use of grazing outposts. A huge 70% of all Palestinian land seized by settlers has been taken under the guise of grazing activities. These grazing outposts either directly displace farmers and shepherding communities from their land or use violence, harassment and intimidation to force them away.
Nearly one in four people in the West Bank are settlers
It adds that more than 780,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in more than 540 settlements and outposts across the area.
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Almost 60 outposts were established in 2025 alone. Attacks by colonial settlers have become a “functional tool to reshape geography in the West Bank, particularly in Bedouin and agricultural communities,” Mu’ayyad Shaaban, head of CWRC, said. This undermines projects for a viable Palestinian state.
Data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicates Israeli occupiers now make up more than 23% of the West Bank population, so nearly one in four.
The organisation also shared that in 2025:
More than 23,800 attacks were carried out against Palestinians by Israeli occupation authorities and settlers
Some 5,770 of these attacks involved the killing of civilians, burning of homes, facilities and vehicles, and property theft
There were 16,664 attacks on individuals and nearly 1,400 attacks on land and natural resources
More than 35,000 trees, including about 26,990 olive trees were damaged, bulldozed and uprooted during these attacks
Attacks on Palestinians are continuing at unprecedented levels, with nearly 3,800 attacks recorded in January and February of this year alone.
The sole purpose of this land theft is to forcibly displace Palestinians and ethnically cleanse the West Bank.
Overflowing bins. Closed sports centres. Libraries run by unpaid volunteers. That’s the reality in towns and cities up and down Britain. Austerity is the cause, introduced by the Conservative-LibDem coalition.
Labour have continued with austerity. Reform have promised austerity on steroids, with something between £40 billion and £150 billion of cuts per year, but they refuse to specify how or where.
The pledge commits Green councillors to four principles:
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Hold an emergency summit to make our communities heard to kick-start a mass campaign.
Community organisation and mobilisation to push for long-term national solutions.
Democratic control of local assets, including a full range of Community Wealth Building approaches.
Transparency over spending and responsible use of financial powers. At the moment, council finances can be impenetrable, even to elected councillors.
A false logic
Austerity is a false logic. It takes money out of local economies. 13,649 shops closed for good in 2024, costing 119,405 jobs. 17,349 shops closed in 2025, costing 201,953 jobs. As a result, councils receive less in business rates. High streets become run down.
Infrastructure is effected too. In December 2024, Gateshead Council closed a major road flyover with zero notice. A lack of inspections led to deterioration going unnoticed. It created havoc, closing the Metro tunnels underneath it for weeks. Fifteen months later, it’s still closed with diversions in place.
There are also countless undocumented stories about inadequate healthcare and spiralling mental health crises.
Councils end up spending time and money fixing what could have been prevented.
National solutions
The solutions are national. Any government with a sovereign currency can earn, borrow, tax or create money. The use of monetary policy in conjunction with wealth taxes could reverse austerity. All of us would live in a cleaner, safer, more prosperous country. Sure, a handful of people might have to buy a smaller yacht. But we’d have a healthier, happier, more skilled workforce. We’d also have cheaper energy and infrastructure that works.
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Local councils don’t have the same freedom to implement these measures. But it’s not much good throwing your hands up and saying there’s nothing we can do. We’re all sick of politicians blaming the last lot who were in power.
Community Wealth Building
In local government, Community Wealth Building has been proven to work. It’s perhaps best known for making sure anchor institutions – councils, hospitals, etc. – spend their money with local suppliers. Whether this is a local joinery firm or a co-operative of education psychologists, this keeps money from leaking out of local economies.
This needs work – the big outsourcing companies have professional bid writers. Small, local firms often don’t know where to start. The pledge means making it easier for local firms with diverse ownership to compete with the billionaire-owned multinationals. In fact, the Social Value Act allows councils to weight procurement in favour of social impact. Contracts are awarded extra points if they create jobs locally.
It means standing up to the business-as-usual approach of doing quick and easy deals with developers. As Regional Mayor, I stopped £3.5 million of public money subsidising luxury apartments and a hotel right next to St James’ Park. Newcastle’s Labour council had signed it off, but I refused to put any money into a project that had no affordable housing.
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Rebalancing the economy
Care homes are perhaps the single biggest source of wealth extraction from our councils. Care workers are paid a pittance and around 30% of staff leave every year. Yet companies are structured so very rich people make profits by running them into the ground. Councils are left to clean up the mess. We need a National Care Service. In the meantime, we should restructure these deals.
Community energy companies are working across the UK. Community housing trusts can convert old town halls into flats that are collectively owned by all residents. They pay their rent into their joint cooperative, preventing landlordism and property speculation.
As Mayor, I set up venture capital deals where the Combined Authority financially supported start-ups in return for equity stakes. It made millions of pounds for the Combined Authority. Every £1 invested returned more than £3 to in payroll taxes alone. I’d like to see more community bonds and regional finance institutions.
Rebalancing the economy, reversing austerity, ending rip-off Britain. Whatever you call it, there is no lever in No. 10 that you can switch from ‘capitalism’ to ‘socialism’. We need a cohort of leaders at every level with the skills and motivation to run the economy in the interests of the people who do the work.
Olivia Munn is opening up about her experience with a male actor who felt uncomfortable with a film’s seemingly feminist slant.
Appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show this week, the X-Men: Apocalypse actor said she’d pledged long ago to focus on film and TV projects featuring female characters who weren’t reliant on their male counterparts.
One such project, Munn said, required her to appear alongside a male co-star who objected to a scene in which his character’s life would be spared, thanks to Munn’s character’s aid.
“If you read the script, it was that he was guarding his side, I was guarding my side, then we switch sides and then there’s a guy that was coming for him — he was gonna shoot him in the back — so I shoot him,” she recalled. “And then we’re about to shoot, and somehow, I guess he didn’t read the script, and in that moment, he realised, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. She can’t save me. No, no. She can’t save me.’”
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Watch Munn’s Drew Barrymore Show appearance below.
Though Munn did not identify the co-star by name, she described his subsequent on-set behaviour as “obnoxious,” noting that he quickly grew “combative with the director.” After the actor delayed the shoot for about 45 minutes, Munn decided to reframe the specifics of the scene to meet her co-star’s approval.
“I said, ‘OK, how about instead of my character saving you, it’s just that we switch because it’s time for us to switch and so this is my guy to get,’” she said. “And he was like, ‘OK.’”
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She went on to note: “Now here’s the interesting thing: Nothing changed. It’s just what he thought. I was doing the exact same thing.”
Munn, who is married to actor-comedian John Mulaney, has been outspoken about having endured less-than-optimal treatment on Hollywood sets for some time.
Appearing on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast last year, she recalled an unnamed director on HBO’s The Newsroom who smeared her work ethic after she disagreed with his suggestions of how her character, Sloan Sabbith, would behave alongside Don Keefer (played by Thomas Sadoski) in a scene.
Olivia Munn can currently be seen on the Apple TV+ series “Your Friends & Neighbors,” co-starring Jon Hamm.
TheStewartofNY via Getty Images
“I was on the one-yard-line for the movie and my manager calls me and says, ‘Hey, you’re gonna get the role. But first, I guess there’s another director who they know and he says that on ‘The Newsroom’ you were late all the time and really combative,’” she said at the time. “I was like, ‘I know who this is.’”
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These days, Munn can be seen on the Apple TV+ crime drama series Your Friends & Neighbours, which also stars Jon Hamm. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published last week, she said she hoped to set an example for other female actors by standing up for herself in the film industry.
“I can’t change the world and I cannot change how women have been portrayed and received for however long we’ve been on earth,” she told the outlet. “So I’ve realised that I’m going to handle [these situations] in a way that is going to be the best outcome for me.”
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We’ve had two whole days of sunshine here in the UK, so of course we’re already fantasising about when we get a permanent spring/summer stint.
Now, we’re hoping it’s going to be one of those ‘right round the corner’ moments that comes before you know it (a girl can only dream).
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Whatever happens, when the fairer weather finally arrives, you won’t want to be caught unawares. We’ve gotta make the most of it in this country!
So to make sure you’re prepared for the lighter months ahead, we’ve sourced the best garden tables, chairs, and decor to brighten up your garden for all your hosting needs.
Garden tables and chair sets
Picture this: a sunset Aperol on this striped set. Or even a morning coffee. We’re not here to tell you what to do.
No one need be left out thanks to this extra long extendable table, which can comfortably sit eight or more people. Okay, miss popular!
We can already see you spending all your time here. Invite your friends if you like, or sprawl out across that double sofa like you own the place.
We wish we could afford to nip over to Paris whenever we felt like it, but unfortunately money doesn’t allow it. At least this breakfast set will transport you straight to a French bistro, though.
Need something that can be stowed away? This pale pink set is as sweet as can be, and you can fold it up when you’re done.
Those cushions look almost too inviting. And we don’t know about you, but the first thing we’re doing is wrapping fairy lights around the rattan for an extra cosy vibe into the evening.
Chuck some blankets over the back of this, and you’ve got the perfect spot for gossiping over a glass of wine late into the night. Just saying.
Garden benches, sofas, and loungers
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Looking for a little ‘me’ time? I’m already excited to curl up here with a book next time I have an evening free.
The garden bench might be simple, but it’s staple for a reason: it’s reliable, sturdy, and can be dressed up however you like. This sage version will blend right in with your foliage, too.
Forget park sunbathing, you can get your tan on much more comfortably in your back garden.
This striped sofa might be a little spenny, but you can’t really put a price on a life of soaking in the sun, can you?
Garden decor
I mean, there’s no better way to make your garden feel like a fairy kingdom than mushroom-shaped lights.
To make sure you fully enjoy the fruits of your decorating labour, leave some of the essentials in this garden cabinet so you don’t have to keep running in and out when you have pals over.
It is a plus to be able to see each other when you’re outside. Good news: you don’t have to rely on the brightness of the moon, you can actually decorate your outdoor tables as you would indoors.
Sometimes you just need to sit on the floor. Or stick your kid down there for some quiet time.
A senior BBC correspondent has demolished Donald Trump’s claims that America is winning the Iran war.
Jeremy Bowen, the corporation’s international editor, tore apart the US president’s declarations of victory as a two-week ceasefire in the conflict teeters on the brink.
Trump has accused Tehran of not sticking to an agreement to re-open the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway.
Meanwhile, Israel is continuing to launch missiles against Lebanon in another apparent violation of the ceasefire.
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In an article for the BBC website, Bowen said leaked versions of an American 15-point plan to end the war “sound more like a surrender document than a basis for negotiation”.
He also said that despite the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the war, there has been no regime change in the country, despite what the president has claimed.
“With or without the active participation of the new supreme leader, Iran’s regime has demonstrated depths of resilience that took Trump by surprise,” Bowen said.
“Now Donald Trump’s representatives, led by his vice-president JD Vance, must negotiate with adversaries that they claim, incorrectly, to have defeated.”
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He added: “The US and Israel have done immense damage to Iran’s armed forces as well as its military and civilian infrastructure. However, while the Iranian regime may be battered, it’s also intact.
“Regime change is not happening. Iran can still launch missiles and drones. That means that despite loud claims, the US and Israel have not translated tactical victories into strategic advances.
“Iran, on the other hand, has shown that the closing of the Strait of Hormuz gives it a strategic edge that Donald Trump either dismissed or did not understand when he listened to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arguments for going to war with Iran.”
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