Not to go full Cumberbitch, but I actually do think it’s cool that Benedict Cumberbatch came out for Richard III’s reburial/funeral thing. It would have been cool if he did it without any connection, and it’s more interesting that he did it given that he’s distantly related to Richard AND that Benedict plays Richard III in The Hollow Crown (which will air this year).
So, these are some photos of Benedict arriving at Leicester Cathedral for the service. Richard’s 530-year-old remains were discovered – underneath a parking lot – in 2012. The remains were studied, analyzed, etc, and now they are at rest again. According to People Magazine, Queen Elizabeth sent a message to be read aloud during the service, and the Countess of Wessex was in attendance as well.
Below, I’m including the video of Bendy reciting the poem “Richard” by Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s poet laureate, at the funeral/reburial. HIS HAIR. He hasn’t quite got the hang of using product on short hair and it looks like a trendy mess. The poem is moving though. “My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil, a human braille… my skull, scarred by a crown, emptied of history…”
Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.
Has anyone seen The White Queen? Aneurin Barnard was great as Richard III.
I just watched the White Queen and really liked it. I agree that actor was very good. Wonder if Richard was really that whiny?!
Richard is often played as whiny and petulant due to the characterisation of him by Shakespeare.
Whilst we can’t know for sure what he was like in real life, the shakespeare characterisation has gone down in history as the literal truth. To extent that people playing him outside the shakespearean context like ‘The White Queen’ play him the same way.
What we can say is that he was a good soldier, and an effective administrator who kept the notoriously unruly north of England in good order during the reign of Edward IV – and managed to do it while maintaining lots of goodwill from the population to boot. That is quite an achievement for those times. Additionally, he was very loyal to his brother throughout all the plots against him, despite many opportunities and temptations not to be.
He would probably have made quite a good king in terms of keeping the realm healthy and effectively run – especially when you consider the proto-surveillance society instituted by Henry VII.
Not that this any excuse for murdering your nephews – and whatever the Ricardians like to say, the evidence we have means the balance of probabilities put him as the prime suspect over Buckingham and Henry.
I don’t think Richard killed the boys. I think Margaret Beaufort is a nearer candidate, with lots of fingers in many conspiracies including Buckingham’s rebellion and in the end she won. No wonder Henry didn’t trust any other advisor.
I honestly think there is more evidence against Richard than any of the others. But I doubt we’ll ever find the smoking gun piece of evidence. Still, they found his body – it’ll have to be enough for we history buffs!
Yes Margaret Beaufort is a prime candidate for the murder of the 2 Princes – it was her son that instigated the PR hack job on RIII. She was a piece of work who was not above killing.
Can we just talk about how Philippa was (almost certainly) the first black queen? Squee for history!
Speaking of Margaret Beaufort, how amazing was Amanda Hale?
From all the amazing performances in The White Queen ( Amanda, Aneurin, Faye) I’m surprised Rebecca Ferguson was the one who got a Golden Globe nomination.
Always wanted to believe that Richard was not responsible for the Princes murder but a recent (and pretty good) documentary on C4 sifted through the evidence to suggest strongly that in the end it was Richard. A British historian called David Starkey noted that the Princes sister Elizabeth of York and her husband King Henry VII attended the trial of (I think it was) Henry Tyrrel, a close adviser of Richard’s after he confessed to killing the Princes. In those days people strongly believed in the literal interpretation of heaven and hell and that without confession there was no hope of God’s forgiveness and eventual redemption. Starkey argued that the presence of the royals at the trial in the context of such belief was evidence that they certainly believed he was responsible for the Prince’s death as there would have been no reason for him to lie in confession.
Starkey is a committed Tudor historian who believes absolutely in the Tudor version of events.
He is practically pissing himself to discredit Richard on all fronts, and all versions of History that don’t tally with the Tudor propaganda line. He was on TV insisting that Richard’s scoliosis was definite evidence of a hump per shakespeare’s play.
He is pretty dismissive of any and all points of history that don’t tally with his own and the Tudor line. I wouldn’t trust anything he has to say about other historical figures when he is using the Tudors’ own records as evidence of anything.
He refuses to acknowledge that whatever the truth, what can not be denied is that The Tudors used propaganda to re-write history and often made it a treasonable act to pass on a different version of events whether said difference was true or not.
I lost so much respect for Starkey a long time ago.
Margaret Beaufort is one of the least likely candidates for killing the two princes. Phillippa Gregory has a lot to answer for. The Ricardians just cannot accept that their hero killed his nephews so they cast around for someone to pin it on. The fact remains that Richard sent the boys to the Tower and they never emerged. It was not a smart thing to leave alternative kings hanging around for factions to grow up around. Smart kings did away with them. Richard was smart. It was totally in his interest to kill his nephews and he had access to them and was able to dispose of them (very important that). Obviously many Yorkists believed he had done so or so many would not have agreed to support Henry Tudor, they would have wanted Edward V released instead.
Margaret Beaufort was under house arrest at Lathom, Lancashire 214 miles away from London. She has certainly been slandered recently by all this “evil plotting hysterically pious” stuff which has been engendered by the White Queen – a work of fiction!
I haven’t read or watched ‘the White Queen’ although I’m aware of it. I read her Bolyen series, but I felt the cousins’ series on which ‘The White Queen’ is based is too meh! I tried reading the first book and couldn’t get past it.
All of that said, i’ve read extensively about Richard. And i’ve read Philip Gregory’s essay on who she thinks is the culprit. In her view, it’s actually Buckingham NOT Margaret Beaufort. She makes a convincing case for Buckingham. Most Ricardians tend to go with that view.
I came to the realisation that Margeret is the forerunner due to all the conspiracies to topple Richard. All of them had her fingerprints. There is evidence of that. She was also under house arrest for plotting against Richard. Not the first time she was implicated. However that house arrest was conveniently in her husband’s home. The same husband, Stanley, who betrayed Richard at Bosworth.
Don’t let those nun’s habit portraits fool you.
I’ve also read extensively on the period (I have an MA in History) and one of my specialties was the reign of Henry VII. I know I will not convince a hardened Richardian, but you will not convince me either.
There is loads of evidence for Richard III as the murderer of his nephews. And it is not by any means all Tudor propaganda.
I agree that Starkey would never countenance an anti-Tudor outcome! Having said that, his command and encyclopaedic knowledge of the sources is pretty much the best around. I wish he’d go away for entirely different reasons – principally so he never shows up on Question Time (UK political debate show) again!
I’m inclined to the view it was Richard, simply because adding up all the evidence, more points to him than to anybody else.
I’m quite attracted to the idea of Edward IV’s illegitimacy – from the clues in the Rouen records – being the catalyst for Richard’s usurpation. If not, the pre-contract. it seems to me that Richard was a reliable noble, loyal to brother and heirs until *something* happened to change that. He doesn’t seem to have been intriguing all along.
Please don’t use Phillipa Gregory as a historical source, she maybe interesting but not always exactly historically accurate. She is a historical novelist not a historian. I did a production of Richard III which meant we needed to really research the history of the piece to understand the play one girl used her books as a research source it was a massive eye roll.
And I love the fact that everyone here knows about the Ricardians! Swoon!
I tend to think he didn’t do it, if only because he had his brother’s marriage declared invalid so bastard children would not be a threat. Theoretically. 🙂
Josephine Tey thinks it was Henry VII, who actually did have something to lose if relatives of Richard surfaced. But then there’s the Margaret Beaufort connection there too.
Faith: I very much doubt anyone here is using Philipa Gregory as a historical source. It would be deeply worrying, no? It’s very much understood that she’s a writer of fiction.
It’s always fun to read novelists take on historical periods, but it’s understood that it is fiction.
What I find annoying is that if one doesn’t agree with the accepted version of events, then we must be reading fiction novels which we take to be the truth. And not bothering to go find out for ourselves as @Justme accused in her previous post. BTW per your reaction, i’d have a massive eyeroll for anyone who did. Although, it’s sad that history isn’t really being taught properly anymore so many people are meeting these historical figures via popular fiction like the Philipa Gregory books.
Sixer: forgot to say that yes, Starkey *is* a font of Tudor Knowledge, but it’s so strange to me how he presents it as though it were a vacuum rather than a tapestry of various interconnected threads through time, parts of the world and people.
Justme: as you said, we shall not agree, especially about the Tudorian line on Richard.
@LAK, I apologize for suggesting you took your knowledge of the period from Phillippa Gregory. I had no right to make that assumption. The problem for me is that this is an era I have studied for over 30 years and just recently I keep running into all sorts of folks who regard themselves as experts based on her writing or the TV show.
it can be infuriating to hear people say “that Margaret Beaufort, she was such a hysterical evil woman” , because of a very fictionalized TV show!
However again my apologies to you.
Well, as I see it, we can all agree that the finding of Richard III is A1 super-duper and fandabbydozy. Whodunnit is just an ongoing enjoyable debate, right?
What I think historical fiction can do – yes, even the bodice rippers – is excite an interest that could lead people to seeking out popular history writers and then moving on to the very serious academic stuff. The academic works are lot less dry to the layperson if they’ve gone by that route.
What was everyone’s first historical work (fiction or non-fiction) they ever read?
Mine was The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, about Alexander the Great.
@frisbeejada that was a pretty good documentary from looking at it from all angles but in the end I was still undecided.
@Sixer: Same here! I LOVED the Persian Boy AND Fire From Heaven…she never filled in the gap, really, did she? Perhaps some of the more academic among us can tell me if my impression that her historical accuracy is a cut above most if not all other historical novelists is remotely accurate.
More recently, I was totally engrossed in When Christ and His Saints Slept. Sharon Penman took major liberties, creating (for example) an entirely fictional major character from minor bits of historical fact, but I felt you could generally have a sense of what was novel and what, historical.
Why would Richard III have killed the Princes in the Tower? They had already been declared illegitimate and removed from the line of succession when they disappeared. The only parties who benefited from their death were Tudors. Henry VII, who was more French than English, needed more than his diseased foreign mercenary army to convince the people of England to accept him as ruler. He needed them to want him more than they wanted Richard III.
he was certainly cute & deceptively cunning, he had my support.
I find him very cute, but I read someone describe him as a goth hobbit, which was funny.
He and Faye Marsay who played Anne had great chemistry, better than Rebecca and Max.
Aneurin is always cute. He was really good as David Bailey in a film I saw recently.
But yeah, he did look like a goth Frodo in The White Queen.
LOVED Aneurin as Richard! He was my favorite character and even though he might not have been a great person in real life he was so cute and sympathetic in the series.
I suggest reading The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman, a big book but well worth the read, i couldn’t put it down. She is a better writer than Philippa Gregory, and really does portray Richard 3rd in a sympathetic light and Anne as the intelligent person she was.
P’enny: I love that book.
Fun fact: that book has the Richard III society stamp of approval for good historical fiction. Obviously they are biased being the Richard 3 society, but they are a very testy lot. Don’t give their stamp of approval easily.
BTW: very random, but some archaeologist (don’t care for his subject so can’t be bothered to learn his name) in Kent has been inspired by Richard’s discovery that he is now fundraising for a similar quest to find the bones of King Stephen which he thinks might be buried under a school playground in Faversham!!!
The classic Ricardian story is The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. I read that when I was just a kid and had quite a period of Ricardianism.
If you like historical romance, Marjorie Bowen wrote a nice sympathetic novel called Dickon. You’d probably have to find a second hand copy, though.
And popular historian Alison Weir did a great (non-Ricardian) book about the Princes in the Tower.
After I read Shakespeare’s Richard IIi in junior high, my cousin, a high school English teacher, shoved a copy of Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s “We Speak No Treason” into my hands and ordered me to read it for a different view.
Love daughter of time purely for the detective device they use.
Lilacflowers: I’ve been involved in a Richard III project for some time which means I’ve read so many books about him, the period, fiction and non fiction, but oddly I hadn’t read the shakespeare play since school and that’s several decades ago.
Anyhue, after all this research, I went back and read the play……the horror!!!!! I still shudder at the thing. I can’t accept it as a separate artform simply because it is so riddled with inaccuracies that it makes my brain hurt.
And do you know what’s so wierd, every time I speak to random people about the project, I get the inevitable questions which tell me that most people think the shakespeare is the absolute truth.
Ladies, don’t forget that Shakespeare wrote Richard III for a Tudor.
Not excusing it, just understanding.
It’s been years since I read the Sunne in Splendour. May have to go read it again. Love Sharon Penman’s books. She can write one fabulous historical bodice ripper too. The Gwynned series comes to mind. 🙂
My theory on the haircuts is that he doesn’t know, nor has he ever known, what to do with it when it gets any longer than this. I figure he keeps it short now because he doesn’t know how to work with it himself. Also, he probably sticks a flat cap over it when he really can’t be “bovvered.”
And thus, I reveal that I am still paying too much attention to his damn hair.
He’s got lovely natural curls. What to do with it is let it grow, instead of going for a haircut that belongs in the ’90s.
I agree with whomever said in the UK people are starting to mock him for being ubiquitous. Especially since he said he was going to take two months off. Which turned into 2 hours. 🙂
I think he can’t stay away because he’s afraid people will forget him. Give us a chance, Bendy.
I think he can’t stay away because he needs attention, but then, I’ve always been a bitter oul cynic! 😏
Hermi!
I’m glad to see someone bring up his time off and his “nesting” in this context. Why does he make statements like this?! I believe he means things at the moment he says them, and they’re forgotten half an hour later. He may have wanted to “nest” in his mind, but because he cannot be still, and is compelled to keep moving , he books Letters Live and the Laureus Award. What’s so peculiar is that he does this so close to the baby being born. I think time off makes him anxious, so he scampers about booking silly jobs like the Laureus Awards. No matter what I think of Sophie 😦, I think it’s weird and beyond inconsiderate for her husband to go to China when the baby could make its debut at the same time.
It seems that whatever he says he’s going to do, he does the opposite.
It’s fear driven, I’ve come to think.
He also looks pretty unhealthy.
Where’s his lovely wife? this event is obviously missing another great outfit number and more irrelevant over-exposure for this marriage.
Anyway, good coverage for Carol Ann Duffy, a brilliant poet and deserves the high coverage it will now receive at the hands of Benedict reading it. RIP Richard 3rd.
I’ll second a Duffy recommendation, a brilliant character-driven poet…
… although I’m not sure she needs it. She’s on just about every single GCSE curriculum in the land. I can’t think of another contemporary poet, except perhaps Hughes and Betjeman, who British people will have been exposed to more.
Well, I’ll have to (somewhat shamefully) admit that this is the first I’ve heard of her. So it worked. Poetry really isn’t my thing, but a good character driven piece I always enjoy.
@Sixer- I loved The Daughter Of Time!! Now I have to read it again! Tey was just amazing all around. As for Richard, I always thought Shakespeare did him dirty in his portrayal.
I’m so impressed by both the momentous tone and the personal voice of this poem; absolutely perfect for the king and for the man.
I love Carol Ann Duffy.
To The Unknown Lover is may favourite poems of hers. Go read it, it’s perfection 🙂
Poem, singular. Too late to correct the typo. D*mn! 🙂
As I said the other day on another thread, I can’t wait until later this year when BC claims some distant relationship to Billy Bulger. Somebody needs to tell him that Steve Strange is fictional.
didn’t you hear Bendy is 34th in line removed from Billy Bulger!
And, i heard Bendy is taking therapy and coaching lesson to handle being in a role that is not a biography. it’s not going well, i think he may pull out and film a biography on Tom Hiddleston instead, he’s been cast in. “How to follow in my Bestie’s Footsteps, from Muppets to Cathedral Readings.”
i didn’t originally quite write that sentence properly LOL!
I’m really hoping he does it just so Billy finally breaks silence with a withering quip.
If your latter vision were to come to pass, I think the Bestie would say enough is enough and stage an intervention.
In any case, the attempt at accents is going to be both painful and hilarious for the listeners.
The sarcasm in these comments is glorious! Please keep them coming.
If you think this sarcasm is glorious, wait until Billy finally weighs in on being portrayed by a guy who is nearly a foot taller than he is who butchers American accents.
@Lilacflowers – I seriously can’t wait. This will be both amazing and ridiculous.
As someone accused of having a bostonian accent I will watch this film with relish. Joel Edgerton is the only hope this film has (accent-wise).
Well, Julianne Nicholson is a local girl so she’ll just make it more obvious how bad the others are. Kevin Bacon can deliver a generic northeastern accent so he won’t be horrible. Depp’s accent in Blow was atrocious. The snippet Cumberbatch gave in a MTV interview was schreechingly bad
As someone who sounds like a mashup of Sissy Spacek and Molly Ivins, I won’t know the difference, so it’ll sound fine to me.
Oh ladies, this was worth clicking on what feels like the 100th post on Bendy this year. P’enny, you were so observant in how he followed his li’l bro with the funeral reading. Yet again, tables have turned… all eyes on the PuddleTom!
I think I’m gonna see Black Mass for the laugh factor. Too bad the C’bitches can’t gather at the cinema and snark en masse. Then, we’ll come here and throw shade all over Depp and Cumbers. Can’t wait. It’s gonna be glorious.
oh Penny that made my day but the otter might have trouble playing someone who actually smiles and means it.
17 million people can claim to be related to Richard 111. Benny is something like 16 cousins removed so supposedly it brings him a bit closer.I wonder how much Weinstein paid to have the learned professor dig this and the Turing link brought to like .
$0, probably, at least with the RIII thing. It’s like par for the course if you’re doing a big ancestry trace like that (these were the same researchers who had to trace RIII in full to find living relatives for DNA testing) find at least one famous person so you can take it to the press.
It doesn’t look like he’s the one digging up this stuff, unless I missed something? Which is totally possible, lol.
yeah i dont get it either. the media picked it up and ran with it because it was a nifty tie-in, not really under his control and not claims hes making. refusing to do a reading when you know his employer asked (bbc) doesn’t make sense but eh *shrugs*
The TV coverage has been from Channel 4. Nothing to do with the BBC.
both public service, gov-regulated, unless i’m mistaken which is totally possible. its def also gold star promo for THC, which is how the beeb would have seen it id wager
obviously bbc covered it elsewhere as well, the liveblogging was kinda odd 🙂
Channel 4 is commercial but the Benny hype helped to draw people in to watch on the day.I really could not be bothered to watch all that money spent on a burial of a dead king of dubious morality.
channel 4 is actually public like the beeb. they tried privatizing it like last year but the proposal was rejected.
Funding for C4 is irrelevant, J. You suggested that Benny said yes to the reading partly because his employer asked and identified that employer as the BBC. This is incorrect. Coverage of the funeral (and previous coverage of dig and identification) was by C4. The management of the two entities is entirely separate. Benny’s decision to do the reading had nothing to do with any employer who was already giving him work.
both public, sixer, both gov. so inter-cooperation, as id eat my hat if this wasn’t something that was for THC. Plus the coverage in the US is largely PBS, Sherlock’s and THC’s home there.
LOL. Thou am sure when Hamlet starts there will be some sort of noise about how he’s also distantly related to the danish royal family or even Shakespeare himself and that’s why he was soooo desperate to play Hamlet (even thou he is too old). You know it’s coming.
LOL can’t wait for this.
Weeell if he claims to be related to one royal, the rest kinda come with the deal. Like a buy-one-get-200-free thing.
A Room with a View with Mark Strong west end move has sold out with out half the media hype and Mark Rylance’s latest is well on its way. People are going because it is actually good theatre as opposed to fan reaction.
Mind you hypocrite that I am I have a front row ticket foR Hamlet.
Both Mark’s are amazing. I think if BC was unknown he wouldn’t dare taking on Hamlet at 40 when Shakespeare has written many other age appropriate amazing characters.. My only reaction to him nowadays is “why?”..
Dammit. I was out, but him reading poetry is giving me feels again. That voice…
Someone said his hair is a cross between a whippy ice and the emoticon poo.
I can not unsee this now
emoticon poo!
LMAO 🙂
From the side its quite Cockatoo like so I’m hearing Wanda Sykes in Monster in Law
“And fix your hair, you look like a damn cockatoo!!”
Aww, I like the hair. So Rory, it is.
Agreed! He looks younger with it, too. I think it’s a good length for him.
Great, now I know how to call my haircut.
I’m currently sporting the EXACT same hair as Cumberbatch’s!!! GAH, IT’S ALMOST IDENTICAL (especially in the first picture after the video). You see that little, sort faux mohawk on top of his head? I HAZ IT! My hair grows in different directions.
I tried to part it and comb it to the left, but it simply won’t go unless I use a lot of gel to tame that thing that looks like a wave/whippy ice/emoticon poo (thank you, Lindy — that was very nice of you).
The breakdown: It’s been my fault — I butchered my hair (thought I could turn my two feet long hair into a sassy pixie on my own) during an anxiety crisis back in December. On January 2 my sister took me to a haidresser to see what she could do. Well, there was nothing she could do except use a hair clipper (at 2) to even my hair. Now it’s about the same lenght, shape and colour tone as Cumberbatch’s!!! The only difference is that he has a longer head/skull.
P.S.: Don’t ever try to cut your own hair (expecially as short as a pixie) unless you’re a professional.
Oh no Im sorry!!
Didnt mean to upset anyone
Don’t worry, babes. I’m a sarcastic, blunt b*tch so I often cross than thin line between being straight forward and downright rude.
I’m not upset. My hair has been growing quite nicely…and I can’t complain all that much because:
First: it was my fault;
Second: It doesn’t look bad, unless one thinks Cumberbatch’s hair looks bad.
P.S.: My hair is an endangered species though. Every time I have an anxiety crisis, I think about cutting it (myself). The results are disastrous, of course.
P.P.S.: I meant “colour shade”.
Phew! Did;’t think you were rude at all, more that I had been a bitch insulting anyone with a pixie cut.
( I did only mean his, it’s really evident in some pics I’ve seen elsewhere, it just needs the little smiley face)
http://image5.spreadshirt.com/image-server/v1/compositions/108825252/views/1,width=178,height=178,appearanceId=1/Happy-Poop-%7C-Poop-Emoticon-.jpg
I said don’t worry, woman! I tried to be funny (you know, the usual laughing to keep from crying) and it backfired.
Evelet – when I was having chemo and my hair started falling out, I wouldn’t even wait for Mr Sixer to drive me to a hairdresser. Even though he was there, ready and with the car keys in his hand. I HAD to get it off there and then. Attacked it with the scissors and then used his clippers for a buzz cut. Looking back, I can still feel how powerful that anxiety was to get it all off RIGHT THEN.
I bet you look GREAT with teensy tiny hair.
@ Sixer:
Right? It’s like WE MUST do something with it — right at that specific moment. We don’t have a hair clipper here though (which may be a good thing, after all).
And I don’t hate it — honestly. Now that is has grown into the pixie I initially intended, it’s kinda cute.
P.S.: I am aware that the circumstances surrouding our “pixiety” (ha!) are substantially diferent (re: your chemo). I’m not downplaying what you’ve been through.
P.P.S.: My sister has begged me not to do anything with my hair (whenever I get anxious).
You should’ve seen her face when I first butchered (my attempt at a pixie ended up looking like North Korean’s president’s hair). She was livid! But I couldn’t stop laughing.
Well now you’ve put that image in my head Eve that’s all I’m imagining
@ Lindy:
Trust me, it looks A LOT better now (and a lot like Cumberbatch’s hair in these pictures).
By the way, I bought a blue hair dye, but I’ve postponed dying it because I don’t want to give my sister a heart attack. One crazy thing to your hair at a time, Eve.
@ Eve
Neither am I downplaying your experience, you know? But yes. It’s the same immediate necessity, right? I just wanted you to know it isn’t just you! We have sisterly BIN THAT HAIR! NOW! histories.
It’s making me laugh!
@ Sixer:
Don’t worry, I never thought you did (I saw your comments on Jolie threads).
I’m giggling, too. When I think about it (the HIDEOUS first cut), then the buzz cut to even it out (not a good look on me), then my sister asking me if I wanted a wig…from my perspective, it was hilarious. All in all, I’m quite happy with the Cumberpixie I sport now.
P.S.: I misspelled “length” and “surrouNding”. Yes, I’m a spelling/grammar Nazi.
I had a wig, courtesy of the NHS. Hated the blasted thing. Never wore it.
Mr Sixer says he empathises with your sister. Pfft. We are hair autonomous. They just have to put up with it!
@Eve, that’s quite the story. I cut my own hair once – just once. Never again. Although I was tempted to do my own when I went through chemo but stopped because I didn’t have clippers. When the first strands fell, I called my stylist. He had me come in that afternoon, poured me a glass of wine, and buzzed my hair down to fuzz. As Sixer said, it was empowering to take control. Of course, my hair fought back, stopped falling out, turned a weird burnt orange color and the new hair that grew back was extremely curly and white. I walked around for close to a year with a two-toned, two textured pixie until my oncologist told me I could color it. New hair still comes in orangey.
A very late weigh in, I once had a haircut that made me look like Manny out of Iceage. I suspect I resemble a Gerbil anyway so I looked somewhat Gerbally in a really bad wig. Still giggle about it now ‘cos what else are you gonna do?
Eve, you totally have to go blue! A blue pixie sounds awesome!!!
@Sixer high fives that bald headed feeling just takes you over -I just gave myself a a do it yourself job and brought a pixie wig
He’s looking good in these pictures. But, then, he usually looks good when away from the source of so much stress. I wonder if he found that Vogue article as ridiculous/embarrassing as so many others did.
He’s got a great voice.
There’s something really weird about this guy’s face – around the eyes and forehead. Looks a bit like a bad plastic surgery victim where they pulled the skin too tight.
he’s had botox , he had more crinkles and nice lumps and bumps when he filmed Sherlock s2, but during last summer especially he looked a spit of his wax work.
nah, his face/forehead always moves. no botox. probably facial peels/scrubs though.
he has more wrinkles when he’s thinner, ie filming sherlock, because he’s got lose facial skin. when he puts on a few pounds, like he did last summer, his face smooths out.
He should be getting some special facial peels/procedures–can’t quite remember what they’re all called. He’s got serious sun damage on his face, and that is part of the treatment for it to prevent cancer.
No, he has not had Botox. His forehead/face moves.
People are definitely starting to mock him for being so ubiquitous and overexposed (in the UK at least), and I don’t think attending events like this is helping.
Also, check out Sebastian Shakespeare on the DM – he’s amazingly bitchy about the wedding.
You guys, don’t be silly. His hair looks like that because I was running my fingers through it five minutes before the event.
Ha, that made me laugh 🙂
I actually like the hair.
My he looks good.
Coupled with new pictures of Martin IN FULL BEARD yesterday on my Tumblr dash and my Sherlock feels have increased exponentially…really looking forward to the special.
*goes off to tumblr*
Oooh that beard is NICE. Suits him well.
IKR? And the pants he’s wearing at the Mousetrap thingee–they are tailored within an inch of their lives but damn he looks good wearing them. He’s such a clothes man and that makes me very happy. I adore him.
I still love him, even though he is everywhere. I recall seeing photos of him with various royals, and tbh, he looks so at ease. Not just actor at ease. Then I read that he is actually distantly related to R3 and ..no surprise here.
Him and seventeen million others.His royal connections are pretty thin apart from film premiers and media events.
I watched a show about 6 months ago on the discovery and recovery of Richard III’s remains. It was fascinating.
Remember the name of it? I’d like to see.
Secrets of the Dead: Resurrecting Richard III was on PBS. That may be it.
Thanks muchly! It’s always fascinating to me that you can find kings under parking lots!
The show is on youtube. Also look out for the other programmes on how he was identified and how they built up his probably face and how he might have lived as a medieval person with scoliosis.
Here, ladies:
http://www.le.ac.uk/richardiii/
That’s the University of Leicester’s website about the dig and subsequent identification. It’s super-cool.
You can find Resurrecting Richard III on the PBS website and watch it in full. It was riveting documentary.
I don’t understand how anything in English language passes for poetry.
It is painful to listen to. No rhyme or flow whatsoever. And I am assuming this was supposed to be a good one since it was written by an award winning poet.
Have to agree with you, I’m surprised so many people liked it, I found that even Benedict’s voice couldn’t save it. It felt like it was try-hard as well. Which I actually understand: I think it’s hard to write for the occasion, rather than out of inspiration! I think they should have just found a lovely poem already written about Richard III, surely there are some, he’s such a prominent figure of British history, not some obscure prince.
Wow… So, not liking a poem makes one an idiot? I didn’t know!
Just curious as a writer, what turns you off about English poetry? Is it English or American poetry? Is it the Rhyming and pattern or lack there of? I want to experiment in other languages but I’d like to know what I’m up against! LOL
The man who made the coffin is a distant relative and kind of looks like Cumberpatch or whatever his name is.
Richard III is my favourite Shakespearian character. I love him to bits, the bunch-backed toad.
And I’m afraid BC will not do him justice in the Hollow Crown series.
I love how sarcastic RIII is and how shameless. They should have asked McAvoy to play him instead. BC lacks the joyful evil zest which I thinks is required to play the bottled spider.
But we shall see….
As for the commentary on C4, silly as per usual: BC who is also a cousin of RIII, come on, seriously????????????????
ps May I also just suggest to SFP that, should BC drop out for some unknown reason, McAvoy would be a majestic Hamlet??? Just saying…
Hermi, I am right there with you! RIII is one of my all-time faves, even if Shakespeare’s version is not historically accurate. I’m meh about Hamlet so I’m mostly indifferent to BC playing him (except for the fact that he is too darn old!), but if he cocks up Richard I am out.
Did you see the film with Ian McKellen as RIII? He seduced Kristen Scott Thomas’ Anne in an actual morgue surrounded by multiple dead bodies on slabs, including that of her husband. He was so charismatic and convincing I had no trouble at all believing she would say yes to his proposal on the spot.
How did McAvoy do as Macbeth? I think he would kick ass as Hamlet!
He was a spectacular Macbeth and Ms Foy was also great as Lady M. I just saw him in The Ruling Class and was completely blown away. The man has so much charisma he could sell it on ebay.
Mark Rylance is my favourite Richard 111 so far-he had it all humour and subtle persuasion almost convincing the audience that he is a poor maligned monarch.
Gooooood poem.
After all that’s been said and resaid about every aspect of this guys personal life, temperament, choice of women, alcohol/drug consumption, looks, sexuality, on and on, hearing him read this poem one can hardly deny that he does indeed have “IT”. I look forward to more of “IT”, circus aside
Bendy’s reading gave me chills!
Me too, I really like the poem, particularly the line – “Grant me the carving of my name”. Very moving, all history aside, we can imagine that’s what he’d want.
I was watching Benedict’s more recent reading of Chris’ letter ahead of Letters Live and it was mesmerising and sad (on many levels). Most importantly, it revealed that he has this – in my opinion – indestructible core of talent and, as Margaret said above, IT. It’s that core that will keep me a fan even though it’s massively buried right now, save brief glimpses.
The new Letters Live still has plenty of tickets left.
I wonder how the Hamlet sales would go if they started selling the tickets now , instead of last summer.
That voice! Those cheekbones!