Latest news with #Suspect:TheShootingOfJean
Scottish Sun
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Mystery illness nearly derailed my career – I was told to give up acting, reveals Gavin & Stacey star Laura Aikman
The actress also reveals a surprising career change away from the camera in a bid to 'help society' LAURA'S BATTLE Mystery illness nearly derailed my career – I was told to give up acting, reveals Gavin & Stacey star Laura Aikman Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) AS a young actress, Laura Aikman would get so stressed about her career she was advised to walk away to rescue her health. The Gavin & Stacey star, now one of Britain's most in-demand actresses, suffered a mystery pain for years. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 6 Laura Aikman would get so stressed about her career when she was younger that she was advised to walk away to rescue her health Credit: Shutterstock Editorial 6 Laura as bad girl Sonia alongside James Corden in Gavin & Stacey Credit: BBC 6 The star appeared on Disney+ drama Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes Credit: Des Willie She was finally diagnosed with autoimmune disease ulcerative colitis, made worse by the worry she faced between roles. But Laura stuck with the job and is now having her best year to date, appearing in BBC gangster series This City Is Ours and Disney+ drama Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles de Menezes, in which she plays whistleblower Lana Vandenberghe. Laura has also a found a work-life balance to keep her condition, which causes inflammation and ulcers in her colon, under control. The 39-year-old said: 'It took me a long time to get diagnosed. Before I got the diagnosis I was very, very unwell and I didn't know why. 'I'd been to the doctors a lot and they kept telling me that it was probably piles, without examining me, and giving me cream because I had blood in my stool. Nothing worked. 'And then I went to a homeopath and she asked me all of these questions about when I'd been poorly and she was like, 'Listen, I've written out a timeline here of when you've not been working, and that is when you've been at your most unwell'. 'She was like, 'Can you do another job?'. And I said, 'No, it's my whole personality.' 'It was a big wake-up call that it was literally making me unwell, the stress of not working and feeling like I wasn't good enough or didn't have anything going on. 'Blame and shame' 'I placed so much of my self-worth and my confidence and even who I was on being an actor and whether I was working. 'Going to family parties at Christmas, everyone's saying, 'What are you up to?'. Like, absolutely nothing. And it can feel like you're letting everyone down. Watch the moment Gavin and Stacey actress Laura Aikman's family found out she was in the finale after keeping it secret 'I think if all of your self-worth is wrapped up in working and then you're not working, you feel like you don't deserve anything. 'I had to actively find other things in my life that gave me self-worth or made me feel important, so I could keep going regardless of whether I was working.' Laura was back as bad girl Sonia in the BBC's hit Christmas special of Gavin & Stacey last year, while in 2023 her role as Dyan Cannon in Archie, an ITV series about Hollywood icon Carey Grant, saw her on billboards in New York's Times Square. To outsiders, her career has hit the heights, but the North London-born actress says that for years she felt a cycle of 'blame, shame and punishment' because she was not quite 'perfect enough'. She told the Women & Wellbeing podcast: 'When you're starting out, you're like, I have to be everything they want. I have to change who I am to fit. I need to be perfect. 'I kind of struggled up until I was maybe in my mid-twenties with what people wanted me to be as a girl, a woman, in this industry and how I needed to present myself. 'I can remember going to auditions and needing to do the lines exactly as they wanted in the blandest way possible, to try to fit whatever I thought the mould was. 'I probably wasn't getting the best parts when I was doing that. I never would, when I was younger, even speak to a producer. 'I would just try to stay under the radar, do my job. I kind of struggled up until I was maybe in my mid-twenties with what people wanted me to be as a girl, a woman, in this industry and how I needed to present myself 'I'm sure I missed out on loads of work because I did absolutely zero networking. But it was that kind of thing — you're lucky to be there, shut up, look pretty, leave. Find everyone very funny, especially the men, and then go home.' With her 40th birthday coming up later this year, Laura has found a new sense of freedom. She explained: 'I feel like where I am now people are almost disinterested in how I look. 'So lucky' 'I've been so lucky with the parts that I've played recently where, even though some of them have been very glamorous women, it's not about me looking beautiful. 'It's about how that person presents themselves.' But she still never takes anything for granted, saying: 'I feel like possibly the last few years I've been able to play some bigger roles in slightly higher profile shows. 'You go through those peaks and troughs in your career where you think, 'Oh, maybe this is it', then it isn't. So I thought, 'Oh, maybe' at the moment, and then I'm sure I'll slide back down again soon.' 6 Laura in her 2023 role as Dyan Cannon in Archie Credit: Planet Photos 6 The in-demand actress also starred in This City Is Ours Credit: BBC Laura grew up in an acting family. Her dad, Stuart Aikman — known as Stuart St Paul — is a stunt director and her mum Jean Heard is also an actress. She is married to actor Matt Kennard, 43, who has appeared in Emmerdale and Coronation Street. Laura got her big break in 1996 film Surviving Picasso, opposite Anthony Hopkins, before going on to appear in a string of movies as well as TV series including Casualty, Death In Paradise and The Split. Despite her struggles with confidence, she loves playing fiery and dominant women, saying: 'My dream is to play women that are as different as possible. "I feel happiest when I'm the furthest away from myself. These last few jobs have been big swings, especially Rachel in This City Is Ours. She's the ultimate Scouse girl, she's tough. 'I do think when you play someone like that and then you step out of it, there's part of you that's like, maybe I could be a little bit more tough. 'They sort of rub off on you a little bit, just like you learn from your friends.' Away from the camera, Laura has trained to become a counsellor with mental health text service Shout. Be kind to yourself when you're not feeling good and just try and do the things that make you feel good She said: 'It's brilliant. You can do a shift whenever you want. People text in when they're in crisis. 'Obviously that's more helpful to society than me getting a job in a TV commercial.' And she concentrates on exercising for her health — not just for her body image — to help deal with her ulcerative colitis. She added: 'I drink less now. I'm no saint, I absolutely get smashed at least once a year, I just fall completely off the wagon. But I will always leave a night out early these days. 'I'm just a bit more boring than I used to be. But overall, it really makes me feel much better.' When she is not working, Matt, who she married six years ago, encourages her to relax. She said: 'He is so chilled out and very even-keeled, he's a cool guy. 'I think he has also been really instrumental in encouraging me to allow myself, if I've not got anything on, to be like, 'Why don't you go to the cinema?'. 'I'm like, 'Just go and spend money on a day when I haven't got a job?'. He'll be like, 'Yeah, just go and do something nice for yourself'. And she has taken notice. Laura said: 'I think you can be so fooled by hearing other people talk about what they do, to think that they're perfect — and they're not. They're probably falling spectacularly off the wagon. 'So I think be kind to yourself when you're not feeling good and just try and do the things that make you feel good.' 6 Laura in the BBC's hit Christmas special of Gavin & Stacey last year
Daily Mirror
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Disney+ Suspect boss reacts to 'controversial' backlash over recreating London bombings aftermath
Disney+ drama Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes has faced backlash for the recreation of tragic real-life scenes. Disney+'s drama Suspect, which recreates tragic real-life events, is set to premiere this week amidst controversy. The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes, launches on Thursday, 30th April, and will first tackle the harrowing London bombings that claimed 52 lives twenty years ago before focusing on the shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes. During a screening, host Nina Hossain addressed the "backlash" over the dramatisation of the bombings. Executive producer Kwadjo Dajan responded to the criticism, saying, "One of the criticisms that we had was that we hadn't consulted with victims, groups of people associated with the real events but the reality is we had. "I actually have a personal connection. I knew one of the victims from 7/7 and we also spoke to various people and wrote letters." He acknowledged the sensitivity of depicting such stories, noting, "When you make these types of stories, there are understandably a lot of people who were impacted by it, they have a sense of ownership. "Their lives become defined by these events afterwards and so they feel it is for them to tell the story and nobody else." Dajan voiced his belief that there's been some "mischief making in the press" over claims that their programme failed to caution about the reenactment of a blown-up bus or police storming into the station. He stated: "We are responsible filmmakers. In reality, we spoke to lots of people over a number of weeks, contacted people, given people the opportunity to go into hotels while we were filming etc. "And a big giveaway that it wasn't a real event was that we had lights everywhere and a guy shouting action and cut every two minutes. "So just the way in which those things are reported, I get, if you write a story that they went about things really responsibly and everything was well managed, you're not going to really sell a lot of papers. "We don't take for granted the responsibility and the pain and the hurt they've experienced and for us, that was at the forefront of every step of the way." "Through our legal team, through Disney's legal team, and just morally, we felt an obligation to behave in a way that was fitting to this event."
The Independent
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Emily Mortimer to play Cressida Dick in show about Jean Charles de Menezes death
Actress Emily Mortimer is to play Dame Cressida Dick before she became the head of the Metropolitan Police, in a new drama about the shooting of a Brazilian man wrongly suspected of being a terrorist after the 7/7 London bombings. Jean Charles de Menezes was killed a fortnight after suicide bombers exploded devices on three Tube lines and a London bus on July 7 2005, killing 52 people. Mr de Menezes' parents and other relatives are serving as consultants for Disney+ series Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes. Mortimer, known for family film Paddington In Peru and US drama The Newsroom, will portray the senior officer who led the police operation in which Mr de Menezes – played by Edison Alcaide in the show – died. Dame Cressida was promoted to Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 2017, before leaving the role in 2022. A jury cleared her of any blame in the 27-year-old's death at the end of the prosecution of the Met under health and safety laws. The cast also includes Irish actor Conleth Hill, best known as the manipulative Lord Varys in hit show Game Of Thrones, as then Met commissioner Ian Blair, who led the force between 2005 and 2008 before becoming Lord Blair of Boughton. Being Human star Russell Tovey plays deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick, who later became Liberal Democrat peer Baron Paddick, who resigned in 2007 after a dispute with the Met in the wake of the shooting at Stockwell station. Mad Dogs and Bodies actor Max Beesley is cast as assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who led the Met's investigation into the bombings, and Line Of Duty star Daniel Mays takes on the role of Cliff Todd, the principal forensic investigator in the aftermath of the events of 7/7. Gavin And Stacey actress Laura Aikman stars as Lana Vandenberghe, an admin assistant turned whistleblower at the then Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which was later replaced by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). Ms Vandenberghe handed confidential documents to ITV News, revealing that Mr de Menezes had done little to arouse suspicion before he was gunned down. The IPCC Stockwell Two report claimed that Lord Blair of Boughton was 'almost totally uninformed' after the shooting and Mr Hayman 'misled' senior officers by failing to tell them the dead man was not one of the four bombers. The Crown star Alex Jennings is taking on the role of barrister Michael Mansfield KC, who represented Mr de Menezes' family at the inquest into his shooting, for the four-part drama. Writer and executive producer Jeff Pope said: 'This is an incredibly important story to tell, and we've got a heavyweight ensemble cast in place that will help us examine the events that led to the tragic shooting of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes. 'He was just a commuter who was tracked for nearly an hour, with surveillance failing to correctly identify him, before he was shot dead on a crowded Tube train, leaving his family to try and shine a light on the critical errors that led to this devastating tragedy.' The inquest jury returned an open verdict into the shooting, and concluded police marksman, dubbed C12, did not shout the words 'armed police' before opening fire, and a number of failings by that contributed to Mr de Menezes' death. At the time, Sir Paul Stephenson, then acting commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said the force accepted 'full responsibility' for the death of electrician Mr de Menezes. Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes was written by Pope, who was nominated for an Oscar along with Steve Coogan for their screenplay Philomena, produced by Kwadjo Dajan and directed by London To Brighton director Paul Andrew Williams. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, in which 52 people were killed and more than 770 others injured. Sky has made a documentary called 7/7: Britain's Day Of Terror, the BBC released 7/7: The London Bombings earlier this year, and in 2024 Channel 4 put out Shoot To Kill: Terror On The Tube. In the Channel 4 programme, firearms officer C12 claimed he was certain 'we were going to die' if he did not act. – Suspect: The Shooting Of Jean Charles De Menezes will air on Disney+ in spring 2025.
