Jemima Kirke (of Girls) wishes to open a discussion on abortion. This is a surprisingly common medical procedure, but many women never tell. According to Planned Parenthood, 3 out of 10 U.S. women will have an abortion before they turn 45. Yet no one talks about it because the associated stigma is huge. There’s one clinic in my state, and the building is constantly surrounded by protestors. And that’s only the public side of things. The private shame of women who have abortions leads to them keeping it almost a complete secret.

Jemima opened up in a PSA for the Center for Reproductive Rights. Jemima (now 29) discusses how she had an abortion at age 22. She was a college student at the time and couldn’t support a child. She doesn’t regret her decision, but she does lament the stigma surrounding reproductive rights. Jemima hopes for a less politicized treatment of these rights when her daughters grow older. It’s not looking good in that regard. Oklahoma and Kansas just passed more restrictions on abortion, and who knows what other states will join them. Here’s the transcript of Jemima’s PSA:

“In 2007, I became pregnant with my boyfriend at the time. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be attached to this person for the rest of my life. My life was just not conducive to raising a healthy, happy child. I just didn’t feel it was fair. So I decided to get an abortion, and I went to Planned Parenthood in Providence, Rhode Island where I was at school. Because I couldn’t tell my mother that I was pregnant, I had to pay for it out of pocket. I did have to empty my checking account, what I had in there, and get some from my boyfriend. I realized that if I didn’t take the anesthesia, I would be able to afford to do this. And the anesthesia wasn’t that much more, but when you’re scrounging for however many hundreds of dollars, it is a lot. I just didn’t have it. It’s these obstacles, and it’s the stigma that makes these things not completely unavailable, and that’s the tricky part. We think that we do have free choice, and we are able to do whatever we want, but there’s these little hoops we have to jump through to get there.

I’ve always felt that reproductive issues should be something that women especially should be able to talk about freely, especially amongst each other. And I still see that today. I still see shame and embarrassment around terminating pregnancies, getting pregnant, I still see it. So I have always been open about my stories. Always shared them, especially with other women. I have two daughters, actually. I have a step daughter who’s 8 and I have my younger one who is 4. I’m already anticipating their issues with self esteem, their issues with their body, the whole luggage that comes with being a woman. So I would love that, when they’re older, when they’re in their teens and 20s, that the political issues surrounding their bodies are not there anymore … I would hate to see them fight for rights.”

[From Center for Reproductive Rights on YouTube]

Jemima isn’t complaining about the price of an abortion. She simply had trouble affording one as a college student; and she wishes the stigma of abortion wasn’t so great that she couldn’t tell her own mom. (Not incidentally, E! did some research on the clinic Jemima used. The prices range from $500-800 with sedation costing more. Nowadays, RU-486 is usually cheaper than a surgical abortion but not by much.)

Aside from the cost, more and more restrictions are being passed on abortion, which will only increase the difficulty of getting one. Jemima’s correct — if women are supposedly free to choose, then why are there so many restrictions?

Here’s Jemima’s PSA video.

Photos courtesy of WENN

I’ve been a little bit worried about Jeremy Renner. The promotional tour for The Avengers: Age of Ultron has started, and I’m worried that Renner is going to get a lot of questions about the situation with Sonni Pacheco, his now estranged wife (they’re not divorced yet, but they will be soon enough). After all the sketchiness that’s gone down – much of it public! – how could Renner possibly avoid those questions? Turns out, I completely underestimated the ability of friendly media outlets to whitewash the whole situation. So far, Renner hasn’t been asked about it at all. Instead, he gets to answer questions from Ellen DeGeneres about how much he loves being a dad to daughter Ava Berlin.

Chatting with Ellen DeGeneres for an episode of her talk show airing Wednesday, April 15, Jeremy Renner joked that fatherhood had essentially ruined him for everything else in life.

“It is the greatest thing in the world. I mean, it really kind of changed my perspective on a lot of things,” Renner, 44, told the comedienne, adding that his little girl is at a “great age” and “talking a lot.”

“It’s kind of screwed my career in a lot of ways,” he quipped. “Because I don’t really care about it so much ’cause I care about her so much. She’s like number one in my life. And now I get to do movies on the side. Daddy’s my best role to date, I think.” After a round of applause from the audience, he cracked, “And all I had to do was have sex. That’s amazing.”

The one drawback? Constant traveling. “I do a lot of flights back [when I’m working],” he explained. “I did like 40 flights back from London to here pretty much every other week to see her, sometimes for eight hours, and then [I] fly back.”

Fortunately, little Ava has plenty of other relatives to keep her company when Renner is away. As the actor revealed to DeGeneres, he’s the oldest of seven kids — the youngest of whom is the same age as his daughter!

“My dad had my brother the same week I had my daughter,” he shared. “So it’s kind of like my dad’s having his own grandkids…I mean, it bodes well for me, I guess. I can still, you know, make things happen later on in life.”

[From Us Weekly]

Yes, Renner’s dad just welcomed his seventh kid the same week Renner welcomed Ava Berlin. I get the feeling that Renner’s family is pretty much all-over-the-place, you know? Compared to the rest of his family, Renner’s relatively sane and successful. As for Renner positioning himself as a devoted father who would take 40 London-to-LA trips so he could see his daughter on the weekends? Smart. He’s positioning himself well for an extended custody battle, if it comes to that.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Christoph Waltz covers the May issue of British GQ to promote his role in Spectre. He’s such a sharp-dressed man! You can see the rest of the shoot here, and it’s pretty amazing. Waltz can pull off the shoot’s styling whereas other actors would look ridiculous. I’ve never seen him look less than impeccable (whether he’s wearing a suit or jeans). Even when he’s pseudo-grumpily eating a hamburger, the dude has style.

This interview isn’t groundbreaking, but there are glimpses of Waltz’s whimsical ways. He’s got a lovely personality although most of his Hollywood roles have been villains. GQ even calls him “the coolest Bond villain ever.” That may be true, we’ll see. (I still have a soft spot for Le Chiffre, the villain played by Mads Mikkelsen.) Everyone reckons that Waltz will play the classic Bond villain named Blofeld, but Waltz says that isn’t true. He also talks about the rewards of being a late acting bloomer:

On hesitating before accepting a Bond villain: “I did, yes. I always hesitate … You ask yourself, hang on: what James Bond are we talking about? The thing about Spectre is that it is not the work of hack writers. It does not have a hack director. The actors are not hams. The action sequences in Mexico are extravagant to say the least. The scenes in Austria are traditional Bond action in the snow. These films with Daniel Craig have shifted the tone. They don’t depend on a set formula that forces actors simply to go through the motions.”

Is he playing Blofeld “That is absolutely untrue. That rumour started on the Internet, and the Internet is a pest. The name of my character is Franz Oberhauser.”

Can a blockbuster fulfill an artist? “A James Bond film can be artistically fulfilling. Absolutely it can. It can be complex and it can be interesting. I consider Bond movies to be an extension of popular theatre, a kind of modern mythology. You see the same sort of action in Punch and Judy, or in the folk theatre of various cultures, like Grand Guignol.”

On being a late bloomer: “I do feel I can say – without smugness – that this feels good. I am entitled. I am entitled to judge the situation and say that yes: it feels good, and that yes, I agree with you. I feel like I served my time. I feel I have paid [my dues].”

[From British GQ]

Waltz, 58, really is a late bloomer. He worked regularly (for three decades) in Europe before making his big Quentin Tarantino breakthrough. In Cannes, QT famously thanked Waltz for saving his movie; and Waltz thanked him for saving his career. Two Oscars followed, and he’s enjoyed plenty of commercial success in other movies. Waltz seems truly grateful for his success, and you never hear anything bad about the guy. He seems a little prickly over the internet, but I suspect he was joking.

Is Waltz playing Blofeld or not? IMDb credits him under the Franz Oberhauser character, which has been detailed in Bond-inclusive wikis. Franz is believed to be “a leading figure in the SPECTRE criminal organisation.” Moviepilot isn’t buying it. They point out how all of the clips and trailers so far have teased Waltz in an “extremely ‘Blofeld-esque’ manner.” Actors have fibbed before about secretive blockbuster roles. Marion Cotillard insisted she wasn’t playing Talia al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises, which was a lie. I don’t see why Waltz wouldn’t be playing Blofeld. Making Spectre without the head of the titular organization would be a waste.

Photos courtesy of British GQ & WENN

I haven’t written about Carey Mulligan since 2013. How in the world did that happen? Carey is arguably one of the greatest actresses of her generation. I have every hope/belief that she will follow in the footsteps of actresses like Emma Thompson (an early mentor for Carey), Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep (one of Carey’s recent costars). Carey flies undercover for the most part – we really don’t know anything about her marriage to Marcus Mumford, they don’t walk red carpets together and her personal life is largely one big question mark.

Carey is currently starring in Skylight, the David Hare play she starred in with much acclaim in London last year. They brought it to Broadway this year and once again, the play (and Carey in particular) was received with acclaim. I’m guessing that everyone involved with pick up Tony Award nominations later this month.

During a week off, Carey flew to London for the big premiere of her new film, the film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd. Carey plays the lead, Bathsheba Everdeen, and Michael Sheen, Matthias Schoenaerts and Tom Sturridge are all trying to woe her, with mixed results (I’m including the trailer below).

While I think Carey looks beautiful in that special Audrey Hepburn-esque way she has, I’m not really crazy about her Dior Haute Couture dress. I think the idea of it was on-target – go for something with a simple cut that sparkled – but the execution makes this a failure. It doesn’t fit her properly, it makes her look pregnant, and the lace detail at the hem is tacky and cheap-looking. Carey posed happily with costar Matthias Schoenaerts, who is… a hottie. Damn.

Here’s the trailer. I’ll admit it: this looks like the kind of tearjerker-romance that I would watch many, many times.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Well Thanks God these photos weren’t released at the beginning of the day because I would have put my hand down my pants and ceased production. Charlie Hunnam in Wales today shooting Guy Ritchie’s Knights Of The Round Table.

Look at his hair.

No more Jax hair.

And you know Ritchie’s g…      

Well Thanks God these photos weren’t released at the beginning of the day because I would have put my hand down my pants and ceased production. Charlie Hunnam in Wales today shooting Guy Ritchie’s Knights Of The Round Table.

Look at his hair.

No more Jax hair.

And you know Ritchie’s g…      

Well Thanks God these photos weren’t released at the beginning of the day because I would have put my hand down my pants and ceased production. Charlie Hunnam in Wales today shooting Guy Ritchie’s Knights Of The Round Table.

Look at his hair.

No more Jax hair.

And you know Ritchie’s g…      

Well Thanks God these photos weren’t released at the beginning of the day because I would have put my hand down my pants and ceased production. Charlie Hunnam in Wales today shooting Guy Ritchie’s Knights Of The Round Table.

Look at his hair.

No more Jax hair.

And you know Ritchie’s g…      

It was confirmed last week that Gisele Bundchen is quitting the runway. She’ll still be modelling – and making more money OFF the runway, because runway isn’t where it’s lucrative anyway – but there will be no more catwalking. Sao Paolo will be the last.

Today she posted this shot of herself …      

It was confirmed last week that Gisele Bundchen is quitting the runway. She’ll still be modelling – and making more money OFF the runway, because runway isn’t where it’s lucrative anyway – but there will be no more catwalking. Sao Paolo will be the last.

Today she posted this shot of herself …