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Tilda Swinton is a poem. She poses in red, against an autumnal backdrop of burnt sienna, rust and goldenrod-shaded leaves, and she does it while holding a lovely hen, who is happy to be in the photo with Tilda. Tilda is a poem, but she can speak in prose if she so chooses. She chose to do so with British Vogue in an nice little feature about her career and what some of her performances mean within the queer cinematic canon. As it turns out, Tilda says that she’s “always felt queer.” Probably in the LGBTQ sense and in the British-descriptor sense for someone who strays from the beaten path. Some quotes:

No ambition as an artist: “I’ve never had any ambition as an artist. That may sound crazy and transgressive, but it’s a fact. If you’d asked me when I was 10 or 20, I would have said my only ambitions were to live in a family, to have friends that made me laugh and laughed at my jokes, and to live in the Highlands of Scotland, by the sea with a lot of dogs and a kitchen garden. Seriously. And I have been really blessed to be able to achieve them. Everything else is a bonus. Everything else is just icing and candles and flowers alongside.”

She had writer’s block at Cambridge as she tried to study Social and Political Sciences: “I just became overwhelmed, I think. A few years ago, I re-met one of my tutors when I went back to Cambridge to open the film and media school – I was so envious because there were no courses in cinema when I was at Cambridge – and I told her this in hushed tones. She said, ‘Oh, this happens to lots of people. You just dry up the second you start academia.’ Fortunately, I got back into my own pool nice and quickly. I didn’t have to spend too long with the red herrings.”

Her friendship with the late Karl Lagerfeld. “I did have this beautiful connection with Karl Largerfeld, which was kind of mysterious to me because I was a jumbo shrimp, as my friend once called me, and he was working in this whole different exotic empire. That’s what brought me into my relationship with Chanel, which continues to be really inspiring for me.”

Her friendship with the late Derek Jarman: “I’m very clear that queer is actually, for me anyway, to do with sensibility. I always felt I was queer – I was just looking for my queer circus, and I found it. And having found it, it’s my world. Now I have a family with Wes Anderson, I have a family with Bong Joon-ho, I have a family with Jim Jarmusch, I have a family with Luca Guadagnino, with Lynne Ramsay, with Joanna Hogg.”

[From British Vogue]

I don’t think that’s how the kids define queer these days, but I’ll keep my mouth shut – the last thing I need is to try to heterosplain how this kind of terminology is defined. My guess is that the larger point Tilda was trying to make was that she’s spent a chunk of her life collaborating with queer artists and playing important queer icons on film and she’s saying that she was drawn to those people and those projects because she has queer sensibilities. Sure.

Tilda Swinton for Vogue UK #editorial pic.twitter.com/hSOXUqwouT

— Magazine Covers (@_MagazineCovers) January 9, 2021

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Meghan Trainor and Daryl Sabara are parents! Meghan gave birth to a boy they named Riley. Little Riley was born on February 8, six days before his Valentine’s Day due date. The exciting part is, we already have photos of the little guy. Both Daryl and Meghan posted pics to their IGs of the little tyke and he’s such a cutie:

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I’m glad everything went well. Meghan was so excited be a mom. She talked about wanting to be one forever and wanted to share every part of the pregnancy with her fans. She got sidelined with gestational diabetes in December. It sounds like everything was okay, she had a great doctor, and GD is manageable if caught in time and monitored. But I think it scarred Meghan a little because we heard almost nothing from her after that. She posted to her IG pretty regularly but rested and took care of herself, exactly as she should. Good for her. And now she’s had Riley with what sounds like no problems. She said she is already looking forward to dressing him up in Spy Kids costumes for Halloween, which would be amazing if Daryl would agree to a Juni Cortez Then and Now send up.

Many of Meghan’s famous friends replied to her post, wishing her and baby Riley well. Babies are always such hope. Congrats to Meghan Daryl and Riley. I am thrilled everyone is healthy and happy. Can’t wait for all the Riley pics to come. I hope the internet is kind so they don’t get taken away from us.

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Dear Readers, I have an amazing announcement for those of you thirsting for any morsel of news about the upcoming season of Bridgerton. It has come to my attention that our team has found the next diamond of the season. (record scratch) I wish I could keep this farce going by pretending to be Lady Whistledown, but I am too excited about this announcement. Shondaland and Deadline have confirmed that Chris Van Dusen and the Bridgerton team have found their Kate for Anthony Bridgerton’s season two love interest. Kate meets Anthony after his breakup with opera singer Siena Rosso. While his relationship was rocky, Anthony was constantly interfering in his sister Daphne’s love life and almost derailed her romance with Simone. At the end of season one, Anthony had seemingly quit his meddling ways and was on the hunt for his viscountess. Simone Ashley will play the woman he pursues, Kate Sharma, (Sheffield in the books). And we will have to wait to find out what happens in the season two when it airs hopefully next year because I am sure Kate’s story line will veer a bit from the book. With that being said, Simone Ashley is not new to scene. Simone is known for her role as Olivia in Netflix’s Sex Education in which she absolutely killed it. Below is more on the announcement:

In Season 2, Bridgerton continues to break conventions on race. Anthony’s love interest (named Kate Sheffield in Quinn’s novel) and her family were conceived by the series’ creative team as being of Indian descent in a continuation of the reimagined world created in Season 1, which included several major Black characters, including the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel).

As Season 2 leads, Bailey and Ashley will succeed Page and Phoebe Dynevor, who became global stars as Simon and Daphne, the couple whose sweeping romance was at the center of Season 1. (Page is hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend.)

Ashley is one of several cast additions for Season 2 of Bridgerton, which will start filming this spring in London.

“We have a bunch of new characters we are going to be introducing,” creator and showrunner Chris Van Dusen said in announcing the Season 2 renewal on Today with Hoda & Jenna last month. “Anthony is going to have a love interest next season, and I think it’s going to be as sweeping and moving and as beautiful as viewers of the first season have come to expect from the show.”

The focal point of Season 2 was teased in the final minutes of the Season 1 finale when Anthony revealed to Daphne and Simon his plans of “finding and promptly declaring my intentions to my new viscountess” after the heartbreaking end of his relationship with opera singer Siena.

“We left him at the end of the first season at a bit of a crossroads, so I’m looking forward to jumping in and discovering how he fares on the marriage market,” Van Dusen said in the interview, noting that his hope is for Page and Dynevor to return.

[From Deadline]

Y’all I bloody called it! If you need to refresh your memory I was calling for Kate to be cast as a dark-skinned black woman or dark-skinned South Asian woman because season one was heavy on racially ambiguous black women and the villain was a dark-skinned black man – Simon’s father. Let’s just say the colorism wasn’t lost on me but didn’t keep me from enjoying the show. I hoped that Shondaland and Chris would redeem themselves with the casting of Kate and they did not disappoint. I think Simone is a beautiful addition to the cast. Look at her! She is stunning. Now I wonder how they will rewrite her family history as it would seem they are giving her an actual Hindu (Sharma instead of Sheffield) surname. Will she be coming to England from India? I cannot wait until behind the scenes news drops on the new Shondaland Bridgerton podcast on Spotify.

Now I really need to go read book two as everyone that has read the books says it’s their favorite. As you all know, I did not like Anthony much in season one and most of you said that they made him more bullish than he actually was in the books. To be fair I actually like Jonathan Bailey who plays Anthony so it will be nice to see him alongside Simone. I do hope they have more chemistry than Rege and Phoebe. I look forward to the racy romp that will be season two of Bridgerton. And I would like to personally welcome Simone Ashley on board. Simone is going to be fire!

Simone Ashley is Miss Kate Sharma.

Newly arrived in London, Kate is a smart, headstrong young woman who suffers no fools — Anthony Bridgerton very much included. ? #Bridgerton https://t.co/Q5wBwFiNC4 pic.twitter.com/BZd4qOmsln

— shondaland tv (@shondaland) February 15, 2021

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photos credit: Getty, Netflix and via Twitter and Instagram

If you follow figure skating, you know the names Torvill and Dean and the impact they made on ice dancing. Yesterday was the anniversary of them winning Olympic gold. You know all the conspiracy theories and the shipping that goes on with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir? It wasn’t exactly the same with …

This morning Lainey wrote, with fevor, about To All the Boys : Always and Forever. I also watched it this weekend and there was one particularly exciting moment for me: Oasis! The Gallagher brothers popped up as possible narrators to Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship with the song “Don’t Look Back …

One unexpected facet of the COVID-year awards season is that because so many films vacated 2020 eligibility, we’re left with a crop of almost uniformly sad ass dramas, with no big studio crowd-pleasers to alleviate the field. It’s not that the films are bad—many of them are good!—but watching nothin…

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Lindsey Graham says that if Republicans retake the House in 2022, they’ll impeach Kamala Harris for… supporting Black Lives Matter?? [Towleroad]
Claudia Conway auditioned for American Idol and lordy, I do not want to cover this. Spoiler: they gave her a “golden ticket” to LA. [Just Jared]
Aquarius SZN is extra Aquarian this year. [OMG Blog]
Analysis of the latest WandaVision episode. [Pajiba]
Duchess Meghan and the history of scandalous royal letters. [Jezebel]
An update on J*hnny D*pp’s sad clown court case. [Dlisted]
Valentine’s Day-themed couture, for the romantics. [Go Fug Yourself]
What kinds of masks are you guys wearing? [LaineyGossip]
These Kendall Jenner photos are so stupid, you guys. [Buzzfeed]
Are you into Gabrielle Union’s Cong Tri ensemble? [RCFA]
How many mug shots does this woman have? [Starcasm]

Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC: “I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House, because she actually bailed out rioters”pic.twitter.com/CA4uKJHbqz

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) February 14, 2021

A lot of people have been thirsting over Regé-Jean Page, the breakout star of Bridgerton and… well… me too. He is FINE. And if you’re tired of watching Bridgerton over and over again, he also has a supporting role in Sylvie’s Love, streaming now on Amazon. Since Regé-Jean is the hunk of the moment,…

I have a great deal of affection for the original Mr. and Mrs. Smith. There is still a pretty special aura around that film, and it remains one of the biggest hits of Angelina Jolie’s career and Brad Pitt’s career. It started out as a silly action movie about two assassins who didn’t know they were married to each other. Nicole Kidman was supposed to star in it. Angelina’s manager had to convince her to take the role because she wasn’t really that interested. They had to stop production for several months because Brad needed to promote Ocean’s Twelve that summer (2004) and then Brad and Angelina reassembled that fall to complete the movie. By the end of the year, Brad’s marriage to Jennifer Aniston was over, and it was widely assumed that Brad and Angelina had an affair while making it. Plus, it’s a pretty good action movie. It’s not deep or anything, but Angie and Brad are both really good in it.

And now there’s going to be some kind of remake. Amazon Prime will be doing a series based on the film, and they’ve got Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover to star. Which… eh.

Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge will be putting a new spin on “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” for New Regency and Amazon Prime Video. The series, which is based on the 2005 hit New Regency film, is due in 2022.

Glover and Waller-Bridge will star in and executive produce the series, and she made the announcement via social media, posting a video to Instagram Stories with details of the project. Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke also posted the news of the new show to her Twitter account on Friday.

“Talk about the dream team! Donald and Phoebe are two of the most talented creators and performers in the world. It’s truly a dream for us, as it will be for our global audience, to have these two forces of nature collaborating as a powerhouse creative team,” Salke said in a statement. “’Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ is an iconic property, and we can’t wait to see how Donald, Phoebe and Francesca make it their own. We’re thrilled to be working with them, and with such great partners at New Regency.”

[From Variety]

Don’t get me wrong, I think Phoebe and Donald are both super-talented people. I think Phoebe could probably bring a badass edge to the role, and Donald Glover could be enigmatic and sexy. But… I don’t know, this irritates me. To remake such an iconic film (I said what I said) and do it as a series with these two? At least they do know each other – they were in Solo: A Star Wars Story and they seemed especially friendly at the 2019 British Academy Britannia Awards. Eh, maybe it will work? IDK.

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Did you think Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes would last this long? I did not. I mean, I was crazy about them when they first started up, and I loved to see the very obvious PR moves around their relationship. I thought they were half-PR couple and half-real couple and that in the end, their breakup would feature diss tracks and dance-offs. But they’re still happening. They’ve been together since the summer of 2019, they spent much of the pandemic together, locked down in LA, and they celebrated Valentine’s Day together, with Shawn posting the above Instagram yesterday.

There’s a lot of angst online about the fact that Shawn is kissing Camila’s foot, specifically her big toe. I mean, my feet are jacked (I walk A LOT) so I don’t want a beautiful young man like Shawn kissing my jacked big toe, but Camila seems fine with it. People do have a thing about feet, and there are strong opinions all around. Like, I prefer that people do not touch my feet at all (again, they’re jacked), but I’m totally fine with foot fetishes being represented in popular culture. I’m not disgusted by it or anything. Lots of men love women’s feet. Tons of men want to kiss feet… and, you know, other stuff. Quentin Tarantino is not an outlier. Shawn Mendes is not an outlier. And even if they were, people should let their freak flags fly as long the feet belong to consenting adults! (I knew a guy who was really into ears and I still think about him sometimes, and I hope he’s well.)

i was sucking on toes before Shawn Mendes made it cool

— Oscar (@oscar_guerra21) February 15, 2021

why tf did shawn mendes post this i’m?? pic.twitter.com/45Q2ieXnwJ

— gia²? is ava’s gf (@froghrryluvr) February 15, 2021

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Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Instagram.