BRITISH actress Thandie Newton is coming to South Africa to teach acting to girls from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy.
The actress, who has won awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and from the Screen Actors Guild, will visit the Gauteng school during its annual arts and culture week, which starts on Monday.
Born to a Zimbabwean healthcare worker and an English laboratory technician, Newton has starred in films that include Mission: Impossible 2, Crash and the Winfrey-produced period piece Beloved.
The acting head of the Oprah Winfrey Academy, Joy Moore, said the week-long course would enable pupils to explore their creativity.
“The girls will learn more about the arts of poetry, acting and storytelling, and discover the beauty that lies within creative design and artistic presentation,” she said.
“It is Miss Winfrey’s hope that the experience will continue to help the girls integrate art, culture and creativity into their daily life.”
The workshops, which will cover everything from cooking and sculpture to dance, will be led by other well-known faces, such as South African storyteller Gcina Mhlophe, US dancer Alvin Ailey, US chef and author Art Smith and US fashion designer Ralph Lauren’s nephew, Greg Lauren, who will teach painting and comic-cover art.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Newton turns screenwriter
Actress THANDIE NEWTON is to step away from the camera to try her hand at writing screenplays.
The Crash star is following in her writer husband Ol Parker's footsteps by putting pen to paper for her first big screen project. And Newton insists she could be tempted to become a full-time writer - because the work schedule suits her busy lifestyle as a mum of two.
She says of her first movie, "It's a comedy feature film. It's been really nice to do that: be at home, be around the kids. It's just a really nice lifestyle - I've been doing other, smaller jobs to supplement it and so on.
The Crash star is following in her writer husband Ol Parker's footsteps by putting pen to paper for her first big screen project. And Newton insists she could be tempted to become a full-time writer - because the work schedule suits her busy lifestyle as a mum of two.
She says of her first movie, "It's a comedy feature film. It's been really nice to do that: be at home, be around the kids. It's just a really nice lifestyle - I've been doing other, smaller jobs to supplement it and so on.
Thandie Martini Night
New Martini girl Thandie Newton ruffles a few men's feathers in a dress that offers a real thigh-ful
Thandie Newton often champions Brit designers like Giles Deacon. But she may have taken the avant-garde look a little too far as she stepped out in a frock which looked like a pair of half-drawn curtains.
The unfinished-looking dress was a big style statement, but it left the Oscar-winning Crash star looking as if she had run out of the designer's salon before the dress was complete.
Thandie Newton makes an entrance in a ruffled dress which reveals a thighful at the Tini bar in Chelsea The dress was layers of taffeta ruffles held together by a sheer panel.It looked fine once she stood up upon exiting her car, but not before she had exposed a right thighful in London last night.
Thandie was at the appropriately named Tini bar in Chelsea to promote her role as the spokesperson for drinks company Martini's Stay Beautiful campaign.
The mother of two daughters, Ripley, nine, and Nico, five, told the Mail On Sunday's Nathan Kay: 'It looks like I'm having the time of my life with a group of my best friends but I met them that day,' describing the Martini photoshoot.
Thandie's taffeta ruffled dress looks great when she stands up and covers her modesty
Crash star Thandie is the spokeswoman for drinks company Martini's Stay Beautiful campaign 'They were a lovely bunch of people and we had so much fun that it looks like we have known each other for years.'
'They were all models and I was the only actor in it.'
'The only problem was the shoot started at 7am and ended late the same evening so I had to be wide awake even when I was tired.'
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Sunday Times May 24, 2009
Thandie Newton: flirting with fame
She’s one of our most accomplished and beautiful actresses, yet Thandie Newton has struggled to balance blockbusters and babies. Now she’s upping her game with new star roles — and making peace with a troubled past
Giles Hattersley writes
Thandie Newton is in the throes of shooting a drinks ad when I tip up in east London for our meet, so I hang out for a bit, watching her enjoying glass after glass with some fake revellers as the flashbulbs pop. I try to order a drink myself, but it turns out the waiters are fake, too — damn cheek — so I stumble off to smoke on the roof until, two hours later, she’s ready.
Today, she’s in clipped, cool-prefect mode, though there’s an odd mix of over- and underconfidence about her that most actors work hard to disguise. Newton isn’t big on hiding, though. “I’m not very guarded,” she says. So, one minute she’ll be telling you that the upside to being both Cambridge-educated and utterly ravishing is that “it’s useful, because you can affect situations from all angles”, the next that she’s “chronically shy”. In person, she’s also shorter than you’d imagine, but thankfully less thin than in the days when it looked as if you could bash out a chorus of Chopsticks on her ribcage. Apparently, she has ditched a lot of baggage — eating disorders, destructive relationships — and reckons getting older is a treat. It’s a convincing argument, given she doesn’t appear to be physically ageing. At 36, she looks 23. “Good genes,” she explains with a shrug. “When my dad was 27, he couldn’t get served in pubs, and my mum is, well, beautiful.”
In fact, she’s such obvious movie-star material, it’s unsurprising to learn that it took some serious effort for her not to be a bigger one. In the late 1990s, she famously (stupidly, according to the Hollywood agent she later dropped) turned down a lead in Charlie’s Angels and its $6m fee. She’d overrun on Mission: Impossible II, with Tom Cruise, and decided that her marriage to Ol Parker, a British film and television director, could do without another year spent away from home. She returned to Queen’s Park, in northwest London, became pregnant with her first daughter after a couple of weeks, had a second a few years later, then chose to work only sporadically (a Bafta for Crash in 2006 was a highlight). For all the earth-mother vibe, though, the thing I can never work out is how she flits between rejecting showbiz one minute and gorging on it the next. She once described fame as “the toxic by-product of being an actor”, yet she’s forever dolled up in some Giles Deacon number on a red carpet. “It’s about being desperate to be loved — ‘Know me, know me,’ ” she says of the fame game, though she confesses to having used interviews in the past “to talk through my issues”.
Most odd. Especially as she’s now firmly back in sleb world. Last year, she played Condoleezza Rice for Oliver Stone in W, and a sexy accountant for Guy Ritchie, but her biggest multiplex outing for some time will be in the blockbuster 2012, released later this year. Presumably, it played havoc with this work/life balance of yours? “Well, it’s a riddle trying to keep your kids feeling they’ve got a secure life and at the same time literally dragging them across the world,” she concedes. So she took her hubbie and daughters — Ripley, 8, and Nico, 4 — with her. “We went to Vancouver for all the summer and a huge chunk of the winter.” What about school? “Ripley had a tutor, who was great,” she says, then, sensing an unintended accusation of selfishness, quickly adds: “It was necessary, so I had to do it.”
So, you get guilty? “I feel incredibly guilty,” she sighs. “I crave the time when I’m following Ol around, when it’s me keeping our little thing together.” But I suppose it’s not many wives who’ll give up $6m for some domestic downtime —and not many husbands who’d let them. “Yes, true. And I got Ripley,” she says. Is it true you named her after the Sigourney Weaver character in Alien? “Oh, yeah. Wouldn’t you? She is, like, the woman: kicks ass, saves the world with a kid under one arm and a huge weapon in the other.”
I’m not sure you could say the same for Newton. She strikes me as a worrier, though she’s protective of her brood. She certainly doesn’t like it when people confuse her husband with the other Oliver Parker, director of An Ideal Husband and St Trinian’s, who, by bizarre coincidence, lives on their street. “I was on a plane with Emma Thompson, who, for a 20-minute conversation, was talking about her ‘dear friend’ Oliver Parker,” she says coolly. “I thought she was talking about my husband, but actually she was talking about the other one. I was, like, ‘Babe, no.’ ”
Born in London to a Zimbabwean mother and an English father, Newton spent most of her early childhood in Cornwall before being sent to a boarding school near London at 11, to specialise in dance. The school didn’t allow younger students to call their parents. “I started to be much more introspective and rely on myself — which didn’t serve me well. I was very shy, very bright, so the way I dealt with my chronic shyness was to know the answers.”
A fluke audition for the Australian film Flirting, with Nicole Kidman, saw her saunter into movies. Then, at just 16, she began a six-year affair with its director, John Duigan, 23 years her senior. She says it messed her up big time, though she still managed to get through Cambridge — “I was studying for my finals at the Cannes film festival” — and clock up roles in Jefferson in Paris and Interview with the Vampire. She suffered from bulimia in her early twenties and — because of Duigan, she has hinted — had a generally dodgy relationship with her body for years. It was having kids that sorted her out. “Becoming a mum was the single most profound, self-adjusting moment in my life,” she says. “I birthed myself.” No surprise, given the tone of this, that she’s great mates with Oprah Winfrey. “It’s like I took back my life,” she continues of her pregnancy. “I took back the essence of who I am.”
Then, of course, she’s off to slink into another cocktail dress and down more Martini for the cameras. “Twenty years ago, you would not have recognised the person I am today,” she says — and I’m sure she’s right. With Newton, what you see is what you get. And it can change by the minute.
She’s one of our most accomplished and beautiful actresses, yet Thandie Newton has struggled to balance blockbusters and babies. Now she’s upping her game with new star roles — and making peace with a troubled past
Giles Hattersley writes
Thandie Newton is in the throes of shooting a drinks ad when I tip up in east London for our meet, so I hang out for a bit, watching her enjoying glass after glass with some fake revellers as the flashbulbs pop. I try to order a drink myself, but it turns out the waiters are fake, too — damn cheek — so I stumble off to smoke on the roof until, two hours later, she’s ready.
Today, she’s in clipped, cool-prefect mode, though there’s an odd mix of over- and underconfidence about her that most actors work hard to disguise. Newton isn’t big on hiding, though. “I’m not very guarded,” she says. So, one minute she’ll be telling you that the upside to being both Cambridge-educated and utterly ravishing is that “it’s useful, because you can affect situations from all angles”, the next that she’s “chronically shy”. In person, she’s also shorter than you’d imagine, but thankfully less thin than in the days when it looked as if you could bash out a chorus of Chopsticks on her ribcage. Apparently, she has ditched a lot of baggage — eating disorders, destructive relationships — and reckons getting older is a treat. It’s a convincing argument, given she doesn’t appear to be physically ageing. At 36, she looks 23. “Good genes,” she explains with a shrug. “When my dad was 27, he couldn’t get served in pubs, and my mum is, well, beautiful.”
In fact, she’s such obvious movie-star material, it’s unsurprising to learn that it took some serious effort for her not to be a bigger one. In the late 1990s, she famously (stupidly, according to the Hollywood agent she later dropped) turned down a lead in Charlie’s Angels and its $6m fee. She’d overrun on Mission: Impossible II, with Tom Cruise, and decided that her marriage to Ol Parker, a British film and television director, could do without another year spent away from home. She returned to Queen’s Park, in northwest London, became pregnant with her first daughter after a couple of weeks, had a second a few years later, then chose to work only sporadically (a Bafta for Crash in 2006 was a highlight). For all the earth-mother vibe, though, the thing I can never work out is how she flits between rejecting showbiz one minute and gorging on it the next. She once described fame as “the toxic by-product of being an actor”, yet she’s forever dolled up in some Giles Deacon number on a red carpet. “It’s about being desperate to be loved — ‘Know me, know me,’ ” she says of the fame game, though she confesses to having used interviews in the past “to talk through my issues”.
Most odd. Especially as she’s now firmly back in sleb world. Last year, she played Condoleezza Rice for Oliver Stone in W, and a sexy accountant for Guy Ritchie, but her biggest multiplex outing for some time will be in the blockbuster 2012, released later this year. Presumably, it played havoc with this work/life balance of yours? “Well, it’s a riddle trying to keep your kids feeling they’ve got a secure life and at the same time literally dragging them across the world,” she concedes. So she took her hubbie and daughters — Ripley, 8, and Nico, 4 — with her. “We went to Vancouver for all the summer and a huge chunk of the winter.” What about school? “Ripley had a tutor, who was great,” she says, then, sensing an unintended accusation of selfishness, quickly adds: “It was necessary, so I had to do it.”
So, you get guilty? “I feel incredibly guilty,” she sighs. “I crave the time when I’m following Ol around, when it’s me keeping our little thing together.” But I suppose it’s not many wives who’ll give up $6m for some domestic downtime —and not many husbands who’d let them. “Yes, true. And I got Ripley,” she says. Is it true you named her after the Sigourney Weaver character in Alien? “Oh, yeah. Wouldn’t you? She is, like, the woman: kicks ass, saves the world with a kid under one arm and a huge weapon in the other.”
I’m not sure you could say the same for Newton. She strikes me as a worrier, though she’s protective of her brood. She certainly doesn’t like it when people confuse her husband with the other Oliver Parker, director of An Ideal Husband and St Trinian’s, who, by bizarre coincidence, lives on their street. “I was on a plane with Emma Thompson, who, for a 20-minute conversation, was talking about her ‘dear friend’ Oliver Parker,” she says coolly. “I thought she was talking about my husband, but actually she was talking about the other one. I was, like, ‘Babe, no.’ ”
Born in London to a Zimbabwean mother and an English father, Newton spent most of her early childhood in Cornwall before being sent to a boarding school near London at 11, to specialise in dance. The school didn’t allow younger students to call their parents. “I started to be much more introspective and rely on myself — which didn’t serve me well. I was very shy, very bright, so the way I dealt with my chronic shyness was to know the answers.”
A fluke audition for the Australian film Flirting, with Nicole Kidman, saw her saunter into movies. Then, at just 16, she began a six-year affair with its director, John Duigan, 23 years her senior. She says it messed her up big time, though she still managed to get through Cambridge — “I was studying for my finals at the Cannes film festival” — and clock up roles in Jefferson in Paris and Interview with the Vampire. She suffered from bulimia in her early twenties and — because of Duigan, she has hinted — had a generally dodgy relationship with her body for years. It was having kids that sorted her out. “Becoming a mum was the single most profound, self-adjusting moment in my life,” she says. “I birthed myself.” No surprise, given the tone of this, that she’s great mates with Oprah Winfrey. “It’s like I took back my life,” she continues of her pregnancy. “I took back the essence of who I am.”
Then, of course, she’s off to slink into another cocktail dress and down more Martini for the cameras. “Twenty years ago, you would not have recognised the person I am today,” she says — and I’m sure she’s right. With Newton, what you see is what you get. And it can change by the minute.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thandie Newton to front Martini ads
Thandie Newton to front Martini ads
Thandie Newton is the face of a new Martini campaign, it has been announced.
The British-born actress will front their Stay Beautiful campaign and will be the ambassador for a new rose version of the drink.
The Bafta-winning star - who has appeared in movies including Crash, W and The Pursuit Of Happyness - has the "perfect combination of composure, style and confidence", Martini said.
Thandie will feature in adverts styled by fashion guru Bay Garnett and photographed by A-list photographer Anders Overgaard in an exclusive London members club.
A spokesperson for Martini said: "She was a natural choice to be our ambassador for 2009 due to her cutting edge style and passion for fashion and beauty.
"She has an aspirational lifestyle, whilst still being a role model that women can relate to."
Fans can also access backstage footage of the photo shoot on the Martini Facebook page this summer.
To me a good Martini is pure class and sophistication in a glass, not to mention it’s utterly delicious. So I suppose it’s not surprise then, that the brand picked Thandie Newton to become the face of their ‘Stay Beautiful’ campaign. She follows in the footsteps of the equally delicious George Clooney and Natalie Imbruglia. Other than looking gorgeous, Thandie will become ambassador to the MARTINI® Rosato, a new blend, which is a mix of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and raspberry. Mixed with a dash of Pomegranate juice, it’s the perfect summer drink.
Watch out for the ads and the new Rosato, you’ll find me at the bar, Martini in hand
Desperate to bring back the glamour once associated with the brand, Martini has signed on class act Thandie Newton to be the spokeswoman for their new “stay beautiful” campaign. The actress will be featured in adverts styled by fashion guru Bay Garnett and photographed by A-list photographer Anders Overgaard in an exclusive London members club. A spokesperson for Martini said that "She [Newton] was a natural choice to be our ambassador for 2009 due to her cutting edge style and passion for fashion and beauty.
Martini is banking heavily on Newton's ability to influence women in the all important 25-34 year old age brackett into giving the beverage a shot. In fact, Bacardi Brown-Forman (the peeps that own Martini) plan to invest £5.6 million in marketing Martini this year with an integrated trade and consumer campaign. They are also focused on leveraging a number of Martini assets across fashion, film and Formula One motor racing to help promote the brand."
Well if anyone can revive the lagging company, it's definitely Thandie Newton. She's stylish, cool, and classy-exactly the same attributes that cats like Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr (both Martini sippers) were famous for.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thandie has sign up for Vanishing on 7th Street
Here at Dread Central we're huge Brad Anderson fans. Ever since the stellar Session 9 we've always been eager to see what this guy can cook up, and it sounds like with his new flick we could be in for a real treat!
Bloody Disgusting scored the news today that Anderson is prepping his next project titled Vanishing on 7th Street.
What's it all about, you ask? "Following a mysterious blackout, most of the population vanishes into thin air. As the remaining survivors convene in a small tavern to figure out what happened, the darkness returns to claim them one by one." Ok, we love shit like this, so we are there!
Some pretty hefty star power is aboard too -- John Leguizamo and Thandie Newton have officially signed on, and Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker are in talks.
Bloody Disgusting scored the news today that Anderson is prepping his next project titled Vanishing on 7th Street.
What's it all about, you ask? "Following a mysterious blackout, most of the population vanishes into thin air. As the remaining survivors convene in a small tavern to figure out what happened, the darkness returns to claim them one by one." Ok, we love shit like this, so we are there!
Some pretty hefty star power is aboard too -- John Leguizamo and Thandie Newton have officially signed on, and Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker are in talks.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Thandie Newton: How do you feel about being mixed-race?
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:33 PM on 10th April 2009
'I met a woman in Mali who thought I couldn't carry a bucket of water on my head because I was white. I replied, 'That's really interesting because in England, where I'm from, they say I've got dark skin.'
I was born in England, but we moved to Zambia not long afterwards, where we lived until I was three, when we returned to the UK.
My dad, Nick, an artist, is British, but my mum, Nyasha, is a princess of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe. In Britain she worked as a district nurse, but she retained that incredible African dignity and poise.
Growing up in Penzance, Cornwall, my brother, Jamie, and I were the only black children in the area.
There were the usual cruel names: big ears or big nose. And none of the boys wanted to go out with me. I don't remember any overt racism, but my mum and I have talked about this and I now know my parents kept us safe from a lot of stuff.
In some ways I'd say I come from Africa, but then I don't speak my mother's language, and in other ways I'm British through and through. I suppose I've never completely fitted in in either place.
I've never taken my husband, Ol, to Zimbabwe, or our daughters, Ripley, eight, and Nico, four. I've been waiting for the right time, but there never seems to be a right time to go to there any more.
My mum still goes back every year, and the last time I really wanted to go with her, but she's very protective and it's quite risky to travel there at the moment, so she didn't want me to come. But I want my kids to understand where they come from.
I was in Mali last year visiting some charity projects, and I met a woman who thought I couldn't carry a bucket of water on my head because I was white. I replied, 'That's really interesting because in England, where I'm from, they say I've got dark skin.'
She was amazed! So I joked, 'If you think I'm lightskinned and in England they think I'm dark-skinned, where does that leave me?' And she said, 'Well you should come and be here with me - you're in my family now.'
I thought that was lovely. There was a real feeling of being embraced, which my dad also felt when he went to Zimbabwe to ask my mother's family for her hand in marriage. Apparently, grandmother just started dancing, which is how they express joy there.
Last updated at 10:33 PM on 10th April 2009
'I met a woman in Mali who thought I couldn't carry a bucket of water on my head because I was white. I replied, 'That's really interesting because in England, where I'm from, they say I've got dark skin.'
I was born in England, but we moved to Zambia not long afterwards, where we lived until I was three, when we returned to the UK.
My dad, Nick, an artist, is British, but my mum, Nyasha, is a princess of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe. In Britain she worked as a district nurse, but she retained that incredible African dignity and poise.
Growing up in Penzance, Cornwall, my brother, Jamie, and I were the only black children in the area.
There were the usual cruel names: big ears or big nose. And none of the boys wanted to go out with me. I don't remember any overt racism, but my mum and I have talked about this and I now know my parents kept us safe from a lot of stuff.
In some ways I'd say I come from Africa, but then I don't speak my mother's language, and in other ways I'm British through and through. I suppose I've never completely fitted in in either place.
I've never taken my husband, Ol, to Zimbabwe, or our daughters, Ripley, eight, and Nico, four. I've been waiting for the right time, but there never seems to be a right time to go to there any more.
My mum still goes back every year, and the last time I really wanted to go with her, but she's very protective and it's quite risky to travel there at the moment, so she didn't want me to come. But I want my kids to understand where they come from.
I was in Mali last year visiting some charity projects, and I met a woman who thought I couldn't carry a bucket of water on my head because I was white. I replied, 'That's really interesting because in England, where I'm from, they say I've got dark skin.'
She was amazed! So I joked, 'If you think I'm lightskinned and in England they think I'm dark-skinned, where does that leave me?' And she said, 'Well you should come and be here with me - you're in my family now.'
I thought that was lovely. There was a real feeling of being embraced, which my dad also felt when he went to Zimbabwe to ask my mother's family for her hand in marriage. Apparently, grandmother just started dancing, which is how they express joy there.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
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