Thursday, March 29, 2007

Thandie Newton and Ol Parker in secret hotel rendezvous

Thandie jokes with turds

Crash actress Thandie Newton made a fake turd out of a chocolate bar and left it in comedian Simon Pegg's trailer, she has confessed.The Bafta winner played a string of practical jokes on the Hot Fuzz star during filming for Run Fat Boy Run, directed by David Schwimmer from Friends.
But Simon, best known for his roles in Shaun of the Dead and TV show Spaced, didn't rise to the bait.
"I was chuckling about it for at least two days before I did it," Thandie said on BBC 1's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.
"I got a Mars bar and mashed it up into the right shape and put it in his trailer.
"I put some Marmite on some old Y-fronts and left them next to it.
"As I was doing it the pleasure came from just setting it up. It didn't matter what he thought.
"He gave me nothing but it was worth every second."
The British actress also put cling film over his toilet seat and sewed up the cuffs and collars of his T-shirt.
"I got nothing back. I was joining in but no-one was joining in with me," she joked.
She also spoke about how Tom Cruise taught her to improve her on-screen kiss, during filming for Mission Impossible 2 when she was 22.
"With Tom it is always thinking about the cameras," she said.
"We did the scene where we had to kiss really passionately.
"He said 'Oh God. That was terrible' and took me over to the monitor.
"I was getting into it and was totally squashing his nose.
"He taught me to pull back but still give enough."

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Thandie on Jonathan Ross BBC1 23rd March

Thandie Newton,
Episode Number: 151 Season Num: 12 First Aired: Friday March 23, 2007 Ladies and gentlemen: he's back. The suited, wavy-haired cheeky monkey himself Mr Ross, welcomes us to his new series with the distinct possibility of a punch-up. Boxer Ricky Hatton goes toe-to-toe with Jonathan and Thandie Newton will do well to stay that far away from him and his saucy banter.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Thursday, March 15, 2007

All the stars are in London 15th March 2007


A host of stars teamed up with the Prince of Wales to celebrate the success of his charity The Prince's Trust.
X Factor winner Leona Lewis, Sharon Osbourne and daughter Kelly, and Hollywood actress Thandie Newton were among those who gathered for a special awards ceremony at the Barbican in London.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Best Life Magazine



Thandie NewtonBy: Lloyd Bradley,
Photographs by: Nino Munoz
Actress Thandie Newton sits close and spills the secrets of marital chemistry, saving the planet, and her sweet life flying beneath Hollywood's radar
Thandie Newton strolls into the Electric, a private members club on London's trendy Portobello Road, on a gray December morning. There is no mistaking her. We've watched her onscreen as the outrageous sexpot straddling Tom Cruise in a bathtub in M:I-2 and as the icy, beautiful wife in Crash, but in real life she is wholly another matter: As she makes her entrance, dressed in black and with her hair pulled back from her face, her presence is something close to luminous. She sits down and says she is attracted to writers. That could be the best news this correspondent has heard all year. But just as it's sinking in, she follows it up with, "Of course, I'm married to one." While wondering if this fellow realizes how lucky he is, it dawns on me that Newton would naturally be drawn to a man with an intellectual bent. She is a gifted actress and obviously bright, and you would expect no less from a woman who put her successful film career on the back burner so that she could get a degree (with honors) in social anthropology from Cambridge University. She sits conspiratorially close, opts to share my bottle of mineral water, and touches my arm and leg occasionally for emphasis. Very quickly, I realize lucky isn't nearly a strong enough word to describe that man. She insists she'll talk about anything, and she does. Newton is articulate in a relaxed but proper way, not only about the movie industry but also about racial politics on both sides of the Atlantic--or even both at the same time: "Had I been an African-American woman, I would have played Christine Thayer in Crash differently, but I'm from England, which has a different handle on being black. It's a lower-key approach, so without considering her American-ness, I could get that much closer to the bone, the human bone rather than the national bone."She'll talk about the environment with the genuine concern of somebody who recently traded her gas-guzzling BMW SUV for a Toyota Prius hybrid and then wrote letters to people such as Mel Gibson, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson, and Charlize Theron in a bid to persuade them to do the same thing. "I did what anybody who thinks about the planet would do. I don't know how much effect it will have, but I hope it made a few people think." But what really animates Thandie Newton at this stage in her life is her family. They are, she readily admits, what she works for and why the projects she accepts from now on "have to have some meaning." Newton met her husband, Oliver Parker, in 1997, at a read-through for a film he'd written for the BBC. Even now, 10 years later, she finds it difficult to quantify exactly what transpired at that moment. "I was smitten, totally and utterly besotted," she says. "And love at first sight wasn't something I ever believed was possible." She not only met her mate that day, but she also got the part, in a movie called, somewhat appropriately, In Your Dreams. The couple married a year later, after a court-ship during which Parker demonstrated all the qualities Newton was looking for in a man. The actress discovered him to be "kind, sympathetic, supportive, reliable, and full of surprises. It seemed like every time we went out, I found out something else about him--all good."As she talks about the chemistry of her relationship, her brow furrows with the effort to make sure she describes it with precision. "We complement each other perfectly," she says. She takes a sip of my water and looks almost dreamy as she goes on. "It's as if we morph in and out of each other, yet we're very different. He is quite reserved and self-conscious, while I'm uninhibited, but we're completely on the same wavelength. He helps me figure things out, and as a result, I'm much more accepting of myself now. A few years ago, I was like, What am I doing? Why am I doing it? What do I think? Between us, we'd always figure it out, so none of that doubt would ever get past the front door. He taught me not to care about things that aren't worth spending time on. Sometimes I get quite scared at the thought it would have been so easy for us never to have met." Newton and Parker have two young daughters--Ripley, 6, and Nico, 2--who are her absolute priority, she says. "Ol's a hugely available dad, and we both bring different things to the girls' lives. It's vital that girls grow up having a good relationship with their father, because it can affect how they deal with the other men that come into their lives." Growing up in rural southwest England, Newton had an idyllic relationship with her parents, and she remains close with them today. Nick and Nyasha Newton are retired and live very near to her, she says, and when she talks about their life journey, an enormous affection and pride are tangible in her voice and on her face. Her mother, Zimbabwean by birth, met her English father while they were working in a hospital in Zambia. They married and, to escape political unrest, moved to his hometown in Cornwall, England, which is where Thandie and her brother, Jamie, were born and raised. Nyasha was the local midwife, and later the district nurse, and she knew everybody. Newton remembers seeing her mother "riding round on her bike, knowing everybody and everybody knowing her. She was so giving. She had cared for every family in the local community, either bringing the young ones into the world or looking after the elderly. She was also the only African in the area, and she completely changed people's preconceptions of what an African woman should be. I like to think I'm carrying on from her."Although work can often take Newton away from her family, she is now successful enough to be able to pick and choose projects, in order to spend as much time as possible in the huge, rambling London house she insists will never be swapped for a Hollywood mansion. "Where we are, we'll be there forever," she says, cutting the air with one hand for emphasis. "I love the idea that my daughters will only really know one place, with the kind of roots only a community can give you." Doesn't it put her at a disadvantage, being that far removed from the center of the industry? "If I were younger and needed to play that whole game, then it probably would, but I'm an actress, not a celebrity," she says. "I've worked my way up through the ranks, so I'm perfectly secure in my career, and when I'm not working, I'm perfectly secure in the rest of my life. I'm in the enviable position of having earned the respect of Hollywood and being under the radar in this whole celebrity culture...and how cool is that?"

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Thandie is pup's best friend


Thandie is pup's best friend
By Rachel Sharp

BAFTA award winning actress Thandie Newton turned up at Dogs Trust West London Rehoming Centre this week, to rehome an unwanted puppy.
Crossbreed, Maggie, arrived at the rehoming centre in Harefield with the rest of her litter after her owner was unable to look after them.
The actress said: "Maggie is just adorable and we instantly fell in love with her. We can't wait for her to become part of the family.
"I am so pleased that we are rehoming a puppy from Dogs Trust and would encourage anyone else who is considering giving a dog a home to visit the charity and help an abandoned or stray dog feel loved again."
The West London Rehoming Centre is also extremely pleased that such a high profile actress is helping to raise awareness for the charity. Rehoming centre manager, Richard Moore said: "We are, of course, extremely pleased that Thandie has been able to rehome one of our puppies. Finding loving homes for all our dogs is our priority and I'm sure Maggie will be a much-loved family pet."
Dogs Trust is the UK's largest dog welfare charity, caring for more than 15,000 stray or abandoned dogs every year through its network of 17 rehoming centres across the UK. The charity believes that no healthy dog should ever be destroyed and works towards the day when all dogs can enjoy a happy life, free from the threat of unnecessary destruction.