Overnight stardom' is, like all clichés, egregiously overused. But it's undeniably apt for Emma Mackey, coinciding with all eight episodes of Sex Education Season 1 dropping on Netflix on 11 January 2019. The show was an enormous hit, and Mackey - as Maeve Wiley, the feisty, street-smart high-schooler who helps Otis (Asa Butterfield) establish a sex-therapy clinic for their fellow students in need instantly became a star.
A standout among a cast destined to dominate screens for years, Mackey had attitude, acting chops, and screen presence to spare. This was, somewhat unbelievably, her first professional acting role (she'd dabbled with drama while studying English Language and Literature at the University of Leeds).
She's since starred in a further two seasons, and when Total Film catches up with her via Zoom in August, she's just about to start shooting the fourth.
While that show has been keeping her busy, her film career is also off to an enviable start, and her highest-profile lead role to date arrives in cinemas shortly. Emily sees Mackey star as the middle Brontë sister and Wuthering Heights author, who published that industry-shaking classic aged just 29.
A keen reader who'd studied in the north of England, Mackey would seem like an ideal fit for this particular literary icon. "I had an interest in literature and female literary characters - Emily Brontë and the Brontës generally were figureheads of that,' explains Mackey, dressed casually in a plain white vest and a delicate white necklace. "So I was interested. But I wasn't a die-hard Brontë-head. I'd just read the books, and had read [Charlotte Brontë's] Jane Eyre, and had read Wuthering Heights and all of these.
Denne historien er fra October 2022-utgaven av Total Film.
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Denne historien er fra October 2022-utgaven av Total Film.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Snow Time to Die - Red One J.K. Simmons' Santa gets kidnapped. Luckily, Dwayne Johnson's on hand to save him...
If 2022's Violent Night gave us Die Hard in a Santa suit, Jake Kasdan's Red One could be retitled North Pole Has Fallen. The world imagined by Kasdan finds Saint Nick kidnapped two days before Christmas Eve. It's up to Dwayne Johnson's head of security, Callum Drift, and Chris Evans' unscrupulous hacker-for-hire, Jack O'Malley, to hunt down the man in red in time for the big day.
Back With a Vengeance - Sir Ridley Scott returns to the Colosseum with Gladiator II, the long-awaited sequel to the greatest historical epic of this century. Total Film meets the director and cast to discover how Maximus' legacy is echoing in eternity.
Ridley Scott is not a filmmaker to repeat himself. It's a trait that's all the more remarkable when you consider how prolific he's been over the nearly five decades since his feature debut, 1977's The Duellists. Alien prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are the only times he's gone back to the same world, and those films are radical departures from the original.
Bad Romance - Timestalker Alice Lowe falls in love with the wrong man time and time again...
Her antidote to that? Timestalker a dark not-quite-romcom set over the course of centuries. Her protagonist Agnes finds herself attracted to the same man, Alex (Dunkirk's Aneurin Barnard), in every lifetime as she's reincarnated in the 1680s, 1790s, 1980s and the 22nd century. As romantic as that may sound, there's a bit of a catch: 'He's sort of a dickhead. On the surface he's appealing, but under, he's not.'
McQueen & Country
A moment of national pride and terror comes to the screen with World War Two historical drama Blitz. Total Film speaks to writer/director Steve McQueen and his stars Saoirse Ronan and Stephen Graham about uncovering the truth and celebrating the triumph of a defining moment in modern British history.
'I WAS, AND AM STILL, SURPRISED BY EVERY OPPORTUNITY. I'VE BEEN CONTINUOUS AND FEEL AT THE TOP OF MY FORM' JEFF GOLDBLUM
Seth Brundle. Dr. Ian Malcolm. Grandmaster. Jeff Goldblum has played some titanic characters over his 50-year career, and is celebrating a half-century on our screens by going bigger than ever. First he played Zeus in Netflix show Kaos, and now he's the Wizard of Oz in Wicked. Total Film meets the man behind the curtain...
STICKY SITUATION
Seven years on from his last big-screen appearance, marmalade's biggest fan returns for Paddington in Peru. Total Film talks to director Dougal Wilson, actor Hugh Bonneville and the visual-effects wizards who make the magic happen...
BORN TO BE WILD
BROTHERS IS THE MOST SURPRISING ACTION COMEDY OF THE YEAR, AND NOT JUST BECAUSE JOSH BROLIN AND PETER DINKLAGE PLAY CRIMINAL TWINS. TOTAL FILM ROUNDS UP THE STARS TO TALK ABOUT DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES, THE 'HARD AS NAILS' COMEDIES THEY GREW UP WITH, AND MASTURBATING MONKEYS...
TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT Payal Kapadia's film shows the Mumbai you've never seen...
HUMPH DAY BOGART: LIFE COMES IN FLASHES
Behind every great man is a great woman. Or in Humphrey Bogart's case, four great women...
CALLING THE SHOTS
NEVER LOOK AWAY Lucy Lawless directs a bio-doc about a trailblazing camerawoman...