Adeel Akhtar: ‘It seemed late in the day to start noticing Asian actors … we’ve been here a really long time’

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He’s had supporting roles in almost every big TV show of the past few years, but now the man nicknamed Ideal Actor is taking the lead on stage, playing a top politician. He talks about challenging perceptions, being detained by the FBI and ‘redefining the idea of the everyman’ A decade ago, it would have been rare to have an Asian actor playing the British prime minister or leader of the opposition. But in the space of a couple of years, Adeel Akhtar has done both. He was the PM in the Netflix drama Black Doves , which took the world by storm last year, and now he’s stepping into the shoes of a man vying to be leader of the opposition at London’s National Theatre. For Akhtar, who has been working as an actor for more than two decades, there has been an undeniable shift in the kind of roles he’s been offered in recent years. The British Asian experience is no longer a niche subject. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/xG2XhAW via IFTTT
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‘My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six’: Alan Alda on childhood, marriage and 60 years of stardom

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Best known as Hawkeye in the TV series M*A*S*H, the 89-year-old actor, director and writer has another hit on his hands with a revamp of his 1981 movie The Four Seasons. He talks about his Parkinson’s disease, Woody Allen – and what he really thinks of Donald Trump

Alan Alda never expected this. The 89-year-old is back topping the charts with an update of his film The Four Seasons. In 1981, Alda wrote, directed and starred in the movie about three inseparable couples who holiday together every quarter until divorce, envy and angst intervene.

Now the film has been turned into a TV series by Tina Fey, with Alda as a producer and, at the time of writing, it is the fourth most watched show on Netflix. “It’s really interesting to have my work appeal to a new generation of very smart writers,” he tells me on a video call from New York. What gave him even more pleasure was watching a screening of the original movie a couple of weeks ago. “The people were laughing at the same things they were 44 years ago. And just as heartily. It was so good to see that the point of view wasn’t outdated.”

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