#(and yet the show still went with casting slender actresses)

[navree]

Alicent must work out or something, for her to still keep her figure and such after having four kids back to back. Our Queen does Medevial cardio!

If the writers hadn't been trying to push the "being on Rhaenyra's side means you're a feminist and being on Alicent's side means you're for the patriarchy" thing, they could have done something with what GRRM wrote in the book about how Rhaenyra started getting jealous of Alicent for still being "slender and graceful" after having kids even though Rhaenyra never lost all the weight from pregnancy and thus Alicent was considered prettier than her (which also, like, God I hate men, oh no Rhaenyra had multiple kids and no longer isn't as skinny and perfect as she was at fourteen, the horror, shut up). But at least Alicent's doing her exercise regiments and drinking her medieval green juice.

[vintagehellfire]

All For Show | E.M

musician!Eddie x showgirl!reader

summary: 1955 New York City, where dreams come true. You get to dance and perform for crowds every night, bringing in good money for yourself and for daddy’s jazz club. The regulars love you, the women envy you, and the musicians are strictly banned from flirting with you (and the other dancers of course). This wasn’t a problem until your father up and coming musician Eddie Munson to perform at his jazz club. Eddie was the first man to catch your eye, and you the first performer to be worth his time, and your fathers wrath.

warnings: implied female reader, mysoginy, eventual smut, swearing, no use of y/n, nudity, drugs, smoking, slow-burn, alcohol, anger issues, controlling father, mentions of assault/implied assault (against reader), 18+ only. mdni

Chapter II: Devil Woman, You’ve Cast Your Spell | 5.2k words

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The utterance of the three simple words had your head reeling, an informality at best, an extension of some private and more intimate privilege at worst. Admittedly, the name suited him far better than the formal nature your father addressed the man in. Nothing about Eddie could be labeled as formal much to your fathers chagrin. His unruly hair, tied up in a crows nest of a bun, little curls falling out from in front of his ears. His button up shirt was a little wrinkled, a product of sweating under the hot lights of the stage, but he wore it so well. He gave the impression that he worked a hard day's labour and was finally given a moment of reprieve. The energy Eddie exuded was nothing if not easy going, the slender cigarette tucked between his index and middle finger, brought gently to kiss the space between his lips. An inhale, a held breath, a gentle exhale, and possibly just the prettiest twists of smoke you might have ever bore witness to. As he drew the cancerous vice away from his mouth, he dropped his arm, sleeves slipping back down to cover his inked arms. And god what you’d do to be held in his arms, tasting his lips.

You bashfully introduced yourself, cheeks heating at the realisation that you’ve been staring at this man for far too long, however it’s not like he hadn’t been taking you in either. The pout to your red lips, your beautiful and wide eyes that were accentuated by a nice little flick of a cat eye, the tail of your eyeliner coming to a point so sharp that he would have thought you took a blade to draw it on. Your perfectly coiffed hair bounced with volume, and your robe left little to the imagination, especially after such a show you had put on. You extended a manicured hand out to the man, and with a small second of hesitation, and an approving nod from your father, Eddie shook your it. As soon as his rough and calloused hand slid into your delicate one, there was a spark that went off, something that made you never want to relinquish the privilege you were just granted. In that same moment, neurons started firing on the musician’s end. His split second thoughts went to insecurity over the contrast that was the delicate nature of your skin versus the used and abused workers hands. There wasn’t a way you should have enjoyed the feeling of sandpaper skin against silk, yet it was of note that his hands were not that of sandpaper, no. They were workers' hands and yet they held a lightness to them, a certain airiness that wasn’t often found in the hands of men.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” You let out, voice casually sultry — your father was simple enough to think it was still the act you were putting on, after all it was good for the reputation of the club if you kept appearances — the reality was much worse, the reality was that Eddie had simple stolen any ounce of breath you held in your lungs. How could he not?

“Likewise, sweetheart.” Breathed out the man with doe eyes. You could have sworn your heart stopped at the pet name, you could have given yourself away had you not been a good enough actress, and yet you tried to remain composed as one of the only men to have been able to capture your attention was so cavalier as to utter such sweet words in front of your father. Your eyes locked onto his, not daring look away because if you did, how were you supposed to memorise the galaxies in his irises and commit them to memory for years to come if you did? How would you live with yourself if you didn’t remember the man that had your breath hitch from the second you spotted him? Your father cleared his throat, interrupting the intense staring contest you and Eddie had gotten yourselves into. Both your hands dropped to your sides at that.

“Now kids,” you father started, “there’s a rehearsal tomorrow, Munson here has got a new song he’s been toying with, haven’t ‘cha, son?” He asks, patting Eddie on the back harshly. That was just how your father was, however; ever intense and without comprehension of other’s personal space.

“Hmm? Oh yeah!” Eddie let out. “It’s this really lovely piece called Pink Pussycat, I think it would be right up your alley, sweetheart.” There it was again, that little pet name. “I’d need to steal you away for a few hours tomorrow afternoon — if that’s alright with your old man of course,” he received a curt nod from your father. “I know it’s last minute but I’d at least like to try.” He lets out, a smile creeping onto his lips. “Besides, how are we to coordinate your dance numbers if you don’t know the songs you’re dancing to?” He asked with a wink, dimples becoming more prominent the wider he smiled. Your heart melted at his words and your eyes slowly trailed down to his perfect lips, his entrancing dimples. You swore he smiled with his whole face, eyes shining with a glint of mischief. You bit your lip as you looked to the floor, providing Eddie with a nod in agreement.

“Alright, pretty boy, you bring up a valid point.” Your lips split into a mischievous grin. Eddie could have sworn his heart leapt into his throat at the casual flirtation, his figure stiffening up. Surely you were like that with everybody, it was a lot easier to tell himself that you were rather than overthink and speculate why you were choosing to lightly flirt with him in the presence of your father. He shook it off and returned a blank expression. He couldn’t let himself feel this way about you, especially with your father owning the club. Your father, who had made it clear that any sort of flirtation or affair was strictly forbidden with you. Eddie couldn’t help but get lost in your words, your eyes, and he couldn’t help maybe get a little lost in the promise that the flirtation hinted at but he was doing his best not to. “Just give me a time and a place, and I’ll be there.” You flashed him your angelic smile, bright red lips tugging at the corners, eyes crinkling with smoothed out crows feet. The musician couldn’t help but crack a smile in return, yours becoming infectious like a disease but he couldn’t help but want more of it.

The following morning you sauntered into the bar, nerves eating you alive with the anticipation that you’d get to see Eddie. Your mind ran itself into the gutter the previous night, tempting you with what you couldn’t have, with what was just under your nose and yet so far away, buried deep in what should have been a bottomless grave. Your father would never allow for such a thing, going steady with a club musician, much less a beatnick jazz musician that played at his club. Your heels clacked on the floor with every confident step you took, heart hammering into your chest as you approached the stage. Daddy wouldn’t be in until at least noon, a shipment of rye coming in rather late for his liking, and so he trusted you to not get into too much trouble. Somehow, trouble always found you.

“Fancy seeing you so early, sweetheart.” The voice mused. You quickly shot your head towards the source, cheeks heating at the pet name. As soon as you laid eyes on Eddie, the sinful cigarette perched upon his bottom lip, a deep inhale, had smoke curling out from his parted mouth. He blew out the blue-grey whisps gently, making sure not to blow the cancerous substance towards you. Not once had you believed that such a habit could be so alluring, and yet here was Eddie Munson, already altering how you saw such mundane everyday habits.

“Thought I’d sneak in some practice time before father gets here. He likes giving some of the morning crowd a show sometimes, but the pressure of him being there as well isn’t always welcome believe it or not.” You admit bashfully. You’d rather not dance for the morning crowd but sometimes it helped to get some practice in front of the regulars. Delores often came in for her coffee and to read the paper, solving the crossword in the company of your father while he made sure to take care of the grime and dishes from the previous night. Harold would come in after a long night shift, as for the on the rocks and down it while he listened to Delores rattle off crossword clues as if it was this morning's news. There was also Gus who would swing by for his coffee and idle chat with father, asking about any up and coming musicians he should keep an eye on.

“Well alright then snake,” Eddie laughed out, “let’s rattle.” A mischievous smile graced his lips as he stubbed out his cigarette. He slid behind the piano that found home up on the stage and he found a sort of solace being behind the instrument. He belonged and it was as if he commanded the piano to play the music. He was its master, not the other way around. He commanded the music, the music didn’t command him and as soon as his fingers brushed against the keys, the rhythm swept you off your feet and you began moving in what seemed like the most natural and sensuous way you knew. You were the perfect example of the music mastering you, guiding you. The music was your partner and you didn’t need anybody but it. Surprisingly, you found yourself longing for a new partner, and he so happened to be across the room, brown pools darting down towards the ivory keys in a hurry, knowing he was caught staring at you.

The theme echoed through the music hall, allowing you to sway your hips slowly to the tune. Without the eyes of those close to you trickling across your figure, you dared approach Eddie, putting on a little performance for him, bending over and dragging your body up along your legs before you flipped your hair back, tossing a look over your shoulder and supplying him with the most suggestive wink. With that you sauntered across the stage making your way down low to your knees, spreading your legs slowly, leaning into the way the music moved you. If Eddie weren’t so dedicated to his job, god he would have lost it there and then. He was sure that he had made some devil angry enough to send this angel to him and forbid him from ever having a taste of heaven. If the world were on his side he’d be up there dancing jive with you, swinging you in his strong arms, if the world were on his side he would have met you before being hired by your fathers club, but the world was rarely on his side. God, the devil, however you wanted to put it, was decidedly against Eddie Munson and so that being the reality he would have to work to tamper his feelings down, beating them to a pulp.

It wasn’t long before you got a routine down, running over it a couple of times before you had gone to change into costume in order to give your father a show of what was to come. He was usually the one to see your routine and cheer you on, and it was his stamp of approval, a little kiss to the forehead, and let you know that it was an exquisite performance. And so that was what you planned to do, you got changed and in the early evening you nudged Eddie to start playing the intro to the song while you shook off your nerves backstage. As the first notes rang through, you stepped out, extending your smooth leg out from behind the velvet curtain, dragging your gloved hand along your thigh, before completely stepping out and slowly taking the lace gloves off, trailing them along your body in a similar fashion that a lover’s hands would. It made Eddie jealous yet there wasn’t anything to be jealous of. They were just a silk fabric after all, not the hands of a patron, a lover, or any man worthy of your time. You made your way up to an empty chair in the front, swinging your legs over it and enacting shoving your gloves in someone’s mouth before harshly pushing away and walking back to the stage, dropping slowly to your knees, spreading your legs out, then tucking them under and rolling, pulling the strings off your robe, allowing it to drop. Another 180° turn and you got up, ass high in the air, exposing your behind, covered in nothing but a lace thong and garter belt, the straps digging into the fat of your ass.

Eddie did not falter in his performance despite his mouth running as dry as the Sahara Desert. His tongue felt heavy, like sand had pooled itself up into his throat and no amount of water could cure this thirst. Of course it wouldn’t for it wasn’t what he was thirsting after, no, his need could only be quenched by something unattainable, something so far out of reach that he would find himself hallucinating before he could even feel a drop of relief on his tongue.

Your exhibition continued on and it seemed your father was happy with the performance to come, and even more so with the confidence the musicians exhumed. Ever since he brought that Munson man on it seemed that everyone was on their best game — it was undeniable — it was a solid choice and he would hope to not regret it. After your little practice you headed backstage to cool off and get ready for the night show, thinking you might be able to get some food and a drink in before the patrons would come in, after all, you needed something of substance. Nerves began to overtake your body, tonight was an important night, Friday nights usually were. The beginning of bender weekends where folks of all kinds of coloured backgrounds would come witness your performances before being invited to perform some of their own gigs. It was more or less an open mic night after your introductory performance — start the night off with a bang and encourage other performers to saunter up into the spotlight. If the music moved you enough you’d often come in for another little dance or two, practically flirting with the music, that’s when the real party started. The beatnicks would always bring a little powder or grass and in combination with the rye your father managed to get his hands on after the prohibition the weekends were a sure fire sock hop.

You slipped your black robe on and pocketed your metal cigarette case before stepping out, door closing softly behind you, the dim light bathing you in a warm glow. You inhale deeply before opting to pull out and light the thin tube of tobacco. You wished deeply that you were taught to roll your own, but that wasn’t very lady-like as your father put it, a phrase you grew to resent over time. You didn’t get very far in your search for sustenance before you bumped into someone’s chest.

“Oh, pardon me!” You exclaimed in surprise, smoke wafting around you. As soon as your eyes made contact with the body, eyes trailing up to meet the stranger’s figure, your mouth ran dry and not from the cigarettes you were smoking. “Oh, Eddie, please excuse me, I didn’t mean to barrel into you.” An unknown heat crept up to your cheeks, it wasn’t embarrassment, no, it was something foreign to you.

“No need to apologise, darling,” He exhaled, a glazed look overtaking his big brown eyes, “I actually wanted to come give you this.” He held out his hands, long fingers curling around a plate of toast, a bowl of roasted tomato soup sitting on top, balancing delicately, steaming and ready to be downed. “Your father he uh, he thought he should bring it over but I wanted to tell you to break a leg. You’re one of the best performers I’ve had the pleasure to work with and it’s not likely I’ll be able to get many words in after tonight.” A nod was sent his way before you reached out for the plate, dainty and warm hands wrapping around the porcelain. It wasn’t lost on either of you that you made contact with the calloused and slightly worn skin of the musician. If you were being honest, you took this opportunity as an excuse to confirm the wave that rushed through you at his touch, to confirm it wasn’t a fluke or just a figment of either of your imaginations. Your heart rate spiked dramatically as a smile reached his face, dimples inset in his cheeks, the corners of his eyes crinkling with little crow’s feet. The moment gave away just how much he smiled, a happiness that made a permanent reminder in his features, one that you were jealous of — it’s not that you weren’t happy per se, it’s just that your life wasn’t all that it was chalked up to be.

“Thank you, Eddie.” You whispered his name as if it was sacred, a mantra that you could pray over - an idol to worship in pure sin. He was a temptation sent by the devil himself and yet he was angelic in his being. He exuded a light that rarely captured a being, a light so bright that it caught your attention and commanded it. He was the false idol you dropped to your knees for, dancing to the rhythm he set, and he was none the wiser.

“It’s not a problem, sweetheart.” He offered you a gentle nod before his smile dropped. He shouldn’t have even offered to bring you your meal.What if your father were to catch on to his infatuation? He didn’t even really know you and that was the way it should stay no matter how much you commanded his attention even from across the room. Eddie was sure that he’d be able to pick you out of a crowd with one glance but he shouldn’t be able to — this is something he had to put a stop to if he was being truthful with himself, with you both. He didn’t want to cause problems for you, job honestly be damned. If losing his job meant that he might get a shot with you, who was he to stay at this club? Sure it was a club on 52nd and conveniently close to his apartment, but he’d perform down in Greenwich Village- no, no. He had to snap himself out of his.

“Hey, uh, Eddie, do you care to join me?” You boldly asked, moving your body aside and starting to open your dressing room door. “I don’t really favour eating alone.” It was a bold move on your part, and you saw him stiffen up. This could be dangerous for you both if your father were to find out about it and he didn’t want to put you in any sort of position. An expression of hesitation painted itself across his features, sucking his bottom lip in, eyes darting from side to side anxiously as if he were being watched.

“Look, uh… I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Best keep this professional and all. You wouldn’t want to upset your daddy, and I have a contract to fulfill. You understand, don’t you?” He shifted uncertainly. He didn’t want to do this but it was needed, part of you understanding but a deeper part of you feeling your heart plummet. It felt drenched in ice water, weighted down and dragged to the coldest depths of the ocean.

“Of course,” you let you, tone shifting to something hollow and detached, “thank you, Mr. Munson.” You grabbed the plate from him, opening the door to your dressing room and slipping inside without sparing him so much as another look. As you closed the door you thought you heard a quiet hiss of ‘way to go Munson’ before footsteps backed away from your door. You allowed the plate and bowl to clatter against your dressing room vanity, not willing to look at the food your father must have provided you with. Bile rises in your throat at the rejection - it wasn’t something you were used to from strangers and certainly not the club regulars, it something you were more used to from those closest to you, but Eddie wasn’t close to you — he wasn’t a club regular either — and yet somehow this stung worse than the rejection your mother offered you time after time or the rejection of any suitor that your father would impose. Suddenly this sadness shifted to something entirely different, an anger that you didn’t know you harboured. You stood quickly, making a last minute costume change before ripping your dressing room door open and heading down to the bar for a pre show drink.

Kip, the new part time busboy and bartender, was the one serving drinks, he was young with a shock of freckles across his high cheekbones, moussey red hair sat perfectly coiffed on top of his head. He wasn’t what you’d call particularly handsome but he was someone most women thought was easy on the eyes but he wasn’t Eddie. You called him over and ordered a Giblet, asking him to make it extra strong for you and he did so with pleasure, showing off his skills. He served it to you in a gold rimmed coupe and delicately placed it on a black napkin. You barely paid him any mind as you took the stem of the glass with your manicured hands and brought the coupe to your lips. You sipped it, too distracted by the way that the club patrons came and went like clockwork. A few would sit at their usual tables, moving when they found their friends, some would stay for a drink and leave, but within 30 minutes the show goers and beatniks were there to stay and relish in the show that was about to be put on. Cigarette smoke filled the air with a cloudy grey hue, creating a heavy set mood, a mood filled with want — there was an undeniable underlying energy, an antsy one at that.

Slowly you finished your drink, wiping the last few drops off your bottom lip with the rough pad of your thumb, a streak of red being left on it after your lipstick. I’ll have to reapply it, you think to yourself about the waxy substance. So with a few long strides you leave your bar stool and head over to grab your lipstick from your dressing room, hurrying so as to not be late to start your show. You were never late, you were always on queue, allowing the musicians to count you in with a four bar intro before the song flowed into a more suggestive beat. Tonight was no exception, however; plans had changed for your little number. If it was seductive before it was downright filthy now. A not so coy plan to get Eddie to notice you, to pay him back for the embarrassment of not having dinner with you. You just wanted to be kind, you weren’t expecting much more from him — you knew your dad might not see it that way, and of course you didn’t want to risk the man’s job, but a selfish part of you wanted to get to know him. The flirting between you was obvious despite the few interactions you’ve both had, and the coldness that Eddie exuded after your extended invitation was a little bit strange, as if he was trying to hold back on something.

As soon as the lights went down in the bar, hushed whispers fell across the crowd, a few abrasive and high whistles traveled through the air but found themselves landing on deaf ears. You cared for nobody’s opinions or cat calls, you only cared to perform. It gave you a certain thrill to be up on stage under the spotlights, and so when the anacrusis and fours following bars queued you in. Your outfit change took not only your father but the musicians by surprise as well. It was a lot more revealing than you had originally planned. A black lace bra adorned your chest, with a black suspender belt hugging your waist just right. You abandoned your corset completely and wore a sheer robe over your costume. You left nothing to the imagination with your sheet thong, the suspender belt holding your stockings up, digging into the meat of your thighs. Your stilettos accentuated the length of your legs, creating the illusion that you were taller than you realistically were and this fed particularly well into when you’d bend over.

As you emerged onto the scene, you feigned modesty, one leg out the curtain while running your hand delicately along the soft skin. As you stepped out holding a feathered fan in a satin gloved hand you peaked your wide eyes over the top, raising your shoulder gently and throwing an innocent glance towards the patrons of the front row. You fanned yourself as you made your way up to the Victorian style chair in the middle of the scene and you straddled it, closing your fan and tossing it towards the crowd while they cheered. In that moment you dropped your robe, revealing the lack of clothing that adorned your body. With a backbend your hair dropped, breasts nearly spilling from your bra, you sank lower and lower before pulling yourself back up slowly. Someone threw their tie to you on stage and you made good use of it, picking it up and running it down your back and across the tender flesh of your ass. You leaned into it suggestively, swinging your hips from side to side much like the pendulum of an old grandfather clock. Eyes were locked onto your movements, men left drooling over your sultry new routine, but you had yet to capture the attention of a certain musician. You upped your game a little more at this realisation, swinging the chair closer to the piano bench and hoisting your leg up on it, you twirled the tie before standing up on the chair and tipping it back with a foot on the backrest. You gently landed on the piano, rolling your back across it, legs high in the air before resting on its surface, stomach down, the tie being gently placed around Eddie's neck.

It was just then that he dared look up at you and a heat overtook his body, crawling its way, unbearably, to his neck. He had nearly slipped up on the piece that he had been preparing for weeks, initially planning just to play it at some other jazz club off of 6th, but the opportunity here lended itself nicely. He slurred the notes together seamlessly, not tipping your father off, nor the poor men in the front row who he thought were more deserving of your attention — especially if you were working for tips. That didn’t seem to matter anymore, not after you rolled off the shiny black piano top and strode across the stage, making time to roll, tumble, and lift your hips to meet nothing but the empty air, making a show of getting up, ass high in the air.

Your little performance continued on with a few lap dances in between, eyes locked onto Eddie as you did so, sending him a small wink when he would look up from the black and white keys that his fingers expertly worked. He knew what he was doing just as well as a mechanic knows his well oiled machines. His eyes left the keys and yet he continued playing, fingers having deftly memorised each position. As the last note rang out, Eddie’s last shallow breath left his lips before he hurriedly excused himself. You, however, waited until the lights went out before slipping behind the velvet curtain, ready to change into a more comfortable dress for the rest of the evening. You wouldn’t be joining in any more dances unless it was some jive or swing, you needed a quicker pace to get rid of the adrenaline that coursed its way through your veins.

There was an anxiety that clouded you all of a sudden, what if you’d gone too far? After all, you didn’t know Eddie, just that he seemed to have captured your attention the second he stepped foot into the room. You knew his smile was infectious and that whatever he was making you feel was not something that usually overtook you, and never this strongly.

As soon as you shoved the second set of curtains aside you opted to make your way down the winding hall and to your dressing room. The lights were too hot, too many eyes were on you tonight and frankly you needed a minute to catch your breath. Nothing could have prepared you for the gruff pair of unwelcome hands shoving you up against the cool béton of the adjacent wall. After the initial shock wore off your watering eyes landed on the source of such aggression — the shock of red hair gave it away, a darkness painted across his features, a want filled with lust and rage. He might as well have been seeing an acrid crimson across his vision with the expression he wore.

“How about you be a doll and help a man out, peach.” He spat out the nickname, venom dripping black from his tongue. “You got us all riled up for nuttin’, and no relief either.” His breath felt hot, stale and bitter notes hung onto it like one might hold onto bitter memories, hoping that one day they might resolve or taste sweeter than they do. Like wanting to turn mead back into honey, it wouldn’t happen.

You shoved him away as best you could, pushing against his shoulders but his hand came around your neck, an unwelcome sensation as best, suffocating at worst. It stole the little breath you had left in your lungs as you choked out a muffled cry for help. Meek, trying, yet your words weren’t strong enough and eventually began to get caught in your throat. You brought your knee up to hit him in the family jewels, hoping that you’d render them invaluable but before you could feel the impact of your knee against the soft and unprotected parts of the man before you, a violent pull pried the redheaded busboy off of you.

“Don’t you fucking lay your hands on them ever again.” The deep voice rumbled out with such ferocity that you almost didn’t recognise it. “Why don’t you shag* before I lose my cool, you sunofabitch?” You looked up to see a man possessed, his voice wildly different from the warm tones he spoke to you in, the one that had been a little more than hot and cold with you, one that soothed you like thyme and honey soothed a sore throat. The one that you decided in that moment you would want protecting you so long as you had the privilege of it.

*Shag: To get lost, to leave

a/n: hey sorry if the formatting is weird or off, I’m on mobile as my computer ate shit before I got around to writing/posting this. Anyway, here it is, longer than the first part,and hopefully they just keep getting longer from here on out. Thanks for reading!!

tag list: @ali-r3n @cryingglightningg

Let me know if you wanna be added or removed from the tag list! :)

Part I

[smutbymia]

Can I request a smut where y/n is Jaehyun's ex and they become successful by their own.One day they met at an award show or red carpet or something and Jaehyun just regret it.Thankyou 😚

Jaehyun stood with his group members in a line, posing for the flashing lights that shuttered from the dozens of cameras lined up behind the barricade in front of them. They were styled to perfection for the night, in preparation for their red carpet appearance at the Oscars. After participating in the soundtrack of a nominated film, the boys of NCT 127 found themselves attending the most prestigious film event of the year -- something they hadn’t thought they’d ever get the opportunity to do. 

They each had smiles plastered across their faces as they slowly shifted their gazes across the sea of photographers, moving from section to section on the carpet alternating between photo-ops and quick interviews with the press.

Jaehyun tugged at the front of his black tuxedo and straightened his bow tie while standing tall as Johnny chatted away with an interviewer just as he heard commotion at the other end of the carpet. He watched out of the corner of his eye when the photographers seemed to move in the same direction of the excitement.

Jaehyun shrugged it off, still trying his hardest to continue focusing on his groups interview. It wasn’t until he heard the voice of a photographer shout your name that his entire demeanour finally shifted. The cool, calm, collected image he had upheld all night began to falter. He watched as Mark — who was stood on the opposite end of the line lifted his gaze to peer discretely past Jaehyun’s head in your direction after clearly hearing your name as well. His eyes met Jaehyuns as he gave him a warning look. A look that told him to keep it together because there were millions of people at home watching through the cameras that were capturing every moment in real time, and broadcasting live across the world. 

Jaehyun tried his best, he really did. But he couldn’t resist any longer. He turned his head to look back at you. You stood on the marked spot of the runway in front of the cameras in a floor length white gown that made you look as though you had stepped out of Heaven itself. Your leg dangled out from in between the slit of the stress and your hair cascaded down your back. You took your position before alternating between a series of poses as you worked the cameras. Compliments spilled out from behind the cameras as paparazzi bombarded you with instructions on where to look -- to the right, to the left, up high for the ones in the back row, etc. 

As you shifted your gaze to a different section of photographers you mistakenly met Jaehyun’s own. The two of you locked eyes — with you pulling away at first, completely taken aback by your exes presence. Jaehyun however kept his gaze on you and continued watching intently as you worked the red carpet.

“Jaehyun?” the reporter called, as her voice interrupted his thoughts of you.

“H-huh? I’m sorry!” he said before flashing a dimpled smile and making the interviewer melt, “there’s just so much going on. The red carpet is so exciting!” he chuckled, and just like that he was in the clear — sort of. The interview wrapped up shortly after and all was well before the rest of the members gave him a knowing look once the cameras were no longer rolling. 

Jaehyun sighed deeply, glancing back at you once more as he admired your bright smile that was on full display during an interview. He missed you, he thought to himself. 

You had dated for a few months before you decided to move to LA. Originally the plan was to stay in Korea and settle down with Jaehyun but after he failed to uphold the promises he had made about finally going public with your relationship you decided that you couldn’t put your life on hold anymore for him. No one, especially you, deserved to be somebody else’s  secret. 

You moved out to LA and pursued acting. In just a few years you had finally worked your way up in the industry and were notorious for playing lead roles in indie films by some of the best directors in Hollywood who had grown tired of casting the more well known stars. Ironically that is what had turned you into a household name — as you completely found your niche within the genre.

But how did it feel seeing the boy you were more than willing to give up on your dreams for? Surprisingly you were okay. It hadn’t been easy and you needed to work through a lot of your issues over the years to get to a place where your pain and resentment towards your ex no longer consumed you. Being in such close proximity with your ex and feeling confident was certainly an improvement, you thought to yourself. 

Besides, you had found your own footing in the world and your own level of success as well. Though you both were famous celebrities, you both existed in two different worlds that rarely met -- until now. Maybe it was inevitable that one day the two of you would cross paths again. 

You blew through your interviews as others arrived on the carpet and within minutes were being ushered into the theatre by staff who were working on seating guests for the award show. You stood aimlessly by the open bar in the waiting area as your manager chattered away with the publicist of some other up and coming celebrity. 

You raised your hand gracefully to wave down a bartender who seemed to fail to notice your efforts at grabbing his attention. You sighed deeply before giving up and dropping your hand back down against the cool counter of the bar in defeat. You were hoping to get a few drinks in your system before having to sit through yet another boring ceremony. Suddenly you felt the presence of a large body behind you. You titled your head upwards to the arm that was raised high above you as the bartender finally walked over in your direction. 

“How can I help you two?” he asked. Flustered, you tripped over your words as you turned around, coming face to face with Jaehyun who seemed to be staring directly into your soul. You froze, and watched as he turned to speak to the bartender. Within minutes, two identical cocktails were slid across the counter. You sighed as you watched jaehyuns slender fingers wrap around the base of his glass as you mirrored his action.

Just then a photographer approached the two of you inquiring about a photo op. You smiled sheepishly as onlookers directed their attention to you. It’s not like you could refuse. Not on a night like this. It would look terrible on your part. So instead you stepped closer to Jaehyun and though he hesitated slightly, you felt his hand rest on the small of your back.

You offered up a sheepish smile as he remained stoned face as he usually did in pictures at events like this. After a few clicks and a few extra stares the photographer moved on. Jaehyuns members lingered by as they tried not to make it too obvious how surprised they were at the interaction. Once it was over they swooped in almost immediately.

Many of them offered you quick greetings but it was Mark who lingered to speak with you as they managed to create some distance between you and Jaehyun.

He spoke quickly and quietly. From the perspective of outsiders it looked like harmless mingling but his words carried weight.

“We can all tell that he misses you a lot, y/n. But we’ll do our best to make sure he doesn’t get in your way anymore,” he stated. Your heart froze at the new revelation.

You opened your mouth, hesitating a little before you spoke. “It’s okay,” you began, “it was a long time ago. I’m okay. You don’t have to coddle me.”

It was true that Mark had a tendency to get that way. Him and Johnny knew better than anyone else what had happened between you and Jaehyun and the two scolded him every chance they could get about the way your relationship turned out. They were all your friends before the romance between you and Jaehyun blossomed.

“It’s not you that we are trying to protect this time,” Mark confessed, “to be honest, it’s Jaehyun. He took it hard. Even though he knew it was his fault he suffered a lot and is full of regrets. We know you’re doing well now but... he hasn’t really been the same.”

You looked over Marks shoulder and locked eyes with Jaehyun who was engaged in what seemed like a deep conversation with Johnny that you were sure must have been similar to the one Mark was having with you right now.

His expression was downcast, yet stern. He seemed bothered by what he was hearing. You were almost certain Johnny was telling him to keep his distance from you but you couldn’t help the feeling in your heart... a feeling that made you wish you could hear these things directly from him instead.

The rest of the night proceeded accordingly though you couldn’t shake the feeling in your stomach. Good thing you were an actress because between presenting and carrying home your first award, you needed to really sell the fact that tonight was the best night of your life despite the fact that you were hurting a bit inside.

Next was the after party and yes, it was intense. Drug and alcohol fueled events were a regular occurrence in Hollywood and soon enough everyone was under the influence of something. There was a reason it was kept in the most exclusive hotel in the city and that reason was because people usually got so fucked up that the convenience of being able to be one elevator ride away from their beds was a complete blessing.

You called it a night quite early. You drank congratulatory drink after drink and decided that it was far better to leave while you could still somewhat see clearly. You had made your excuses and encouraged your team to stay around to party as you went back up to your room alone to get ready for bed.

You were all changed into a silk nightgown when there was a knock at the door. Figuring it was just room service, you went ahead and opened it up but to your surprise Jaehyun stood there alone. He leaned against the door frame with a half empty bottle of wine in his fist as his head hung low.

“Congratulations on your award,” he slurred as he held the bottle out to you. You were in complete shock. You poked your head past the door, hoping no one had seen him standing there. You planned on telling him to leave when you heard the dinging of the elevators bell as voices rang out down the hall. In a moment of pure panic you quickly dragged him by the collar of his coat into the room and slammed the door shut behind the two of you.

Jaehyun giggled. “Do you miss me that much?” He asked as he reached for your waist. Locking you in his embrace.

“Jaehyun are you crazy? You can’t just show up at my door like that. Lots of people are staying on this floor. Someone could have seen!” you scolded.

He placed the bottle down on a piece of furniture before putting the palm of his hand to your cheek.

“I’ve always been crazy haven’t I? Who would have thought it would be you wanting to keep us from being seen... after all this time,” he said as his voice dropped.

Your breathing became laboured as his eyes gazed deeply into yours.

“I’m so sorry. I should have never kept you a secret,” he confessed. “I regret trying to hide you from the world. Now that they get to see you, they get to love you too. Everyone who gets the pleasure of getting to know you always ends up loving you, don’t they?” he asked. He offered up a weak smile as the dimples in his cheeks went on full display again.

“I-I don’t know what you want me to say,” you answered. You covered his hands with yours as you drew it away from your face. You could see the sadness return to his expression.

Jaehyun blinked a few times. “Ah, I think getting so emotional just sobered me up a bit,” he winced as you watched his cheeks begin to blush.

“Mark and Johnny are going to be really upset with me when they find out that I came up here. I’m sure they already know by now,” he said. Jaehyun still held you in his grasp. You attempted to pull away but he refused to let you go.

“Please...” he pleaded as he felt you try to put distance between the two of you “please, y/n. Let me at least hold you for a little bit longer.”

He let out a deep sigh before engulfing you in a hug. You hesitated before wrapping your arms around his neck and could feel him relaxing under your touch instantly. Jaehyuns hands ran down the small of your back and grabbed at your waist as you could feel the desperation and yearning in his touch.

What was only a hug started to feel more intimate. Before you could stop yourself, you felt your hands yearning for more of him too. You ran one of your hands up the nape of his neck and into his hair as he burried his face into your neck — the warmth of his breath on your skin sending tingles down your spine. Your back arched slightly in response, causing your chest to press into his.

Jaehyuns hands travelled a bit lower, resting dangerously close to your butt and it was enough to draw a reaction from you. You sucked in air between your lips, before letting out a soft gasp. He knew exactly what he was doing to you. You cursed yourself for falling into his trap so quickly but his energy was intoxicating.

Jaehyuns lips brushed lightly against your neck before you felt him press them against your skin, giving you soft kisses on the delicate flesh. Your breathing became heavier. You made no effort to stop him. Your body reacted on its own as you titled your head to give him more access to you.

“Good girl,” he encouraged softly as he alternated between soft kisses and the dragging of his tongue up towards your ear. You whimpered as you felt yourself officially cave. There was no way you could stop now. Not when it had been so long since you last felt like this.

He dragged his teeth back across your skin, nipping softly at the flash before dropping one his hands to palm your ass. You let out a soft moan in response as you felt his hardness grow against your stomach. Jaehyun lifted his head away from you before locking you in his gaze once more. He drew his bottom lip between his teeth as his eyes scanned your face.

You watched him through hooded eyes, with your cheeks flushed red as he leaned in to capture your mouth in a deep and passionate kiss. You moaned against his mouth as his tongue forced itself past your lips. You suckled softly on his tongue as his hands explored the rest of your body.

This time you took the lead, deepening the kiss and dragging him with you back towards the bed in your hotel room. You pushed off his coat and tugged at the buttons of his shirt as you continued to move backwards. When you felt the duvet covers on the back of your legs you sunk down into the mattress pulling him towards you as you moved to unbotton his pants, keeping your eyes firmly locked with his.

Once he was free he discarded the rest of his clothing with ease. Jaehyun stood before you, panting softly, naked body on full display as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Fuck...” you sighed. You could feel your nipples harden underneath the fabric of your nightgown while you tried your hardest to stop your eyes from wandering again.

Jaehyun’s lips turned up at the corners for what seemed like a mere second before his gaze went dark again. He stepped forward and reached for your face to run his thumb against your bottom lip. You couldn’t stop yourself from allowing your mouth to fall open slightly, inviting his finger to slip past your lips and across your tongue.

You suckled softly. Jaehyun used his other hand to slide the straps of your nightgown off your shoulders one by one. Your eyes never left his while you felt the fabric fall to your waist, leaving you topless. You stood up, mouth still full and eyes still locked to let it fall to your feet, leaving you naked.

Jaehyun’s free hand immediately grabbed at your waist, pulling you closer to his body and with a pop he removed his thumb from your mouth, replacing it with more fingers before finally switching to a kiss. Your tongue danced around his eagerly.

You jumped at the feeling of jaehyuns damp fingers against your clit as he wasted no time prepping you. Moaning against his lips, the two of you moved back towards the bed — this time, with Jaehyun settling in between your legs.

“Forgive me,” he said quietly. Your chest rose and fell with each passing second as you waited for him to speak again — fingers still brushing against your clit as you moaned quietly.

“I ruined everything. But, I want to make it up to you. Even if it’s just this once. Even if it’s the last chance I get. So be good for me, okay? Just for a little while longer” he said as he lowered himself to your core.

You were a writhing mess as you waited for his tongue to finally connect with your flesh and when it did... fireworks.

Maybe it had been too long or maybe he just knew your body better than anyone else but within seconds you could feel yourself getting closer to your peak. Jaehyun flattened his tongue against your lips, running it up and down your slit at a sensual pace. It was so good, but not nearly enough. He was teasing you and pleasing you all at once.

On occasion he would flick himself against your clit, watching as your body convulsed at the contact before pulling away again and watching you slowly get further away from your orgasm once more.

“M-more, please,” you begged as you reached your hands between your legs to rope in jaehyuns hair. He continued to work at your core before lifting his head slightly. You raised your hips to chase after him, not wanting to lose contact, as he chuckled to himself softly.

“I’m being rude, aren’t I?” he taunted as he teasingly ran two fingers down your slit, coating them in your juices. You groaned as you watched him put both fingers in his mouth, humming to himself.

“I can’t help it. You taste so good, I don’t want to rush,” he murmured.

“Baby, please” you cooed. Jaehyun froze momentarily.

It was a low blow. You knew calling him the pet name would bring him into a more submissive state but you were desperate at this point. You could feel the shift in the power dynamic as you used the hand you roped in his thick locks to pull him back down to your center.

“You said you wanted to make it up to me. I want to cum all over this pretty mouth, baby” you said. Jaehyun’s mouth hung open as he watched you in what seemed like a daze as he nodded softly before returning to what he had been doing before.

This time there was no teasing. He went immediately to your clit — lips engulfing the soft bud as he lapped at the flesh. You couldn’t resist wrapping your legs around him, slightly squeezing his head with your thighs to resist the intense amount of pleasure you were feeling.

You moaned as he forced your legs back open again, giving you no choice but to accept exactly what it is you had asked him for. Despite submitting to you so easily, he refused to let you off the hook.

Jaehyun slipped two fingers past your entrance and pumped them vigorously in and out of you as he sucked your clit into his mouth, releasing it with a pop before repeating his actions.

“Let me taste you. Cum for me,” he urged.

Just then, you granted him his wish as your back arched off of the bed and you felt your orgasm wash over you. Jaehyun didn’t let up. He continued to pump at your core without interrupting as he lapped away at your juices.

“Fuck, you’re dripping. I have to feel this,” he said. You continued to convulse under his touch as you let his name slip from your lips over and over again.

You felt his fingers retreat as he ran the head of his cock up and down your slit, making you shutter each time he brushed against your sensitive clit.

You only had a few minutes of rest before he was inching himself into you slowly before finally bottoming out. You moaned, still sensitive from your first orgasm as he began thrusting. He started off slowly, savouring the feeling of sliding in and out of you until he was balls deep inside of you again each time.

He layed on top of you, with his head burried in your neck as he snapped his hips forward over and over again. Soon it was just too much. The both of you seemed to have forgotten where you were because the way he moved and the way your voices filled the room made it seem as though you were the last two people left on earth.

“I’m going to —“ he tried to warn as his words were interrupted by his own moan. His pace got slower as he continued to bury himself into you over and over again.

You pulled his face to yours into a final kiss as you worked your hips against his. Your lips parted along with jaehyun’s as your kiss broke. They brushed against each other as you refused to pull away completely just as you both reached your peaks together. His warmth filled you up as you both panted. Your bliss was short lived when you heard loud and violent knocks on the hotel room door followed by muffled voices.

“Are you guys insane? You’re so lucky the party is at its peak right now because we could literally hear you from the end of the hall!” Mark said as the knocking continued.

“Jaehyun, I swear to God if you aren’t out here in three seconds!” He continued.

The two of you frantically pulled your clothing back on before you threw the door open. Mark looked the two of you up and down.

“Johnny is holding the elevator so no one else can get up here. We gotta go. Oh and congrats by the way,” he said before turning on his heels and making his way towards the elevator.

Jaehyun quickly pulled your face into his hands for a kiss, promising to call you soon before Johnny yelled for him to “get the hell into the lift!” and just like that they were gone again and you were left with a feeling that you couldn’t really describe — but still a peaceful one, nonetheless. You closed your hotel door finally letting your fingers flutter across your lips as they broke into a soft smile.

[uomo-accattivante]

I recently came across a bunch of press articles and photos about Oscar Isaac that are so old, they appear to be out-of-print and pre-date social media. Considering they were probably never digitally transcribed for internet access, I’m guessing that the majority of current fans have never seen this stuff.

Even though a lot of these digital scans are challenging to read because they are the original fuzzy news print, I think there some gems worth sharing with you guys. Over the next several weeks, I will transcribe and share those gems on this page. Hope you enjoy them!

Let’s start with this fantastic 2001 profile piece done before Oscar was accepted into Juilliard:

South Florida’s rising star isn’t just acting the part

By Christine Dolen - cdolen@herald.com

February 4, 2001

As fifth-graders at Westminster Christian School in Miami, Oscar Isaac and his classmates were asked to write a story as if they were animals on Noah’s Ark. Oscar turned in a seven-page play – with original music – from the perspective of a platypus. Then he starred in the production his teacher directed.

He hasn’t stopped expressing himself creatively since. Today, Isaac is one of South Florida’s busiest young theater actors, and certainly its hottest. And not just because he’s a slender five-feet nine-inches tall with an expressively handsome face and glistening brown eyes.

Since making his professional debut as a Cuban hustler in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage in July 1999, he has played an explosive Vietnam vet in Private Wars for Horizons Repertory, a pot-smoking slacker in This Is Our Youth at GableStage, another Cuban on the make in Praying With the Enemy at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the entrancing narrator of Side Man at GableStage, a Havana-based writer in Arrivals and Departures for the new Oye Rep and, most recently, a young Fidel Castro in When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba at New York’s Cherry Lane Theater.

Beginning Wednesday, he’ll be juggling five roles in City Theatre’s annual Winter Shorts festival, first at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, then at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. But that is not all: During the two weeks he is doing Winter Shorts, he’ll also be playing dates with the punk-ska band The Blinking Underdogs (www.blinkingunderdogs.com), which features him as lead singer, guitarist and songwriter.

Oh, and he just got back from auditioning for New York’s prestigious Juilliard School of Drama.

All this for a guy a month shy of his 22nd birthday.

Sure, you could hate a guy who’s that talented, that charismatic, that transparently ambitious. But the people who have worked with Oscar Isaac don’t. On the contrary, they’re all sure he has it – that magical, can’t-be-taught thing that transforms an actor into a star.

Playwright Eduardo Machado, who put in a good word for Isaac at Juilliard, says “he does have that star quality that makes your eyes go to him. It’s great that someone with that talent still wants to train.”

“He has a star quality that’s rare in a young actor,” adds Joseph Adler, who directed him in Side Man and This Is Our Youth. “Without a doubt I expect to be hearing great things from him.”

‘I JUST LOVE CREATING’

Isaac, who also makes short films, can’t say exactly why he was attracted to acting. He just knows it makes him happier than anything, that it’s what he was meant to do. And he’s been doing it since he was a 4-year-old putting on plays in his family’s backyard with his sister Nicole.

“I just love creating, whether it’s music or films or a character on a stage. I love taking people for a ride,” he says. “In Side Man, every night I would love being that close to the audience. I felt like I was talking to 80 of my closest friends.

“I could feel what the audience was feeling.”

His powerful, mournful-yet-loving monologue near the end of the play, he said, “worked every night. I knew it would get them. I’d hear sniffles.

“But it had less to do with me than with the atmosphere [created by the playwright and director].”

You could understand if Isaac, surrounded as he is by praise and possibility, had an ego as burgeoning as his career. Instead, he channels the positive reinforcement into confidence about his work.

“He has such a charm and an ease onstage, but he’s very modest,” says New York-based actress Judith Delgado, who shared the stage with Isaac in Side Man. “He’s hungry. He’s got moxie. I was blown away by him.

“He saved me a couple of times. I went up [forgot a line] and that baby boy of mine came through. He’s a joy.”

FORGING HIS OWN PATH

The son of a Cuban-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Isaac was never a stellar student. But he found ways of turning routine assignments – like the Noah’s Ark story – into creative challenges.

His science reports were inevitably video documentaries underscored with punk music. He acted through middle and high school, though he had a falling out with his drama teacher at Santaluces Community High in Lantana over his misgivings about a character. When she refused to cast him in anything else, he got his English teacher to let him play the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors his senior year.

His skepticism about authority and love of playing the devil’s advocate have long made him resist doing things the usual way. His post-high school “training” consisted of one semester at Miami-Dade Community College’s South Campus (where he met his girlfriend, Maria Miranda), touring schools playing an abusive character in the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s Breaking the Cycle, and working as a transporter of bodies at Baptist Hospital, where he absorbed the drama of people in emotionally intense situations.

“It was the most magnificent dramatic institute I could’ve attended,” Isaac said. “I was able to observe the entire spectrum of human emotion, people under the most extreme duress. I was mesmerized watching the way people interacted with each other in such heightened situations.

“I learned everything about the human condition, and it was real and harsh and brutally honest.”

Yet even given his propensity for forging his own path, something nudged him another direction while he was in New York making his Off-Broadway debut in December. Walking by Juilliard one day, he impulsively went in to ask for an application. Though the application deadline had passed, Isaac persuaded Juilliard to accept his, noting in his application essay that most of the exceptional actors he admires had acquired “a brutally efficient technique” to enhance their talent by studying at places like Juilliard.

Though he won’t know whether he has been accepted until the end of this month, his audition last weekend went well, he says. He did monologues from Henry IV, Part I and Dancing at Lughnasa, adjusting his Shakespearean Hotspur to a more fiery temperature at the suggestion of Michael Kahn, head of Juilliard’s acting program – though not without arguing that Hotspur wouldn’t be speaking to the king that way.

Isaac, not surprisingly, loves a good debate.

Adler, GableStage’s artistic director and a man who is as liberal as Isaac once was conservative, savored the verbal jousting they did during rehearsals for Side Man.

“He knows exactly how to pull my chain,” Adler says with a laugh. “Intelligence is the cornerstone of all great actors, and he’s bright as hell.

“He has relentless ambition but with so much charm. He’s very hard to say no to. He has incredible raw talent and magnetism that is very rare in a young actor along with relentless energy, perseverance and ambition. I see his growth both onstage and off. He’s mature in both places.”

Part of his growth, of course, will necessarily involve dealing with the rejections that are part of any actor’s life. His career is still too new, his string of successes solid, so it’s anyone’s guess how failure will shape him. But director Michael John Garcés, who picked him for When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba after Isaac flew to New York at his own expense to compete with a pool of seasoned Manhattan actors for the role, believes his character will see him through.

“Oscar is realistic, but he’s so willing to go the whole nine yards,” Garcés says. “He didn’t go out when he was in the show here. His focus earned the respect of the other actors, some of whom have been working in New York for 30 years.

“He hasn’t had a lot of blows yet, when the career knocks the wind out of you. But he has talent, determination and focus, and if he has perseverance – my intuition is that he does have it – he could achieve a lot.”

FAMILY TIES

His father and namesake, Baptist Hospital intensive-care physician Oscar Isaac Hernandez, couldn’t be more proud. (Isaac doesn’t use the family surname in order to avoid, in his words, being “put in that Hispanic actor box.”)

“I’m ecstatic that he’s probably going to be going to the most prestigious drama school in the United States,” he says. “School will help him focus his energies and give him discipline. He’s got the raw material and the drive.”

Isaac’s mother, Maria, divorced from his father since 1992, is a kidney-transplant recipient who acknowledges that she’ll miss her son if he moves to New York. But, she adds, she wants him “to live out his dreams. He amazes me every day. He calls me every day. I’m very proud of him.”

Even the other guys in The Blinking Underdogs are fans of Isaac’s acting, though it could take him away from South Florida just as the band appears to be, Isaac says, on the brink of signing a recording deal (it has already put out its own CD, The Last Word, with songs, lead vocals and even cover photography by Isaac.

“Oscar’s the leader of the band, a great musician who amazes me and motivates us,” says sax player Keith Cooper. “I’ve been to see every one of his plays. He’s a phenomenal actor.

“I completely buy into his role in every play. As close as I am to him, I forget it’s Oscar.”

His South Florida theater colleagues credit that to Isaac’s insatiable desire to learn and grow.

Gail Garrisan, who is directing him in Donnie and One of the Great Ones for Winter Shorts, observes, “It’s not often that you find a young actor who is willing to listen and who doesn’t think he knows everything. He loves the work.

“He really brought the young man in Side Man to life. When I saw it in New York, it seemed to be the father’s play. When I saw it here, I felt it was his [Isaac’s] play.”

Oye Rep’s John Rodaz, whom Isaac calls “the best director I’ve ever worked with,” gave the actor his first important job in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage. They met when Isaac came to see Area’s production of Oleanna and the actor, knowing Rodaz ran the theater, introduced himself.

“He has so much energy and such a sparkling personality,” Rodaz says. “He knows how to move in the world. He seems to take advantage of every situation in a good way; he’s not a cold, calculating person who’ll stab you in the back.

“[But] he wants it so badly. Everything he does, he’s the leader. When I was 21, I was taking naps.”

Rodaz coached Isaac on his Juilliard monologues and found the experience energizing.

“I got chills just watching him. That happens so rarely. I was so exhilarated when I came home that I just had to go out and run. You just know he’s got all the tools.”

Christine Dolen is The Herald’s theater critic.

###

[heresince93]

Full transcript of Gillian’s Telegraph interview

Gillian Anderson is hard to pin down. Is she American or English? (Her accent slips between the two, depending on who she is talking to.) Guarded or warm? (She can be either, based on her mood.) Tough or vulnerable? (Or both?)

'‘Because my parents were American and we lived here in the UK, there was always a sense of not quite fitting in. Because of that I’ve always felt a bit of an outsider. I have perpetuated that because that is what feels familiar to me, it is what feels comfortable,’ she explains.

When we meet Anderson is English and warm, talking about the birthday parties she has to organise (she has three children, Piper, 24, Oscar, 12, and Felix, 10); and although she is very petite, wearing white patent stiletto boots and slender black trousers, she exudes the commanding charisma that makes her perfect for her imminent roles.

Rumour has it that she will be playing Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming series of The Crown, the Netflix series created and co-written by her partner, Peter Morgan. No one is confirming this, but no one is denying it either. 

Meanwhile, this month she stars in a new Netflix series, Sex Education, in which she plays a sex therapist who lives with her teenage son (Asa Butterfield). And in February Anderson has another plum role: Margo Channing in Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove’s much-anticipated adaptation of All About Eve, also starring Lily James as Eve, with music by PJ Harvey.

The play – a modern reinterpretation of the 1950 film, which starred Bette Davis as Channing, a blazing Broadway star who is gradually supplanted by a younger rival – is about ambition and betrayal, femininity and anger, stardom and personal sacrifice.

Anderson’s is a bravura role, one that requires not just the cool intensity that we have come to expect from her, but also humour. Channing is deliciously droll, delivering endlessly quotable lines with comic precision (‘I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut’).

‘A couple of years ago my boyfriend Pete said to me, “You know what would be a great role for you? Margo Channing,”’ Anderson says. ‘So I rewatched the film and I thought, “Oh my God, how much fun would that be!”’

Anderson, not one to wait for opportunity, discovered that theatre producer Sonia Friedman had the rights to the script and was working on it with van Hove – Cate Blanchett was set to be Channing. ‘So I thought, “Ah OK, I’ll just slink into the background.” Then my agents got a call to say that she [Blanchett] had backed out due to scheduling conflicts, and there was interest, and was I interested? So I was like, “Yes! When’s the meeting? Now?”’

Van Hove, on the phone from New York, is equally excited to be working with Anderson. ‘Margo needs someone who understands what the theatre is all about, someone who can carry a play, who can occupy the whole stage, and Gillian can do that; she is a fabulous theatre actress. Although, of course, she became iconic for me in the 1990s when she was in The X-Files.’

There is something a little surprising about Ivo van Hove, an avant-garde director celebrated for his reinterpretations of plays and operas such as Hedda Gabler, Antigone and Lulu, professing fandom for a mid-’90s sci-fi series; but that is to forget the huge cultural impact of The X-Files, its quality and its ingenuity.

The series was about two FBI agents, played by Anderson and David Duchovny, who attempt to unravel various natural and supernatural mysteries. No one expected it to become such a success, least of all Anderson, who was 24 when she was cast in the show. It was her first major role and it made her a star.

She won multiple awards for her portrayal of the sceptical Dr Dana Scully, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. But such stardom often involves sacrifice and Anderson was suffering.

The production schedule for The X-Files was brutal, involving 16-hour days for nine months of the year. Furthermore, in 1994, aged 25, Anderson married Clyde Klotz, assistant art director on the series, and nine months later she gave birth to their daughter, Piper. After three years she and Klotz divorced. It was while she was pregnant that Anderson started having severe panic attacks.

‘I was having them daily,’ she explains, experiencing palpitations, numbness, ‘hallucinations, all of it’. Things didn’t get better once Piper was born. ‘I was a young mother, and shortly after that we were separating, and I was working these crazy hours. I remember periods of time when I was just crying, my make-up was being done over and over again and I was not able to stop crying.’

Anderson sought solace in meditation. ‘I went to somebody and there was a meditation we did together. We went to some quite dark places and I got to see that I could still survive those dark places, I was stronger than they were, and after that the panic attacks stopped.’

Anderson had been having panic attacks, on and off, ‘since high school’. As a teenager she was a daydreamer and a troublemaker who felt different from her peers in Michigan because of her childhood in Harringay, having left the ‘incy-bincy flat with a bathroom outside’ that she and her parents lived in when she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to the US.

‘I started falling in with groups and trying to fit in, until it got to the point when it was like, “I don’t f—ing want to fit in. I want to look completely different to all of you, and stop staring at me because I have a mohawk.” I’d shave the sides of my head with a razor blade and dye my hair different colours.’

Anderson’s parents, Rosemary and Ed, were living in Chicago and were both just 26 when she was born. Soon afterwards the family moved to London so Ed could attend film school, while Rosemary worked as a computer programmer.

‘My parents were working very hard and would often work late. I have lots of memories of playing by myself in the back garden and searching for friends in the neighbourhood because I didn’t have siblings.’

After moving back to America, Rosemary and Ed had two more children, a son and a daughter. Anderson admits that her adolescent waywardness might have been related to the arrival of two new babies in the house. ‘I made trouble and I got attention that way.’

Acting is another way to get attention, something Anderson learnt early on. ‘I remember being in a play when I was in primary school. I was meant to be a Chelsea fan. I started chewing gum on stage and blowing bubbles and got all the attention. I thought, “This is all right, everybody is watching me!”’

But when she reached 16 and started doing more professional productions in America, performing became fundamentally important to her. ‘I enjoyed the connection between performer and audience, the control. And I remember thinking, “I can do this. They are showing me I can do this.”

'It changed everything in my life, knowing I could do something. Prior to that there hadn’t been that moment yet when I found purpose and direction.’

Anderson decided that she wanted to pursue acting as a career and was accepted at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. ‘From the very start of school I didn’t go into the dorms, instead I found an apartment with a roommate in a funky neighbourhood. I was the only one who was living out of school. That is my pattern, carving my own thing.

'All through [theatre] school I dressed like I was a member of The Cure. That was how I was in the world, grungy, not considered, not mature. I was forthright and gutsy – I drove myself to Chicago in my dad’s VW van – but slightly falling apart.’

She always knew she would return to England. ‘My childhood here, the smell of north London, it has such a massive tug on me. I really felt, when we moved to the States, that I would eventually have a life back here.’

She and Piper moved to the city after The X-Files ended its original run, and she went on to have two more children, Oscar and Felix, with her now ex-boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths (there was also a marriage to British documentary maker Julian Ozanne, which lasted for two years, with the couple separating in 2006).

In the UK Anderson’s career developed in a way that might not have been expected for the golden girl of ’90s sci-fi. She took juicy roles in big-budget period dramas – Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations – and appeared on stage, at the Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse. But it was her performance in the BBC detective drama The Fall, starting in 2013, that solidified her reputation as the go-to actor for female characters who are charismatic and powerful.

Anderson, as DSI Stella Gibson, was imperious in her white silk shirts and high heels, unwavering in her pursuit of the serial killer played by Jamie Dornan. The screenwriter Allan Cubitt created the role of Gibson with Anderson in mind. ‘I wanted Gibson to be an enigmatic figure. Gillian is a riveting actress, but there is an aloofness to her as well. Also I was attempting to reclaim the idea of the powerful femme fatale, without the fatale; someone who is aware that her beauty can be used to help her ends. That she is unafraid of that was radical.’

Anderson was deeply involved in the creation of Gibson’s look, altering the way she thought about herself in the process. ‘What fascinated me about her, and I feel that we were able to find that in the costume design, was that the way she dressed never felt like it was for anyone else but her. I don’t think I have necessarily changed the way I dress since her, but I feel like I am certainly more conscious of what I wear and what it says.’

As a younger woman her style was ‘messy, like a discarded urchin’. She would wear oversized suits and ‘floppy dresses that I had probably stolen from the thrift store’. Whereas now her look is sleek, and she favours brands like Jil Sander, Prada and Dries Van Noten.

The Fall was about gender, power and desire; and it was while filming it in Belfast that Anderson began thinking more about the struggles that women face in the 21st century. ‘I was reading all these statistics about young girls being suicidal and having such low self-esteem and I thought, “Surely, given everything that we know, and the fact we are all having these feelings, can we not start a conversation about whether we want this and how to deal with it?”’

This morphed into her writing a book, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, with her friend, the writer and activist Jennifer Nadel, in 2017. Alternating between pieces by Anderson and Nadel, it details their own personal struggles, and includes practical sections on how to deal with issues such as anxiety and low self-esteem using practices such as meditation, affirmations and gratitude lists.

‘We both know how it feels to be in emotional pain,’ says Nadel. ‘Both of us have felt lost, and found a spiritual way out. Both of us have experienced radical transformation as a result of the things that we wrote about in that book.’ 

Cubitt and Nadel each say that among the most impressive things about Anderson, as a collaborator, are her focus and drive.

‘I have never met anyone with Gillian’s ability to focus. And she has a certainty about things, she is not mired in indecision,’ says Nadel. What this means is not just an incredibly long CV, but numerous satellite projects. Anderson has a line of smart, grown-up clothes that she has developed with the brand Winser London (‘I didn’t realise I was so opinionated about buttons!’).

She also works for numerous charities, focusing especially on women’s rights and environmental issues. ‘Because of my work ethic and also having had such high expectations, both of myself and other people’s of me, at such a young age, I think it became near to impossible for me to relax at all, to do anything that wasn’t work-related, so a lot of my later adult life has been trying to force myself to do that, and I struggle so hard, and sometimes I lose sight of it. So there is a part of me that wonders if I am slightly addicted [to work], I learnt it so young.’

The scant spare time that Anderson allows herself is spent ‘going to the cinema, to the theatre, watching documentaries’.

Piper, who has just completed a degree in production and costume design, is now living in her mother’s basement, and the two of them recently went on a trip to Amsterdam to see van Hove’s four-hour stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel A Little Life. That might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but Anderson loved it.

And despite all the seriousness and the self-examination (or perhaps because of it), she is good company, thoughtful and witty. She has, she says, got happier as she has got older, less self-critical, more self-accepting.

‘I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am not normal. But fortunately I have enough abnormal people around me to help me feel that it is actually OK.’

All About Eve is running at the Noël Coward Theatre from 2 February to 11 May 2019

[flexiblefish]

Source:[X]

by Gavanndra Hodge 12 JANUARY 2019

Gillian Anderson is hard to pin down. Is she American or English? (Her accent slips between the two, depending on who she is talking to.) Guarded or warm? (She can be either, based on her mood.) Tough or vulnerable? (Or both?)

'‘Because my parents were American and we lived here in the UK, there was always a sense of not quite fitting in. Because of that I’ve always felt a bit of an outsider. I have perpetuated that because that is what feels familiar to me, it is what feels comfortable,’ she explains. When we meet Anderson is English and warm, talking about the birthday parties she has to organise (she has three children, Piper, 24, Oscar, 12, and Felix, 10); and although she is very petite, wearing white patent stiletto boots and slender black trousers, she exudes the commanding charisma that makes her perfect for her imminent roles. Rumour has it that she will be playing Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming series of The Crown, the Netflix series created and co-written by her partner, Peter Morgan. No one is confirming this, but no one is denying it either. Meanwhile, this month she stars in a new Netflix series, Sex Education, in which she plays a sex therapist who lives with her teenage son (Asa Butterfield). And in February Anderson has another plum role: Margo Channing in Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove’s much-anticipated adaptation of All About Eve, also starring Lily James as Eve, with music by PJ Harvey. The play – a modern reinterpretation of the 1950 film, which starred Bette Davis as Channing, a blazing Broadway star who is gradually supplanted by a younger rival – is about ambition and betrayal, femininity and anger, stardom and personal sacrifice. Anderson’s is a bravura role, one that requires not just the cool intensity that we have come to expect from her, but also humour. Channing is deliciously droll, delivering endlessly quotable lines with comic precision (‘I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut’). ‘A couple of years ago my boyfriend Pete said to me, “You know what would be a great role for you? Margo Channing,”’ Anderson says. ‘So I rewatched the film and I thought, “Oh my God, how much fun would that be!”’ Anderson, not one to wait for opportunity, discovered that theatre producer Sonia Friedman had the rights to the script and was working on it with van Hove – Cate Blanchett was set to be Channing. ‘So I thought, “Ah OK, I’ll just slink into the background.” Then my agents got a call to say that she [Blanchett] had backed out due to scheduling conflicts, and there was interest, and was I interested? So I was like, “Yes! When’s the meeting? Now?”’ Van Hove, on the phone from New York, is equally excited to be working with Anderson. ‘Margo needs someone who understands what the theatre is all about, someone who can carry a play, who can occupy the whole stage, and Gillian can do that; she is a fabulous theatre actress. Although, of course, she became iconic for me in the 1990s when she was in The X-Files.’ There is something a little surprising about Ivo van Hove, an avant-garde director celebrated for his reinterpretations of plays and operas such as Hedda Gabler, Antigone and Lulu, professing fandom for a mid-’90s sci-fi series; but that is to forget the huge cultural impact of The X-Files, its quality and its ingenuity. The series was about two FBI agents, played by Anderson and David Duchovny, who attempt to unravel various natural and supernatural mysteries. No one expected it to become such a success, least of all Anderson, who was 24 when she was cast in the show. It was her first major role and it made her a star. She won multiple awards for her portrayal of the sceptical Dr Dana Scully, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. But such stardom often involves sacrifice and Anderson was suffering. The production schedule for The X-Files was brutal, involving 16-hour days for nine months of the year. Furthermore, in 1994, aged 25, Anderson married Clyde Klotz, assistant art director on the series, and nine months later she gave birth to their daughter, Piper. After three years she and Klotz divorced. It was while she was pregnant that Anderson started having severe panic attacks. ‘I was having them daily,’ she explains, experiencing palpitations, numbness, ‘hallucinations, all of it’. Things didn’t get better once Piper was born. ‘I was a young mother, and shortly after that we were separating, and I was working these crazy hours. I remember periods of time when I was just crying, my make-up was being done over and over again and I was not able to stop crying.’ Anderson sought solace in meditation. ‘I went to somebody and there was a meditation we did together. We went to some quite dark places and I got to see that I could still survive those dark places, I was stronger than they were, and after that the panic attacks stopped.’ Anderson had been having panic attacks, on and off, ‘since high school’. As a teenager she was a daydreamer and a troublemaker who felt different from her peers in Michigan because of her childhood in Harringay, having left the ‘incy-bincy flat with a bathroom outside’ that she and her parents lived in when she was 11 years old, when her family moved back to the US. ‘I started falling in with groups and trying to fit in, until it got to the point when it was like, “I don’t f—ing want to fit in. I want to look completely different to all of you, and stop staring at me because I have a mohawk.” I’d shave the sides of my head with a razor blade and dye my hair different colours.’ Anderson’s parents, Rosemary and Ed, were living in Chicago and were both just 26 when she was born. Soon afterwards the family moved to London so Ed could attend film school, while Rosemary worked as a computer programmer. ‘My parents were working very hard and would often work late. I have lots of memories of playing by myself in the back garden and searching for friends in the neighbourhood because I didn’t have siblings.’ After moving back to America, Rosemary and Ed had two more children, a son and a daughter. Anderson admits that her adolescent waywardness might have been related to the arrival of two new babies in the house. ‘I made trouble and I got attention that way.’ Acting is another way to get attention, something Anderson learnt early on. ‘I remember being in a play when I was in primary school. I was meant to be a Chelsea fan. I started chewing gum on stage and blowing bubbles and got all the attention. I thought, “This is all right, everybody is watching me!”’ But when she reached 16 and started doing more professional productions in America, performing became fundamentally important to her. ‘I enjoyed the connection between performer and audience, the control. And I remember thinking, “I can do this. They are showing me I can do this.” 'It changed everything in my life, knowing I could do something. Prior to that there hadn’t been that moment yet when I found purpose and direction.’ Anderson decided that she wanted to pursue acting as a career and was accepted at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. ‘From the very start of school I didn’t go into the dorms, instead I found an apartment with a roommate in a funky neighbourhood. I was the only one who was living out of school. That is my pattern, carving my own thing. 'All through [theatre] school I dressed like I was a member of The Cure. That was how I was in the world, grungy, not considered, not mature. I was forthright and gutsy – I drove myself to Chicago in my dad’s VW van – but slightly falling apart.’ She always knew she would return to England. ‘My childhood here, the smell of north London, it has such a massive tug on me. I really felt, when we moved to the States, that I would eventually have a life back here.’ She and Piper moved to the city after The X-Files ended its original run, and she went on to have two more children, Oscar and Felix, with her now ex-boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths (there was also a marriage to British documentary maker Julian Ozanne, which lasted for two years, with the couple separating in 2006).

In the UK Anderson’s career developed in a way that might not have been expected for the golden girl of ’90s sci-fi. She took juicy roles in big-budget period dramas – Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations – and appeared on stage, at the Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse. But it was her performance in the BBC detective drama The Fall, starting in 2013, that solidified her reputation as the go-to actor for female characters who are charismatic and powerful. Anderson, as DSI Stella Gibson, was imperious in her white silk shirts and high heels, unwavering in her pursuit of the serial killer played by Jamie Dornan. The screenwriter Allan Cubitt created the role of Gibson with Anderson in mind. ‘I wanted Gibson to be an enigmatic figure. Gillian is a riveting actress, but there is an aloofness to her as well. Also I was attempting to reclaim the idea of the powerful femme fatale, without the fatale; someone who is aware that her beauty can be used to help her ends. That she is unafraid of that was radical.’ Anderson was deeply involved in the creation of Gibson’s look, altering the way she thought about herself in the process. ‘What fascinated me about her, and I feel that we were able to find that in the costume design, was that the way she dressed never felt like it was for anyone else but her. I don’t think I have necessarily changed the way I dress since her, but I feel like I am certainly more conscious of what I wear and what it says.’ As a younger woman her style was ‘messy, like a discarded urchin’. She would wear oversized suits and ‘floppy dresses that I had probably stolen from the thrift store’. Whereas now her look is sleek, and she favours brands like Jil Sander, Prada and Dries Van Noten. The Fall was about gender, power and desire; and it was while filming it in Belfast that Anderson began thinking more about the struggles that women face in the 21st century. ‘I was reading all these statistics about young girls being suicidal and having such low self-esteem and I thought, “Surely, given everything that we know, and the fact we are all having these feelings, can we not start a conversation about whether we want this and how to deal with it?”’ This morphed into her writing a book, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere, with her friend, the writer and activist Jennifer Nadel, in 2017. Alternating between pieces by Anderson and Nadel, it details their own personal struggles, and includes practical sections on how to deal with issues such as anxiety and low self-esteem using practices such as meditation, affirmations and gratitude lists. ‘We both know how it feels to be in emotional pain,’ says Nadel. ‘Both of us have felt lost, and found a spiritual way out. Both of us have experienced radical transformation as a result of the things that we wrote about in that book.’ Cubitt and Nadel each say that among the most impressive things about Anderson, as a collaborator, are her focus and drive. ‘I have never met anyone with Gillian’s ability to focus. And she has a certainty about things, she is not mired in indecision,’ says Nadel. What this means is not just an incredibly long CV, but numerous satellite projects. Anderson has a line of smart, grown-up clothes that she has developed with the brand Winser London (‘I didn’t realise I was so opinionated about buttons!’). She also works for numerous charities, focusing especially on women’s rights and environmental issues. ‘Because of my work ethic and also having had such high expectations, both of myself and other people’s of me, at such a young age, I think it became near to impossible for me to relax at all, to do anything that wasn’t work-related, so a lot of my later adult life has been trying to force myself to do that, and I struggle so hard, and sometimes I lose sight of it. So there is a part of me that wonders if I am slightly addicted [to work], I learnt it so young.’ The scant spare time that Anderson allows herself is spent ‘going to the cinema, to the theatre, watching documentaries’. Piper, who has just completed a degree in production and costume design, is now living in her mother’s basement, and the two of them recently went on a trip to Amsterdam to see van Hove’s four-hour stage adaptation of the Hanya Yanagihara novel A Little Life. That might not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but Anderson loved it. And despite all the seriousness and the self-examination (or perhaps because of it), she is good company, thoughtful and witty. She has, she says, got happier as she has got older, less self-critical, more self-accepting. ‘I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am not normal. But fortunately I have enough abnormal people around me to help me feel that it is actually OK.’

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Most Gorgeous Photos of Russian Brides

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Most Gorgeous Photos of Russian Brides

Most Gorgeous Photos of Russian Brides

Because it frequently takes place, fame and money can’t buy pleasure. Furthermore, a complete great deal of famous actresses and vocalists are not even close to residing a pleased life: many flings result in breakups, plus some males aren’t constantly prepared to invest their life close to a hollywood. Besides, stunning, effective, and solitary celebs don’t rush to begin a household. Possibly they usually haven’t yet found the person of the hopes and dreams, plus some of them simply don’t like to lose their freedom. We come up with a a number of 17 many breathtaking (and unmarried) Russian female a-listers.

17) Olga Buzova

Our listing of hot Russian brides starts with Olga Buzova, a remarkablyversatile Russian news individual. This woman effectively proved herself on tv, radio, fashion industry, cinema, music, as well as publishing. In 2007, Olga ended up being granted the status of “The Many fashionable and Bright Blonde in Russia.” In 2012, the lady hitched a football player dmitry that is russian Tarasov, however the couple’s household life finished in divorce proceedings during the extremely end of 2016. Now Olga is within the the surface of the news that is russian. Recently, she completed the job regarding the music movie on her behalf brand new solitary.

16) Adelina Sotnikova

Adelina Sotnikova may be the very first and just Olympic that is russian champion ladies’ singles. She came to be in Moscow on July 1, 1996. The lady happens to be involved in figure skating considering that the chronilogical age of four. Adelina’s complaisant character and her diligence quickly paid down. Compliment of training that is intensive the lady been able to win the Russian Figure Skating Championship in 2008. Following the triumph during the Olympics, the lady became A russian celebrity. Adelina happens to be considered a young son or daughter prodigy. In the chronilogical age of 13, she reached an expert degree numerous adult athletes can simply desire. Sotnikova devotes her time that is free to cinema.

15) Anna Sedokova

Anna Sedokova is really a pop music singer, television presenter, and actress. Considering that theearliest youth, Anna learned music and dancing and graduated with honors from the music college in piano. During the early 2000, Anna took part in the casting for a fresh pop that is female, that was later on called “VIA Gra.” This girl’s that is russian in such publications as Maxim and Playboy. In 2008, Anna became A television presenter, getting the name associated with the sexiest television presenter in Russia the year that is same. Since 2010, Anna is studying acting at Scott Sedita Acting Studio in western Hollywood. The lady ended up being hitched twice and contains three kiddies. In 2017, Anna split up along with her boyfriend, Russian businessman Artyom Komarov.

14) Svetlana Khodchenkova

Svetlana is really an actress that is russian celebrity of several television shows, films, and worldwide movie tasks. To conquer self-doubt, Svetlana chose toget in on the model college. The choice to become an actress stumbled on Svetlana quite unexpectedly: the girl just chose to try by by herself in acting. This went well, plus in 2011, she decided to go to the Isles that is british to for the shooting of this famous thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier. In 2013, Svetlana went along to Japan to be a part of another Hollywood blockbuster: The Wolverine. Since 2011, the girl have been dating a Moscow businessman Georgiy Petrishin. In 2015, Petrishin proposed towards the actress, however they ultimately split up. Now Svetlana is solitary, which can be uncommon for sexy Russian brides like her.

13) Valeriya Kaufman

The model that is russian Kaufman came to be in Moscow in 1994. The lady has been engaged in dance since early years. At the start of 2010, she delivered her pictures a number of modeling agencies in ny, getting an invite into the casting held by Tom Ford. Valeriya’s modeling job developed quickly. In March 2015, this breathtaking girl’s photo that is russian showed up regarding the address of Vogue Russia, after which it she received invites to indulge in programs by such fashion homes as Chanel, Dior, and Valentino. Your ex additionally took part in fashion programs by Oscar de la Renta and Tom Ford, promotional initiatives of eminent brands, and became the Victoria’s Secret “angel.” Although Valeriya is not hitched, this woman is presently in the relationship with Jared Leto.

12) Anastasia Volochkova

a ballerina that is stunning Volochkova the most prominent numbers of Russian show company. Constant attention through the press, and the public that eagerly catches every information regarding the star’s life: all of this is a result of both the beauty’s success and effective black colored PR. In 2007, Anastasia married a businessman that is russian Vdovin but later admitted that the marriage ceremony ended up being fictitious, plus they didn’t marry formally. In 2005, she provided delivery to her child Ariadne. Relating to news reports, a 12 months later on, the quarrels began showing up amongst the newlyweds that resulted in a breakup, nevertheless the few stayed buddies.

11) Dana Borisova

Dana Borisova is really an actress that is russian journalist, and television presenter, whom ruins insulting stereotypes about blond ladies. Dana does not stop attracting the attention regarding the press, even with she started showing up less in public areas. During her college years, Dana ended up being the host of the Russian tv series for teens called “Zebra.” The actress’s life that is personal been complicated. Her job skyrocketed in 1996 whenever Borisova did just just exactly what no television presenter through the Soviet that is former Union to accomplish prior to: she showed up nearly naked within the photo aim for Playboy. Although Dana had a couple of romances, she still stays solitary.

10) Anna Semenovich

Another celebrity that is single our directory of sexy Russian brides is really a Russian figure skater, actress, television presenter, and pop music singer Anna Semenovich. Anna was created in 1980 in Moscow. Your ex arrived to work skating in the chronilogical age of three. Currently during her college years, Anna obtained results that are remarkable activities. She usually took part in tournaments, including ones abroad. Anna’s activities biography has bright pages, such as the name associated with champ of Russia. Along with her stunning appearance and artistry that is innate Anna additionally was able to build a vocation on tv. This cutie’s life that is personal for ages been the main focus of slutty russian brides attention of fans and reporters. She had been considered to have many affairs, but the majority of these ended up being rumors. Now the lady is busy along with her music job.

9) Vika Falileeva

With regards to Russian beauties’ photos, it is impossible not forgetting Victoria Falileeva. Vika was created on 18, 1993, in Irkutsk, Russia june. Considering that the early age, her slender human anatomy and gorgeous face attracted the attention of scouts from various model agencies. The Russian that is young model is now popular within the fashion world despite her reasonably age that is small. Vika started initially to work with the model agency that is russian. She participated in shows of such brands as Chloe, Louis Vuitton, Elie Saab, and Gianfranco Ferre and posed for H&M, Tommy Hilfiger, Blumarine, and Diesel. This gorgeous and unmarried blonde that is green-eyed lives in ny.

8) Maria Sharapova

A world-famous Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova was created within the remote Siberian town of Nyagan on April 19, 1987. Masha began tennis that is playing quite early. During the chronilogical age of four, the lady currently knew simple tips to hold a racket. Fame found Maria in July 2004. In 2006, Sports Illustrated named her the absolute most gorgeous sportswoman regarding the year after she won The Wimbledon Cup. In July 2012, Sharapova carried the Russian banner at the opening ceremony of this Olympic Games in London. In August 2013, Maria presented her assortment of fashion add-ons called “Sugarpova” in ny. The exact exact exact same 12 months this breathtaking girl’s that is russian starred in Esquire.

7) Olga Seryabkina

The person in the pop that is russian SEREBRO Olga Seryabkina does not really her life being underneath the close attention from the paparazzi. Aside from performing within the musical organization, Olga can be busy together with her solamente profession underneath the stage name Holy Molly. Olya came to be on 1985 in Moscow april. Her profession in Russian show company started in 2002. Like other celebs, Olga has her hobbies and oddities. As an example, she’s afraid dolls that are of. It is called pediophobia. In addition to this, Olga is keen on vehicles and likes cruising around Moscow through the night. But Olga’s favorite entertainment is experimenting along with her appearance.

6) Polina Favorskaya

Polina Favorskaya is just A russian singer and the next person in the feminine pop musical organization SEREBRO. Your ex came to be on November 21, 1991, in Volgograd, Russia. Because the chronilogical age of seven, she started showing her skill for music and vocals. In 2012, Polina took part in a few television shows. In 2014, your ex ended up being invited to SEREBRO, but 3 years later on, at the conclusion of 2017 august, the band’s producer Max Fadeev announced that Polina had been making the musical organization. The lady was at a relationship by having A russian singer, musician, and producer Val Nikolsky. Their relationship started in 2012 once the few took part in one of many shows, but many years later on|years that are few they separated. Our listing of Russian beauties’ images wouldn’t be complete without Polina.

5) Nastya Kusakina

Green-eyed elf – that’s just how Nastya is known as within the fashion globe. Whenever she switched fourteen, Nastya got a work when you look at the Russian “Elite Style” model agency. Last year, she started using the services of the Moscow agency “Avant.” Nastya was able to work not just in Russia in Asia, where she participated in Chanel’s show making shootings that are several neighborhood mags. Until recently, Nastya’s many work that is notable the marketing campaign for the aesthetic business Sephora. A famous designer at the Fashion Week in Milan Raf Simons invited Nastya to open up the show associated with the perfume Jil Sander, which provided another boost to her modeling job. Now there’s no right time for severe relationships in this hot bride’s that are russian.

4) Anna Selezneva

Anna is just a Russian model, the most gorgeous and effective people in the modeling company today. Her brown locks and fathomless blue eyes won’t leave you indifferent. Anna participated in the programs associated with the fashion that is best homes, like Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Lanvin, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, and others that are many. The girl during the early stages of her career had been usually in comparison to Kate Moss. Relating to Vogue France, Anna is among the very best 30 most well known types of the realm of 2010. Your ex additionally got the 23rd spot when you look at the score regarding the world’s top models in line with the Influential web site that is us and attained the 4th i’m all over this record of Russian beauties’ images.

3) Sophia Lomyga

Sophia is just a Russian model. A clothing that is ukrainian Kira Plastinina chose her face for the autumn-winter 2010/2011 marketing campaign, along with her pictures appeared in many publications Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Cosmopolitan beauty, Wedding, and Glamor. In the exact exact same time, your ex takes component at the fashion that is leading. But Sophia’s most significant success is participation into the worldwide marketing campaign for OLAY cream. She additionally starred in other advertising campaigns, Web catalogs of Benetton and Sisley, and worked in Singapore, Japan, Asia, Taiwan, and Greece.

2) Nastasya Samburskaya

Nastasya Russian actress, singer, and television presenter. After graduating from the Russian Institute of Theater Art, Nastasya started part that is taking different theatrical productions. She played both heroes that are fairy-tale severe dramatic functions. In 2012, she appeared regarding the covers mags as Maxim and iFamous. The exact exact exact same year, your ex partner starred in an episodic part in the Russian TV series “Swallow’s Nest” and released her first solitary, as well as in 2013, she held her solo that is first concert among the Moscow groups. Additionally in 2013, Nastasya’s pictures appeared regarding the covers of Playboy Russia and Playboy Ukraine. In 2015, she became the real face for the BodyLab fitness project. In 2016, Nastasya a relationship aided by the Belarusian singer Alexander Ivanov, nevertheless the few split up.

1) Polina Maksimova

Polina Maksimova is really a Russian actress and TV presenter. The lady ended up being destined to associate her life with a performing profession. Her grandfather had been an star, along with her dad and mum finished from the theatrical school that is high. In 2006, after graduating from college, Polina joined the Mikhail Shchepkin Greater Theatre University. In 2012, the lady participated in an image shoot for The issue of Maxim july. In 2015, Polina started her profession as being a television presenter. In 2016, the star said that her heart is vacant, but she april is in search of , bold, and laconic guy. Polina’s bright and gorgeous appearance make her the spot that is first our directory of Russian girls in bikini.

[musesandmannequinesbook3]

The Mermaid and a fairy

   Dressed in a long, flowing, ribbon-shoulder-strapped satin and lace, decollette slipdress, a fairy stood in silent solitude amidst the moss-clinging rock and fern-encrusted driftwood beneath the black and star-filled quietude of the night. The soft rush of the sea-waves brushed upon the white sand like an angel combing the long strands of a siren's hair, having fallen in Love's devotion to her beauty, enchantment, and ethereal tenderness. A pair of sandpipers froliced along the edge of the water and beach reaching low for sea-urchins sent upon the sand. The ruth of the washing sea-water softly cooled and caressed the fairy's very slender, very pale toes, her fragile feet bare in the wet sand.    By the tiny, delicate wrist-watch she held fragilely yet firmly in the grasp of her frail hand, it would soon be the fourth of December. The devoted fairy had been given a book, perhaps a mere legend, a fairy-tale written for the sprites and waifs -- those orphans of urban storms to wish for something more grand, more merciful, more joyful to interrupt their forgotten sorrows, their unbequested misery, their few-and-far-between gifts of delightful glee and tender warmth: a pair of shoes, a spinning yo-yo, a rag doll to embrace during the bitter cold, fearful nights.    The story went that on the turning night of the third of December, when the moon was cast in an orange-golden glow and around it a halo of the brightest white-light, and two raven-black sandpipers paused their unnotided, noble flight to bathe their ebony-coal black feathers in the brush of the whirling waves -- here at this isolated, desolate place where once a true princess waited two entire years for her knightly brother to return home from a battle-torn place with its buildings rubbled, its people huddled in dark cellars, in levee cisterns and sewers dank and rotten and haunting -- upon 3this very spot in the far-reaching sand which seemed to parallel the horizon of sea and sky, a mermaid appeared to remember the love the princess lost: for her brother never returned and, so, she drowned in deeper sorrow than the depth of the sea.    The mermaid -- whose hair was as silvery as snow-frost sparkling upon the sand-dunes at night-time, when the moon and the stars beamed low and long, rays of thin, near-transparent illumination bridging the heavens with the land and the little pebbles niched delicately in the sand -- was no ordinary mermaid. For her body and its frame were totally mortal, her fins and tail having fallen long ago for she never returned to the sea which had taken the beautiful and true princess unemotionally and unregretfuly. Upon the sand, amidst the sawgrass and beached logs of wood, the mermaid had planted "forget-me-not" wildflower seeds and called them all "Magdalene," which was the loving, lovely princess's name. It was written in this fable forlorn, the mermaid would walk down and up the long stretch of the sea and sand -- itself a soliliquy of graceful beauty, of solemn peacefulness -- until her gentle, velvety-soft hands, fine as gossamer threading a thistle to a thorn, grew so weary and numb from planting the "forget-me-not" wildflower seeds -- countless "Magdalenes" to sift into the star-sparkling sand -- she woould vanish finally like a bird in the mist upon the wings she was given sewn where once were scales of green sea-shells and corals which shined like diamonds. Upon her lithe, thin-framed body -- like a silhouette-beam of the moon -- the mermaid was clothed in pure white cotton and washed silk: a gown so sheerly skintight the tiny buds of her skinny breats shone like unoped rose sepals misty in the night-air with the enlacing wind shimmering translucent. Or, so it was written, this fable of sorrow, this tale probably as hollow as the soul of the fairy, or so she thought to herself as she waiting patiently amidst the cold rocks and the old fern. The tiny hands on the delicate wrist-watch turned to 2 A.M., the fourth of December.    the curls of the fairy's long black hair swirled in the gentle night-wind and waved in the air like circles of chimney-smoke from old New England Life calendars -- visual expressions of quaint, innocent, Grace-given days when moms and dads made homemade pies and mended basketball nets tattered from neighborhood kids playing in old alleys once made for the garbage trucks to pass through. Her eyes' irises shined incandescently like a pair of rainbows in a Buckeye June when after a gladfelt rain the sun beams, oh so, merrily. Sadly, the fairy stood leaning against the limestone and wood, her narrow, bare feet cleansed by the rime and ruth of the sea and the sand and the marrow of the fern, dancing in the shallow water like tinsel hallowed upon Christmas Eve.    Then, the alluring, beautiful mermaid, this vision of loveliness undefinable, began to walk along the sand reaching into unseen pockets, her seeds of "forget-me-not" wildflowers she tenderly tossed into the misty air to fall softly, faintly onto the shining sand. At first, the fairy thought to run towards her, for ahe moved as swiftly as Peggy Fleming on ice but she decided to wait a little longer, still holding gingerly the delicate wrist=watch in her, now, quivering hand.    Suddenly, the scintillating mermaid turned around, her pencil-thin silhouette askance of the sea. She seemed to to glance uncertain, yet, unnerved to where the fairy stood hidden in the shadow of the fern-hewn stones. The fairy bowed low, kneeling behind the time-glossed rock, afraid the mermaid had seen her unsolicited, trespassing watch. The tall, spindle-framed mermaid, then, quietly turned around again, letting the "forget-me-not" seeds fall here, there, and anywhere, even into the ruth of the sea.    Now, more confidently and courageously the fairy left her hiding-place to begin to soundlessly follow the enchanting mermaid, now, far down the undulating line of the sea and sand, its moving edge an outline of curves and waves as immeasuarble and certain as the wind and flight of two raven-black sandpipers now floating their own weaving pattern just above the swift stride of the mermaid disappearing, then, re-appearing in the misty threads of the moonlit night and its light gleaming grandly upon this sandscape of pure beauty, grace, solemnity, and tranquility as if borrowed from a "Blue Marvel" mesmerizing scene from its "Sunrise Earth."    Softly, then, lifting quickly her bare, vein-woven feet in the white, wet sand, the fairy grew afraid she had missed her chance to give her gift and, even, perhaps to touch tenderly the ring-threaded, fragile fingertips of the mermaid, who like the silence of a church-bell yet to ring its beckoning sound seemed to be waiting for some unknown, unseen cue. For a moment the mist enshrouded the beautiful mermaid's ethereal vision, then, open like a magical theatre curtain to show the leading actress move like a gamine-like fair lady in effortless movement: the dream of the far-away spotlight to illuminate her lovely vision more clearly.    Strangely, to the fairy, while her footprints made indelible marks in the sand, even when the sea=waves brushed tenderly its water over them, there were no footprints left behind to mark the passive passage of the seductive siren as she made her way along the beach. So, the loving fairy hurried her steps, longing to meet, to speak to the entrancing mermaid growing smaller, more invisible in the unlessened distance.    At last, the anxious, breathless fairy was within, perhaps, thirty feet of the ision-beautiful mermaid. her long, skintight slipdress seemed to even more enchantingly, entrancingly, more defining the lovely outline of her ribs and collarbone as visible as a crossing delicate, slender vine on a trellis of wildflowers: her tiny, thin curves of her breasts, pale pink as two tulips blossoming in the Olympia Mountains. Her face was more beautiful than any face the fairy had ever seen. It shone brighter than the moon, her cheekbones sculpted as an angel who guards the oldest cenetery in France, divinely chiseled by an enwrapt artist. Her nose and lips glistened like bluebells in the mist pastoral, peaceful meadowed vale. Her eyes gleamed more blue than the most serene September sky when the mist of Dawn hovers majestically above a hallowed landscape made only for tiny flowers and the gentle, demure deer.    The fairy stood transfixed, the sea-waves brushing continually across her pale feet mixing with the sand creating velvet-like slippers upon her weary ankles. The wind upon the sandscape uplift in the moon-lit, star-drift night, seemed to the enwrapped, enlaced fairy more comforting  than the softest hand-made, hand-woven quilt of he blessed Appalachian antiquity. The mystified, loving fairy reached out her long, thin, pale arms and her hands trenbling, still clutching the delicate wristwatch she wished to give to the angelic, siren-like mermaid, now as corporeal as she. The only sounds were the soft rush of the waves, the tender, weaving wind, and the whispering song of the sandpipers still hovering nearly invisible, like opaque raindrops upon a window, above the mermaid's lovely, enlacing, silhouette beautiful in the ascending night.    Without saying a word, like Marion Davies in a 1920's silent film the mermaid smiled joyously, freely, lovingly as if she somehow knew why the awkward, wayward fairy was there, as if she were her forever-friend. Apprehensively but reverently the fairy took a little step forward, her hand which cradled the wrist-watch opened like a wood-lily softly, finally opening its sepals to the glory of Dawn. With her beautiful, scintillating face lightly adorned with pastel drops of tiny shells and forget-me-not petals, she delicately dipped downward her profile, her tender eyes glancing at the sand. Then, above her, the sandpipers called like a tympany at the climax of a symphony and the mermaid disappeared in a soft flash of light, like a spotlight suddenly turned on, then, just as suddenly turned off. There was no sign of the lovely mermaid. She had vanished like a wisp in the night, like the breath of a kiss in a dream awakened.    The anguished fairy moved to where the vision-beautiful mermaid had just stood and she, too, looked down sadly, her heart filled with sorrow, a little ashamed at her self-boldness. Yet, upon the sand lay a long, white feather: one which had fallen unnoticedly from the mermaid's graceful wings which has opened right before she disappeared with the sandpipers. And beneath the feather etched in the sand, drawn in longhand was her message to her faithful fairy follower -- "Truthfully, I thank you for the lovely, delicate wrist-watch but our time, our love is eternal."    The fairy fell upon her knobby knees beside the mermaid's message. She tenderly took the feather into her trembling hands and to her gleeful, blissful lips she kissed the feather softly. The waves of the sea swept across the mermaid's words beginning to wash them away. The wind gingerly brushed her eyes, her tears of jubilation, like a mother's loving devotion to her once-lonely daughter, like Annie Sullivan wistfully wiping the tears form Helen Keller's joyful, esctatic eyes for now she could see, she could hear, she could talk. And the moon brightened this place with a fabled kind of grace written only in a fairy-tale for the orphans of the stormy seas, their longing dreams of glee, like a magical miracle, at long last, made real.

                    tenderly rendered by Dove Willow, March 24, 2017  

copyrighted 2017