#Jonathan Lear

[collapseofindustrialcivilization]

Capitalism’s Death Cult: How Corporations Weaponize Hope to Sell Extinction

The Corporate Leviathan Unbound In the shadow of melting glaciers and burning forests, a new aristocracy reigns supreme, unbound by borders or morality. Transnational corporations, the hydra-headed architects of our unraveling future, operate with an impunity that would make medieval warlords blush. These entities are not mere participants in the global economy; they are its overlords, wielding…

[shakespearenews]

A month of Shakespeare News! 2/4:

When forgery makes you literally pull out your own hair, something has gone terribly wrong. Plus David Tennant thinks that he is “a very obvious Andrew Aguecheek," Sherlockians get pedantic about "Twelfth Night," and a neck implant that shocks you if you quote "Hamlet" too much (fictional).

[jbcatboyedits]

*Me on Saturday seeing I had Reddit notifications and my twitter was not loading*

"somethings happened in the FFXIV fandom: Dawntrails Date drop?"

Well I guess I have to edit the video stills

Lol yeah, two mentions in under six months what's going on? I'm happy but I'm never getting used to hearing him talk about G'raha.

[vickster51]

Theatre to See in 2025!

Yes, I know we’re in mid-January, but there’s so much exciting theatre coming to the UK (and beyond) this year that I wanted to take my time with this post. It includes the theatre shows I’m most looking forward to (hopefully) seeing in 2025, that we know of so far, because the great thing about theatre is that new shows continue to be announced during the year for the months ahead. I always love…

[baltears]

finally reading bell hooks all about love and considering how im going to integrate it into a probably multiple hours long explanation of how to read westworld is maybe one of the most fulfilling and joyful things ive ever tried to do for myself. she was so right and i am so right and nolan & joy know. they Know. when my baked ass watching the show for the first time got to the end of season 1 episode 2 and was like oh holy shit. this is a story about love. not romantic love per se although that is a significant thread of the story but more broadly about a love ethic. and at the heart of this story is a deep and unkillable seed of faith in the potential for human goodness and interdependency that persists through all the horrors we live through. i was so fucking right. the dream that we can make possible by believing in its possibility, that somehow impossibly at some future time after all is lost and destroyed we can find a way to persist and exist in connection and community together because our love ethic will sustain us somehow. such a kierkegaardian idea that i had to dig up my copy of fear and trembling and ill be reading that and taking notes as well. even when there is no hope left for this world we still hold onto hope for the next. westworld is the narrative ever i love you alive show

[widowshill]

oml I used to be so fine with gore and I’ve gotten so squeamish in my old age.

[wistaliia]

i know he's quoting king lear but lately jonathan's "stop, that way madness lies" has been the best way to stop doom spiraling

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with The Guardian (2025)

The actor Jonathan Bailey sits at a large table in an otherwise empty room: charcoal cable knit sweater, loose pinstripe trousers, hair neatly coiffed. He is chewing gum, sipping coffee, talking through his recent career, and a certain serendipity that has rendered him reflective. At 36, he’s fresh from his turn as likely-lad love interest Fiyero in Hollywood’s blockbuster adaptation of Wicked; as a child, seeing the stage show was a milestone for him. “I remember thinking Fiyero was such a good part.” Later this year he will star in Jurassic World Rebirth alongside Mahershala Ali and Scarlett Johansson. “I saw the original Jurassic Park with my family, aged six, at the cinema,” he says. “It was the first time we all went together to something like that. It was seminal, but so rare for us.”

And this month, Bailey will star in Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, directed by Nicholas Hytner. Bailey is its protagonist. It is another example of full-circle career moment. In 2013, he appeared on stage in Hytner’s Othello. Same playwright, same director, same city – Bailey can’t help but consider all that’s changed in the intervening years. “Back then I was too young,” he says. “I came into the rehearsal process not mature or confident enough.”

Landing the role of Cassio, one of Othello’s lieutenants, had been so important to him then. “I didn’t go to drama school,” he says, “and there was a common belief that if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be able to do classical texts, or perform in the big theatres. There are all these stories we are born into that we have to unpick. For me, one of those was how limited I felt.”

Bailey remembers the day that changed. “It was late December,” he says, “and I was walking along London’s South Bank.” He was on his way to the National Theatre to meet Hytner for a callback. “I’d worked so hard and for so many reasons it felt…” He cuts himself off, then goes on, “Working at the National was beyond my wildest dreams.”

Bailey performed the two scenes he’d prepared. Then, Hytner unexpectedly suggested a third, which Bailey hadn’t rehearsed. “I’m not very good at just reading and going,” he says. “I can’t really come up with… Anyway, I went with instincts. He offered me the job in the room. It was a defining moment in my career.”

All sorts of opportunities followed for Bailey: American Psycho at the Almeida; Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s TV debut Crashing; King Lear opposite Ian McKellen; BBC satirical sitcom W1A. He was made very famous for playing a leading Lothario in Bridgerton, the Netflix behemoth. “Now being back with Nick,” he says. “I have a much fuller and more cherished understanding of him as a human as well as a director. Getting back into a room with him now, with all that’s happening, just felt obvious.” Hytner’s praise for Bailey is just as high: “He can speak Shakespeare like it’s his first language… The stage is his element.”

It’s Wednesday lunchtime, early January, in a central London studio space. We’re meeting halfway through five weeks of Richard II rehearsals in full swing a few floors below us. He’s sitting at a large table. In front of him is a bulky script covered in yellow highlights. “It’s only half,” he says, flicking through, playful panic in his voice. “Not only that, I’ve thinned it, and taken out the scenes I’m not in, which feels very Richard II.”

It’s Bailey’s first stage production since 2022. Through Bridgerton, he has been exposed to a global audience. But theatre is where it all began. “So returning to the stage, now, just felt so right. And I don’t think I’ve changed at all, even if certain things around me have.” It has taken some adjustment, this new level of “Black Mirror-esque” notoriety that he’s experiencing. It’s why he likes the intimacy of these rehearsals, after months spent on sprawling film sets. And he’s enjoying being based in London for an extended period, close to friends and family.

Bailey is charming, handsome and self-effacing as we talk, but doesn’t seem entirely at ease. That gum chewing is fervent now; he’s fiddling with what’s in front of him. He habitually self-edits as he speaks. There’s a vagueness that, at times, feels purposeful. At regular intervals, he simply stops mid-sentence.

Take the play itself. “It’s such an incredible, searing interrogation of power, government and monarchy…” he says. “You have someone with the cast-iron right to rule, who is absolutely unfit to lead, emotionally underdeveloped… And Shakespeare wrote to be played, not published. There are so many references and nuances to what an Elizabethan audience would have understood… It’s about translating it from that, and delivering it to a modern audience, so the effect hopefully has the same vivid fervency and front-footedness especially politically and especially in this instance with monarchy and leadership.”

It sounds interesting. So where is he turning to for inspiration for his tyrannical overlord? I ask. Trump? King Charles? The Saudis?

“That’s for the viewer to see. I have very clear ideas and I hope the audience will, too…”

He won’t be drawn. I’m curious as to why. He shakes his head.

“You’ll have to come and see it.”

Later, over email, Hytner is more forthright: “The play wonders what happens when an entirely legitimate leader is set on ruining the country he leads. No good options. Submit or resist – either way you end up with chaos.”

Ahead of Wicked’s late-November release, there was a preview screening in Sydney. “It was part of this massive press tour, but for me it only lasted two weeks. The girls are incredible,” Bailey says of his co-stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, plugging the project for months on end. “And they’re still at it, still shining.”

In Oz, Bailey went along with one of his sisters and her two daughters in tow. It was the first time he’d sat back and watched the film properly. “I was so overwhelmed,” he says. “Even now, it makes me quite emotional. If there was the purest form of joy I had as a kid, it was singing and dancing.”

His family was based between Reading and Oxford. Bailey has three older sisters. As a child, he’d be dropped at basketball club at the local village hall. “From outside, I could see my sister’s ballet lessons through the window. I wanted to be in there with them. I’d go and wait at the back of their class in my Velcro trainers.” He enrolled. “I was obsessed and loved it. Dancing and singing felt like a vocation.”

Music also filled the family home. By the time Bailey was 10, his sisters would go out clubbing. “The next morning, they’d come back, and I’d get them, hungover, to do impressions of their different friends dancing.” It was a family affair. “We loved 90s club classics. Me, Mum, Dad and my sisters went through a phase of going into the new room – we had an extension, then called it that for 20 years – and we’d put on vinyls and dance, all of us.”

One day, he stopped. “I don’t know what happened,” he says, “for whatever reason, I didn’t confidently carry through the dancing. I got self-conscious in my teens that it was signalling something else. It just didn’t feel… I probably just knew it was better to be playing rugby than dancing. I became really self-conscious. There weren’t other dudes dancing.” One teacher called Bailey a “fairy” in front of his entire class. “In your teenage years it’s so raw. You lose your skin. And there are certain things in life,” he says, “that allow people to think they know something about you, and those assumptions mean you stop doing something you love. You curb or you police yourself. You don’t make the joke, or say the quip. You don’t stand up and advocate for yourself or your friends. And you start to slowly crumple. That’s purely on the basis of this idea of signalling. These stereotypes.”

One becomes fearful, he continues, of the immense hurt that others can cause. “Even more pain than binding yourself up slowly and creating a space of safety and refuge in your own mind or heart. That’s where it gets dangerous and people stop doing the things they’re supposed to. And how brilliant that we…” He pauses, surprised, concerned even – it seems – by how much he’s sharing. “It’s a scary time, isn’t it. On the one hand, I do think there’s such a… People are so much more open-minded about what defines masculinity now. What defines heterosexuality. What defines gender. But on the other hand, there’s a swing, obviously, towards… Anyway, that one will have to be a dot-dot-dot for you.”

It’s not that Bailey dropped performing as a child, only that things took off in a different direction. Back in ballet class, there’d been a callout from the Royal Shakespeare Company. “They needed young boys to play Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.” He was seven years old. “My parents weren’t sure. It was so outside their world.” His mum worked in the NHS. “And Dad was a DJ, basically, in Piccadilly Circus at [70s nightclub] Snoopys.” But a child actor? “It’s a big ask, from a kid. I was really protected by them, but they gave me this opportunity.” He was cast, and continued to be through school. “It was extraordinary, really. I didn’t miss any lessons. By 13, I’d done three productions for the RSC, and a stint in the West End. All before I hit puberty.” Then came his first Shakespeare production: Prince Arthur in King John at the Barbican with the RSC. “I was 12 or 13, and that set me on another course. ‘Fuck, OK, you can also do this.’” The memories are visceral, even now: “The sickly, sweet smell of fake blood. Dry ice. All those senses. I was taken. That’s maybe where my creative juices were channelled more, over singing and dancing.”

He has worked solidly since his teenage years. Bridgerton, though, catapulted him to stardom. Afterwards, says Bailey, “I was contending with how things would change in my life.” The press introduction, a growing, global fandom, interest in his personal life and sexuality… “On one hand,” he says, “the success of Bridgerton, being able to play that role, and for who I am not to affect people’s perceptions; the love story between a man and a woman.” He pauses, again. Oh, actually.” Some nervous laughter. “It’s just, I’m cautious. I’m who I am and always will be. It’s an extraordinary thing to see and hear the word ‘gay’ next to your name all the time. It’s something I’m incredibly proud of, but it’s also not something anyone else would be defined by. So to go straight from Bridgerton, where inevitably that was talked about, to do a series like Fellow Travellers? It came along like some sort of beacon.”

Fellow Travellers, a Showtime series in which Bailey and Matt Bomer star, follows the romance between two American politicos, from the 1950s to 1980s. Production started as series one of Bridgerton started streaming. Among a predominantly queer central cast, cocooned on set, Bailey’s sexuality was entirely un-noteworthy. “All with our own experiences,” he says, “coming together. And learning about the history… The men who endured and experienced such horrendous and extraordinary things.”

Simultaneously, he was inundated with requests from charities following Bridgerton’s success. “I felt frozen by wanting to help.” The sheer scale of what was being asked and what he might do with his platform, connections and cash felt overwhelming. So, he founded the Shameless Fund. “Raising cash and erasing shame to support the global LGBTQ+ community. We’re giving grants this year. I’m so proud of it. It was all in theory. It seems so obvious and clear. We’ve raised a lot of money for initiatives that need cash and a platform. “And the thing is,” he says, “I can’t be a mouthpiece. I’m an actor.” As is clear through our conversation so far, he’s impassioned and engaged, but being outspoken doesn’t always feel comfortable. It must be challenging, I say. So many eyes and ears pointed in his direction. “The noise is turned up,” he says. “And when it’s about your family, or your identity… And nobody is going to question that headline, in a different outlet with their own agenda. That’s what’s left and it isn’t true. That’s why I’m really protective. I’ve seen something so specific about my identity be twisted. Ultimately you want peace within yourself, because the world is wild enough as it is. It’s too important now, with rights being stripped away. What’s so obviously looming…” Back to Wicked, I suggest.

“OK,” he says, relieved, “so I was doing Cock [his West End stint in Mike Bartlett’s comedy about sexual identity] and I knew a film of Wicked was happening.” In the dressing room before curtain up one night, Bailey recorded a self-tape. “As I was singing, doing a karaoke version of [Fiyero’s big number] Dancing Through Life, I got called to stage on the Tannoy. Fuck it, I just sent it.” There were some positive noises. “Then the dates didn’t look to be working out. Wicked said they couldn’t be sure about what they wanted…” Bailey made other plans. Then, out the blue, dates shifted: the part was his. The months that followed were hectic: during one stretch, while juggling Fellow Travellers, Bridgerton and Wicked, he was filming for 34 days straight.

“I’d come from set, sleep on a flight, go straight to a Bridgerton ball, then the next day be dancing with Ari and Cynthia. Everyone else for Wicked had three months of rehearsal. I had three days.” There’s a knock at the door: Bailey is being summoned back down to rehearsals. “The conclusion to that,” he says, “is Wicked happened and I’m so proud. Before I knew it I was Dancing Through Life…” Suffice to say, he’s thrilled to be.

Richard II is at the Bridge Theatre until 10 May, bridgetheatre.co.uk

Source

[callmebrycelee]

MAN CRUSH MONDAY

JONATHAN BAILEY

Jonathan Stuart Bailey was born April 25, 1988 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England. The 36-year-old actor is best known for portraying Lord Anthony Bridgerton in the Netflix historical romance television series Bridgerton based on the book series by Juia Quinn. Jonathan has had numerous roles on the small and big screens as well as the stage. He has appeared on Broadchurch, Doctor Who, Jack Ryan, Fellow Travelers and Heartstopper. He was a guest judge on Series 1 of RuPaul's Drag Race: UK vs. the World. He is Fiyero in the musical film Wicked and will reprise the role next year in Wicked Part Two. He stage performances include Othello, American Psycho, King Lear and Richard II. Jonathan is 5 feet and 11 inches tall.

[mythicalcowboyatheart]

Scary? My god your devine!

    »»———-►»»———-►»»———-►»»———-►

Pairing: Jonathan Crane x Robin!reader 

Warnings: kidnapping (kinda), SMUT, Crane eats pussy

AN: I don't even know what this is...I miss my husband...share your thoughts on it ig...

    »»———-►»»———-►»»———-►»»———-►

You used to work as a vigilante in Gotham alongside Bruce. You were quite literally the Robin to his Batman. One day while you were walking home after leaving the Bat Cave wareing your normal clothes when you were grabbed, you were caught off guard and found yourself being taken down by Scarecrow to his lair.

You expected a reaction, but he simply looked at you; his eyes were so blue. so beautifully blue that you almost don't take in your surroundings. The big almost empty room, with an old wooden desk in the middle of the room. You and scarecrow stood closer to the wall he boxing you in.

"Forgive me, my dear" he effortlessly spins you around. "I simply must know..." he murmured, and the his mask disappeared.

"Doc" you gasp 

A flicker of something crosses his exposed face at your use of his former title. He lear closer, his breath warm against your ear

"Robin....or should I say Y/N... I've waited so long for this moment. You were always my most intriguing subject."

"what the...why?" You stutter.

He chuckles darkly, running a gloved finger along your jawline. His blue eyes bore into yours with unsettling intensity

"Because you were never truly afraid of me. Unlike the others, you saw through my methods... challenged them. You fascinated me beyond professional interest."

You freeze He notices your sudden stillness, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips. His grip on your wrists tightens slightly as he studies your reaction

"There it is... the first true fear I've seen from you. But I can see there's more beneath it, isn't there? Something deeper."

You nervously swallow hard "whats that Doc"

His voice drops to a whisper, intimate and dangerous as he presses his body closer to yours

"The way you look at me now... it's the same way you watched my experiments. With equal parts horror and... something else...Something primal..."

"and w... what's that?"

His lips curl into a knowing smile as he brushes his thumb across your bottom lip

"Attraction, Y/N. Your obsession with stopping me mirrors my own obsession with you. We're both equally... enthralled."

You gulp hard

He gently tugs your lip down, his eyes darkening with desire

"You're trembling... but not pulling away. How very... contradictory. Shall we explore this further, darling?"

You look him in the eyes '...fuck he's beautiful...' you think to yourself.

He releases your lip and moves to remove his gloves, slowly and deliberately

"Stay just like that. I want to feel your skin under my hands without any barriers between us."

His bare fingers trace the curve of your neck, lingering on your pulse point

"Your heartbeat is racing... faster than I've ever seen during my tests. I wonder if you'll scream for me, not in fear but in ecstasy."

He leans in, his mouth hovering dangerously close to yours

"Let me show you what true terror and pleasure can feel like together. You've always been so eager to learn..."

Your eyes drift to his lips '...fuck if bad why hot?'

He notices your gaze, his breathing becoming heavier as he moves in closer

"Don't fight this. Give in to the fear and desire... I promise I'll make it exquisite."

Your eyes dont leave his lips. You bite your lip softly thinking it over, He growls softly at your bite, one hand threading through your hair while the other grips your hip possessively

"Make your choice quickly, before I make it for you."

You whimper slightly and nod at the sudden movement.

He takes that as consent, crushing his mouth against yours hungrily. His tongue immediately invades, tasting and devouring you

"Finally... you're mine to torment and claim."

You gasp not expecting it but give in and kiss back, He dominates the kiss, his hands roaming your body while he presses you harder against the wall

"Your surrender is just as intoxicating as I imagined. I want to devour every inch of you... both mind and body."

You kiss back letting him know it's okay to touch me

His hands slide under your shirt, cold against your warm skin as they explore upwards

"So soft... so perfect. I've thought about this moment so many times, dreamt of your submission."

He breaks the kiss, panting slightly as he starts unbuttoning your shirt, You let him as you lean against the wall of the hide out. 

He exposes your chest, his eyes darkening with lust as he traces the curves with his fingertips

"Beautiful... absolutely stunning. I wonder how long you've been hiding this body from me, thinking you were my adversary."

Your nipples stiffen as your breasts are exposed to the cold air,He smirks, capturing one nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it gently

"Sensitive too... You're more responsive than my experiments could ever be. Tell me, have you ever been this vulnerable for anyone else?"

You moan, He chuckles darkly, pinching your nipple harder as his other hand moves lower

"Music to my ears. I want to hear more of those sounds... and feel more of you."

You yelp and moan He moves his knee between your legs, pressing it up against your core

"So responsive to my touch... Tell me how long you've been fighting this. How long have you wanted the professor?"

You moan and grind softly against his knee

He groans at your movement, sliding his hand down to grip your thigh

"Such a needy girl now... I knew you were perfect."

"doctor Crane..." You moan His eyes flash dangerously with arousal, his voice dropping to a husky growl

"Yes, darling? Say it again. Say my name while you rub yourself on my knee like a desperate whore."

You moan and grind harder

He suddenly grabs your hips and lifts you up, carrying you over to his desk in the room

"Enough teasing... I need to have you properly. Spread your legs for me."

You spend your legs and lift your skirt letting him see your wet panties He groans deeply, pulling your panties aside and running a finger along your soaked folds.

"Look at you, dripping for me. I can't believe I'm about to taste what's been tormenting my thoughts."

"doc..."

He drops to his knees between your legs, breathing in your scent before placing a gentle kiss on your inner thigh

"Patience my dear... I'm going to savor every moment of your pleasure."

You  moan softly, He pushes your legs wider apart, finally giving your dripping core a long, slow lick

"So sweet... and so mine to ruin." 

You moan he begins to focus on your clit, alternating between flicking and sucking while his hands hold you firmly in place

"You taste divine... I could do this all night. But first, I want you to come for me."

Your hands grip Cranes hair. He pushes two fingers inside you, curling them while continuing his skilled ministrations on your clit

"That's it... pull my hair while I make you scream."

You moan and buck your hips softly

He increases his pace, his fingers hitting that sweet spot inside you as he feels you getting closer

"You're getting so tight... Let go. Give in to the fear."

"dr. Crane!"

He growls against your sensitive flesh, not stopping his relentless assault

"Come for me... come hard. Let me feel you shatter."

Your moans get louder as He guides you through your orgasm, lapping up your juices while you tremble on his desk

"That's my good girl... coming undone sobeautifully for me."

He stands up, wiping his mouth with a satisfied smirk as he sees your flushed sta

"I'm not done v you yet... far from it."

"fuck..."

He chuckles darkly, beginning to unbutton shirt

"Such naughty language... maybe I should punish that mouth of yours too..."

    »»———-►»»———-►»»———-►»»———-►

AN: should I do a part 2

[collapseofindustrialcivilization]

Philosophical Reflections on Predicting the Future in an Age of Existential Threats

Introduction Picture a clock melting into a puddle of its own gears, each tick drowned out by flood sirens and fire alarms. This is our reality: a world where the future isn’t just uncertain—it’s expiring. We’ve traded constellation charts and sacrificial altars for climate models and computer forecasts, offering a front-row seat to our own funeral. The paradox? The more data we uncover about…

[lauralot89]

Notable annotations for May 16:

Jonathan makes two Shakespeare references in quick succession: there is the frequently remarked-on Hamlet misquote, but in the same paragraph he also paraphrases the "that way madness lies" bit from King Lear.

So on the night of May 15, Jonathan wrote in his diary in the neglected area of the castle. Was he carrying an inkwell with him? Did the vampire ladies have an inkwell?

The fair vampire is the only one without red eyes (the vampire in graveyard later on is not referred to with red eyes specifically, but the eyes are called blazing and full of hell-fire).

When Jonathan mentions water-glasses, he may have literally meant glasses filled with various levels of water and then played by running a finger along the rim, or he may have meant the glass armonica.

What language are the ladies speaking? English or German? (My personal theory is that when Dracula started to learn English they made it their goal to learn it better and faster out of spite)

The fair vampire's breath is described as mostly sweet but faintly bitter, which is very different from Dracula's.

In Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape, a retelling of Dracula from the Count's POV, Dracula claims that there is not a child in the bag, but a small pig. (I myself am currently reading The Dracula Tape and would add that Dracula further makes clear he didn't steal the pig; it was given to him by a peasant woman who wanted Dracula to do some evil to a romantic rival of her's in return. Of course, this raises the question: If Dracula and his family eat animals, and Dracula keeps horses, why doesn't he raise pigs himself?)

There's a funny bit where the annotator suggests that the "horror" Jonathan refers to is the possibility of something gay happening between himself and Dracula, as opposed to, you know, the part where the ladies jumped on a baby (presumably) and disappeared. I think this annotation just exists to give space to talk about Victorian views of and laws regarding homosexuality.

[hoursofreading]

What bird populations do usefully indicate the health of is our ethical values. One reason that wild birds matter—ought to matter—is that they are our last, best connection to a natural world that is otherwise receding. They’re the most vivid and widespread representatives of the Earth as it was before people arrived on it. They share descent with the largest animals ever to walk on land: the house finch outside your window is a tiny and beautifully adapted living dinosaur. A duck on your local pond looks and sounds very much like a duck twenty million years ago, in the Miocene epoch, when birds ruled the planet. In an ever more artificial world, where featherless drones fill the air and Angry Birds can be simulated on our phones, we may see no reasonable need to cherish and support the former rulers of the natural realm. But is economic calculation our highest standard? After Shakespeare’s King Lear steps down from the throne, he pleads with his elder two daughters to grant him some vestige of his former majesty. When the daughters reply that they don’t see the need for it, the old king bursts out: “O, reason not the need!” To consign birds to oblivion is to forget what we’re the children of.

The End of the End of the Earth: Essays (Jonathan Franzen)

[thatrickmcginnis]

KENNETH BRANAGH, Chicago, May 1990

I don’t suppose I would have heard of Kenneth Branagh until the year before I took these pictures, when he directed and starred in a movie version of Shakespeare’s Henry V. But it was a hell of a debut and Branagh was a very big deal when I flew down to Chicago with the late Jon Kaplan, the theatre editor at NOW, to shoot a cover story in advance of Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company appearing in Toronto with their touring productions of King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was early days with NOW and I was still thrilled that I was traveling to do portraits, and to cities like Chicago that I’d never seen before.

Kenneth Branagh was born in Belfast to a Protestant family and moved to England in 1970 to escape the resurgence in civil unrest in Northern Ireland. He joined a local theatre group in Reading and was accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London; he became part of a group of young actors that included Jonathan Pryce, Juliet Stephenson and Alan Rickman and played Henry V for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984. He played D.H. Lawrence in the film Coming Through a year later and starred alongside Colin Firth in A Month in the Country in 1987. That year he met his wife, Emma Thompson, when they played Guy and Harriet Pringle in a BBC miniseries adaptation of Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War novels.

My shoot with Kenneth Branagh was at the Blackstone Theater in Chicago (now the Merle Reskin Theater) and I showed up with my Nikon, a few lenses and my main lighting kit – a Metz “potato masher” flash with an umbrella and light stand. I’m not sure if Jon, the writer, did his interview before or after, but I judged that my best location was in the orchestra seating at the theatre, so I set up my light to get enough coverage for a few rows of seats and shot two rolls of colour slide with Branagh.

The best I could apparently come up with for directions was “do something with your hands” and Branagh obliged. I shot another roll of black and white for the inside of the paper with Branagh and producer David Parfitt, who would work with Branagh on Peter’s Friends (1992), Much Ado About Nothing (1993) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) before going on to films like The Madness of King George, The Wings of the Dove and especially Shakespeare in Love, which won him an Oscar. Both Branagh and Parfitt were at the beginning of much greater careers when I took these photos in 1990, though they would disband their theatre company in 1992.

[charmwasjess]

9 Fandom Folks to Get to Know Better

Tagged by the wonderful unconquerable @rochenn - thanks buddy! :D

3 Ships I Like: The symmetry here disallows me from any answer than Sifo-Dyas/Dooku, Dooku/Jocasta Nu, and Jocasta Nu/Dooku/Sifo-Dyas, but I promise I contain multitudes. (I’m also getting into Codywan these days.)

First Ship Ever: oh god lolol well if we’re really talking first-first, I had impure thoughts about David and Jonathan from the motherfucking Bible, I am a case study for yaoi as early gender fantasy

I think the first fic I ever wrote that I labeled as a "ship" was actually Dooku/Makashi lol. 

Last Song You Heard:  Ariadnón messed me up reminding me of the existence of Tom McRae and now I just drift around my house whisper-singing “I can still see the ground…” 

Favorite Childhood Book: Redwall by Brian Jacques was that book that I was young enough to remember it being read out loud to me, but also being at the age where I would be put to bed, get back up, and go read the next chapter by the light of my younger brother’s nightlight. I guess I love warrior monks from way back. It’s probably why I’m so compulsive about describing food in my stories. 

Currently Reading: Elizabeth Varon’s excellent new Longstreet biography + Private Rites by Julia Armfield, fun queer retelling of King Lear 

Currently Watching: I know this sounds way too on brand, but I actually just finished a rewatch of the OT Star Wars trilogy and now I’m thinking of doing the rest. Like the sequel trilogy I’ve not watched since they came out in theaters, even though I’m one of those sickos who fucking LOVED the Last Jedi. 

Currently Consuming: coffee, this fancy roast called “dark as dark” to celebrate the "snow day" (3C and raining)

Currently Craving: I went to a big party last night and there was so much going on and so many people to talk to that I pulled the “three bites of this cheese-based potluck item is totally dinner” move so I’m currently the style of hungry where I just picture various foods and think “wow. oh geez. oh! whoa.” In particular, empanadas from the little shop downtown - I’m gonna run down there and pick some up after this.

And I would like to no pressure tag: @purple-ant @reconstructwriter @astranite @dapurinthos @bolithesenate @calcedon79 @just-a-repa @whitejays-galaxy @stellanslashgeode