lifestyle MONDAY, MAY 26, 2014

Gossip

Drew Barrymore: Family is where you feel safe

rew Barrymore admits her friends became her family when she was growing up. The 39-year-old actress - who is married to Will Kopelman with whom she has 20-month-old Olive and one-month- Dold baby Frankie - reunites with her ‘50 First Dates’ co-star Adam Sandler in comedy ‘Blended’ which sees two families come together and the screen beauty insists family is about those who give you a “place in the world”. Talking to Variety.com, Barrymore said: “I appreciate that terms like ‘modern family’ and ‘blended’ have become familiar in the culture as ways to describe a pride in a family that doesn’t look a certain way.”I think that my family looks traditional from the outside, but I also know that I had kind of ‘zero-point-zero’ family growing up, and it was my friends that became my family and they gave me a sense of place in the world and they gave me tough love.” Barrymore believes families have “no rules” and accept you for who you are, being “supportive” and “honest”. She added: “I think there are no rules. I think of family as where you feel safe. It’s where you feel supported, and it’s where people are being deathly honest with you.”

Sheeran Houston converting police station into youth centre biopic to premiere in 2015 d Sheeran has bought a police station to convert it into a youth centre to his Whitney Houston biopic is set for release in 2015. Angela Basset will Ehome town of Framlingham, Suffolk make her directorial debut on the movie, with the working title after crediting the local community with get- ‘Whitney Houston’, which will the follow the late star’s rocky relation- ting him started in music. According to The A ship with her husband Bobby Brown who she separated from in 2006 Sun on Sunday newspaper, he said: “I’m really before their divorce was finalized in 2007, reports E! Online. The Oscar-nom- excited about the project. “I had a youth club inee is thrilled to be directing the lifetime movie and feels “responsible” for from when I was 12 when I grew up which telling the late star’s story following her death in in February 2013, when did a battle of the bands every week and was aged 48, and accidentally drowned at The Beverly Hilton, with heart that’s where I and other bands started play- disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors. Bassett, 55, said in a ing.” When the centre closed its doors, the 23- statement: “I have such regard for both Whitney’s and Bobby’s amazing tal- year-old star moved to London - but he has ents and accomplishments, and I feel a responsibility in the telling of their his heart set on returning when he retires and story. Their humanity and bond fascinates us all. I’m beyond excited to have hopes he can help lay the foundation for a this opportunity to go behind the camera and into their world.” ‘Whitney new club and community for the town’s Houston’ will be executive produced and written by Larry Sanitsky and youngsters. He added: “The land the club was Shem Bitterman, the team behind the 2013 biographical drama ‘Betty and on was sold ... and I just went off to London Correta’ in which Basset starred opposite Mary J Blige. She also starred with and did shows instead. “Now there are no the late Houston in the 1995 picture ‘Waiting to Exhale’. Cast details for the youth clubs and noting to do so it’s a bad sit- film are yet to be announced. uation. “The plan when I get older is to end up running that - so I have pretty much planned my retirement.”

Hawkin’s hopes for side project oo Fighters’ drummer hopes his new record touches people “emo- tionally”. The 42-year-old musician has worked with the band’s frontman Dave FGrohl, along with guitarist and Chevy Metal bass player Wiley Hodgden on the fresh tracks, as part of a side-project, . Asked what he hopes people will get out of the new record, he told Metal Hammer magazine: “Just a good time. Hopefully it can touch them emotionally. If I listen to an early [Lynard] Skynryd record or a record, it just makes me want to break things. You feel alive and excited. And I would feel so lucky if I heard even one person say that about one of my records. Hopefully it touches somebody. Good, bad, happy or sad, I’ll take any- thing!” The drummer insists he likes to do an album in between every record because he likes to write his own songs and sing. Discussing working with close Jolie friend Wiley, he said: “He’s never been on a real record so this is a big deal for him. And Mick is a hell of a guitar player and he’s become a good friend. It’s just going back to the real reason for making music, which is just the joy of music.” focusing on directing

ngelina Jolie’s acting career is to take a “back seat”. The ‘Maleficent’ actress wants to focus Amore of her time on writing and directing, as well as on her work with the United Nations (UN), for who she is a special envoy of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, so only plans to make “a few more” movies. She said: “Acting is going to take more of a back seat. I’ve had a wonderful career and I’m very happy to have had all the opportunities to tell stories and work for as long as I have. “I’m sure there’ll be a few more films but I’m happy that I’m able to be selective and have fun Jack White: with characters like Maleficent.’ But I would like to focus more on writing and directing and above all I would like to focus more on my work with the UN.” I almost never speak to Meg While Angelina enjoyed working on ‘Maleficent’, she ack White admits he “almost never” speaks to his former bandmate Meg White. The ex-White Stripes singer, whose found playing the titular character tough because band called it a day in 2011, has since forged his own successful solo career and claims hardly anybody he knows of the transformation it required. She explained in Jspeaks to drummer Meg since the band split. He told Rolling Stone magazine: “I don’t think anyone talks to Meg. an interview with Britain’s OK! magazine: “It was so She’s always been a hermit. When we lived in Detroit, I’d have to drive over to her house if I wanted to talk to her, so now much fun but hard at first. As an actress, I do film, it’s almost never.” Talking about how Meg’s personality came to affect the pair’s relationship, Jack explained: “She’s one of not theatre, so I don’t naturally have that voice. I those people who won’t high five me when I get the touchdown. “She viewed me that way of, ‘Oh, big deal, you did it, so had to embrace my silliness. “I think it’s a beautiful what?’ Almost every single moment of the White Stripes was like that. We’d be working in the studio and something story and there’s a lot of depth to it and we got a lit- amazing would happen, I’m like, ‘Damn, we just broke into a new world right there!’ And Meg’s sitting in silence. “I remem- tle crazy and had a lot of fun. I hope that resonates ber hearing Ringo Starr say, ‘I always felt sorry for Elvis, because in The Beatles we had each other to talk about what it felt and people are entertained by it.” like. Elvis was by himself.’ “I was like, ‘Try being in a two-piece where the other person doesn’t talk!’” But despite their dif- ferences, he praised Meg’s talent and stage presence and how the pair worked together to become a successful duo sell- Mc Avoy ing millions of records, having formed the band in 1997. He said: “I would often look at her onstage and say, ‘I can’t believe she’s up there.’ I don’t think she understood how important she was to the band, and to me and to music. She was the insists on antithesis of a modern drummer. So childlike and incredible and inspiring. All the not-talking didn’t matter, because onstage, nothing I do will top that.” hair extensions ames McAvoy insisted on wearing hair extensions in ‘X- Men: Days of Future Past’. The Scottish actor is a keen Jenthusiast of the 1970s - in which the new film is set - and was so determined to authentically portray his charac- ter, Charles Xavier’s style during the era, he asked produc- ers to give him extensions to create a free-spirited, long- haired look. He said: “As my wife will attest, the Seventies is my favorite decade. “I was like, ‘Yesss!’ I love the way I look in this film.’ It’s the only time I’ve ever done that in my whole career.” The 35-year-old star also revealed how he was left exhausted after playing four characters with psy- chological issues back-to-back. He told Radio Times maga- zine: “There was a lot of mental illness that year. My charac- ter in ‘Trance’ has had his mind molested. Bruce in ‘Filth’ and Macbeth are both raving mental cases. Even in ‘Welcome to the Punch’ I’m dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. “By no means is ‘X-Men’ as balls-out as those films or Macbeth, but I’m glad that Fox and [director] Bryan Singer afforded me the chance to go somewhere quite interesting with a part in a $200 million movie. “Charles is effectively a junkie who’s denying who he is. I’ve spent over a year now exploring skewed mental states, and this is the easiest I’ve found it.”