Gemma Arterton only took the Bond Girl role in Quantum of Solace to pay off student loans. Same, girl. [Dlisted]
Nashville suicide bomber Anthony Quinn Warner’s girlfriend told the authorities last year that he was building bombs in the RV. [Towleroad]
Emily Ratajkowski is still pregnant (and carrying small). [Just Jared]
Penelope Featherington is one of my favorite characters on Bridgerton. [Pajiba]
I’m here for Channing Tatum & Sandra Bullock falling for each other on-screen, but I’m not into Channing with Jennifer Aniston. [LaineyGossip]
Mindy Kaling is so good at Instagram. [Go Fug Yourself]
Jessica Simpson had a good 2020. [Jezebel]
The fails of the week. Some of these are so funny! [Buzzfeed]
Realistic New Year’s resolutions. [OMG Blog]
Adam Levine won’t return to The Voice. [Seriously OMG]
that Tatum and Bullock movie was good the first time I saw it.
when it was called “Romancing the Stone”.
I wish this site had a “Thumbs Up” button because I would be hitting it. 🙂
Yeah I too agree they ruined Penelope’s character by the reveal at the end of Bridgerton, they definitely need to dive into that reasoning next season. I only know Nicola from Derry Girls and that’s another show I miss
Anthony Quinn Warner’s girlfriend should have told the police he was black. They would have brought SWAT & ATF and probably would have shot him in the back just to be sure
Or Muslim.
Or said it was a meth lab, fifty agents from six agencies would have gone charging in.
I’ve been going through a Channing Tatum phase recently (don’t judge me – the pandemic has made me really appreciative of charming and funny himbos) and i would be *all* over a Tatum/Bullock rom-com. Like I might need this movie to happen.
He seems too young to play her partner in a rom-com. I like them both but no.
I’ve been rewatching rom coms lately. They’re a nice escape from reality. Rom coms need to make a comeback.
I don’t care if it’s a knockoff of Romancing the Stone, I’d still see it.
The comments on that dlisted link are surprisingly negative. It seems the consensus is “f this ungrateful bitch” for … being honest about why she took the part? I would think a lot of actors that early in their careers are making choices based on their bank accounts and resumes rather than artistic integrity or whatever.
Then Gemma is stupid or thinks we are stupid. Student loans in the UK are not the same as in the US. When she went to uni the tuition fees were £3000 per year and living expenses were say £6000 a year. Uni in the Uk is for 3 years and she got a full grant (reference her own Wikipedia), which means she would have graduated with £20000 in student debt for her living expenses (about $35000). Under her student loan plan (plan 1) she repays 9% of her salary when her pretax income is above £1,615 a month. Student loan repayments are essentially a kind of tax, if you don’t meet the income threshold there are no mandatory repayments and 30 years after graduation the debt is completely written off. So if she were truly skint and making zero money, she wouldn’t make any repayments. The opposite is knowing that there are projects lined up to continuously generate good income, then it makes sense to pay the student loan off as early as possible. It would be easier for Gemma than the graduates who enrolled after 2012 as youngsters now can graduate with student loans north of £50000. So she essentially had a very tiny student loan that could be easily repaid with a couple of decent projects. She needn’t make it sound as though she was broke, struggling and took the bond project under duress of her student loan. Just say you did it for the money and exposure (what young upcoming starlet wouldn’t?)
$35,000 is not tiny to me.
Agree
It’s written off in 30 years and you don’t need to pay a penny if you aren’t earning enough. No one chases you down for making zero repayment because you earn little money. It’s completely different from US student loans that are easily six figures.
And debt is still debt, and hard to pay down and make rent, buy food, etc.
She was just starting out in her career, pretty much everyone in that position takes jobs they might later cringe about, and most actors are regular working people trying to earn a living.
The title here says loanS, plural, so maybe your meticulous counting doesn’t take into account every debt she made through the years. And 3000£ a year tuition fee for Rada for full time course?
Damn I know people who just paid that for the 4 weeks classes.
And maybe the daughter of a welder just didn’t want a debt at the beginning of her career. Some people just don’t like the Damocles sword hanging over their head and don’t have the ” don’t bother, it will be written of ” mentality .
She also says that she still gets criticism for taking the part. TWELVE years later!
Do honestly believe that people, invested enough to bother an actress more than a decade after a film , will be satisfied by the exposure motivation? She would just get more $..t for it. I did it for bills is usually more efficient to make some people just shut
Student loans are typically loans for 19+ study to cover tuition and living costs. Her bio says she had a full ride grant for Rada, so she wouldn’t have had to pay tuition for her studies there. For A levels (16-18), she wouldn’t had to pay tuition, nor could she get student loans for living expenses (I’m happy to be proven wrong).
Basically the comments skew negative on Delisted because only taking a Bond girl role to pay off student loans doesn’t sound authentic or grounded in reality. A true broke actress living pay check to pay check, would not be concerned with repaying student loans in the first instance. (If you make less than the threshold you pay nothing.)
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking a high profile Bond girl role when she was starting out. Society was not as woke back then 12 years ago. The role gave her exposure, opened doors to more diverse characters and lead her to set up her female led production company (all good stuff for women’s causes). And that’s more genuine than saying she only took the role for student loans. Makes her sound like a food blogger forcing feed a life story before getting to the point.
When I was a child I didn’t expect that being an actor would be so similar to anonymous jobs: so many of them we do for the money, so many we regret.
I did think at about episode 6 that Pen might be Lady Whistledown. My thought is that it is revenge for her being ignored by pretty much everyone in her family and all of the other families. The only family that does not seem to put her down are the Bridgetons. Her friend is one, and Colin whom she is in love with because he has always been very kind to her. He sees how people treat her and makes sure to pay attention to her while not realizing his actions are probably the cause of her devotion to him. She did not want Colin to be tricked into a marriage not only because she loves him but because he is a sweet guy. No one suspects Pen. To pretty much that society, she is invisible, irrelevant. They definitely let their guard down around her because they think so little of her. She must feel very sad and that sadness has turned into anger. I don’t think she is being petty. She is acting out mostly because it hurts to be treated in the manner that she is.
Pen is poor, plump and female. In other words, powerless. Lady Whistledown is her way of fighting back, trying to achieve some agency in a society to which she is invisible. She supported Miss Thompson openly until she intended to trick Colin into marriage, and even then tried rational discourse and honesty with both Colin and her cousin before Lady Whistledown revealed all. Women have always used all kinds of means to take power in societies which did not want them to. Easy to ignore Pen’s feelings, but Lady Whistledown makes herself heard. I can’t feel too harshly toward her either.
Gemma is such a natural beauty and her talent was wasted as a Bond girl, she wasn’t even his main squeeze and disappeared early on. I forgot she was even in the film so I get why it was a useless role for her, but no need to explain Gemma as we all have bills to pay.
When the show first started, first ep–Bridgerton, that is–I totally thought Penelope and Eloise were a lesbian couple. Maybe Eloise is, but it seems that Penelope is not. I thought there might be some more homosexual stories in the show, but there is always future seasons
Damn, wish I could be a Bond girl and pay off my student loans! Lol Just putting that out there to the Universe on this new year’s eve…