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| Ben Kingsley Photo by AUSTIN HARGRAVE |
Actor; 81; Oxfordshire, England
Sir Ben Kingsley is one of the most acclaimed and prolific stage, film, and television actors of his generation, with a career spanning more than five decades. He won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in Gandhi (1982). Kingsley appears in the comedy The Thursday Murder Club, out now on Netflix. This interview was conducted on July 4.
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| Kristen Stewart Photo by Adir Abergel |
Actress, writer, director; 35; Los Angeles.
Kristen Stewart has been acting since the age of nine and was a teen herself when she starred in the Twilight films. She’s made her feature directing and writing debut with The Chronology of Water, an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir. In April, Stewart tied the knot with her longtime girlfriend, screenwriter Dylan Meyer. This interview was conducted on November 2.
Gracie Abrams wears Top Bode. Jeans Gracie’s own. Earrings (worn throughout) Stylist’s Own.
Gracie Abrams is over sad-girl music. After making a mark as a moody singer-songwriter and opening for megastars like Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift, the 24-year-old is stepping into her feel-better era with a sophomore album that still mines the bittersweet ache of young love, but with a smirk. Ahead of the release of The Secret of Us, the Los Angeles-born musician got on a call with her friend Kaia Gerber to talk about unrequited crushes, exposure therapy, and spinning out.
Will Paul Thomas Anderson’s ICE age conspiracy thriller sweep the board, or will Sinners and Hamnet share some glory? Our critic places his bets
Peter Bradshaw
Sunday 22 February 2026
What happens when four unstable personalities are trapped together in a tiny cabin on a boat lost and without power in the middle of the South Pacific? How does those four individuals deal with the constantly worsening situation as the boat starts to take on water and rot away? Do the couples wrap themselves up in petty jealousies and bickering? Do they blame each other when things start to go wrong? What happens when one of these people was a bit off his rocker to begin with? Can he really be blamed for what goes wrong? Consumed by paranoia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, what if he abandons the slowly sinking ship and climbs onto another small sailing vessel? Will the couple on that vessel take him away from there – from where his wife was possibly plotting with another man to drown him in that mighty ocean?
Charles Williams
A TOUCH OF DEATH (from 2008)
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| Charles Williams |
A Touch of Death by Charles Williams
I’m not going to lie, I’m a comparative newcomer to crime fiction and mysteries. A driving reason I read Hard Case Crime is because I want to familiarize myself with quality authors other than Hammett, Chandler, and Goodis, and so far that’s been a rousing success—there’s no such thing as a “bad” Hard Case, so it’s been a good learning experience. Anyways. Charles Williams was a crime writer from the Gold Medal stable, but not just another Gold Medal writer. He’s been called an under-appreciated genius by people like Ed Gorman and Bill Crider on Mystery File, and there’s a large consensus rating Williams’ HCC entry, A Touch of Death, as the best in the line. I’m interested, but somewhat skeptical; a half-dozen reviews called Richard S. Prather’s The Peddler a masterwork of American crime lit, and I was left underwhelmed after that high praise.
Charles Williams
Here’s the back cover blurb:
If you already know that the guy who wrote those books for you is Charles Williams, then you probably already know that he, like Dan J. Marlowe from last time, is one of the people who belongs in the Gold Medal Pantheon.
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| Georgi Gospodinov |
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The Bulgarian Booker winner on the letter he wrote to JD Salinger, the allure of Homer’s Odyssey and the magic of Thomas Mann
My earliest reading memory
I was taught to read quite early, at five or six, probably so that I would sit quietly and not be a nuisance to the adults. And it worked. Once I’d entered a book, I didn’t want to come out. I remember how Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl turned my heart upside down. I was living with my grandmother at the time, and I cried under the blanket, terrified that one day she, too, would die.
My favourite book growing up
I read greedily and indiscriminately, picking books at random from my parents’ library. Thomas Mayne Reid’s adventure novels were favourites, especially The Headless Horseman. Jack London’s Martin Eden, too. Clearly, the idea of being both a hero and a writer appealed to me. Writers were not usually heroes. I also loved a textbook on criminology, which explained how to make invisible ink, what traces criminals leave behind, and so on – matters of extraordinary importance to any 10-year-old boy.
The author that changed me as a teenager
All novels that contained erotic scenes – because of the acute shortage of eroticism in the late socialist Bulgaria of the 1980s. Also around that time I discovered JD Salinger. I reread his stories obsessively, without being sure I understood everything. At 17, I decided to write him a letter, trying to provoke him into breaking his silence. Of course, I never sent it. Much later, that story found its way into my memoir, The Story Smuggler.
The writer who changed my mind
Jorge Luis Borges. When the first translations of his work appeared in Bulgaria, I was 21, shortly before the wall fell – a crucial moment. It was as if I suddenly understood what literature is capable of, and how there are no real borders between genres. I had an exhilarating sense of freedom, but also of a shared secret. Memory, erudition, heart, science and myth – all of it was there.
The book that made me want to be a writer
The poems of two tragic Bulgarian poets: Peyo Yavorov and Nikola Vaptsarov. I began writing poetry in secret. Later, I was found out.
The book I reread
Homer’s Odyssey. We probably mentioned it or read parts of it at school, and perhaps that was what put me off it for so long. After turning 40, I began to truly understand it – and to reread it, seeing it differently each time. The theme of the father increasingly drew me in, the bond between father and son. Then there’s the great theme of return – not only the return home but also to the past – and memory, the question of who remembers us unconditionally and recognises us, like the dog. In my last two novels I have been in dialogue with this book again and again.
The book I discovered later in life
Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. It always stood out on my bookshelf, but for years I never reached for it. I imagined it would be very gloomy, heavy, full of endless reflection. When I read it in my late 40s it wasn’t love at first sight, but the story didn’t let me go. I love books I can converse with, even enter into Socratic arguments with. It was very important to me while I was writing Time Shelter. You think you write in solitude, but in truth you are in constant dialogue with other books and authors.
The book I am currently reading
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. A powerful novel that seems, like Borges’s maps, to try to contain the world – and time – at a scale of 1:1. A book for slow winter reading.
Whoever wins next month’s Olivier awards, global stars will continue to flock to the West End of London to give the stage their all. We take a peek behind the curtain …
At what point does the transformation process start, as an actor prepares to get into character backstage? For Jared Harris – who recently starred in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming – it begins en route to the Young Vic, with a meditative stroll across Golden Jubilee Bridge. While performing as Gareth Southgate in Dear England, Joseph Fiennes began his preparations with a quiet cup of tea. Ken Nwosu, playing Othello at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, delays getting into role until the very last moment: “I wanna be me for as long as I can before the show begins.”
