John Le-Carré Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Marta Balaga HBO Max’s period drama “Spy/Master” is more John le Carré than Ian Fleming, state its creators. Following Victor Godeanu, a high-ranking officer in Romania’s secret service, advisor to president Nicolae Ceaușescu – and a spy – who decides to defect in 1978. “As a child, I used to watch James Bond, which is a very cartoony version of espionage. It was something we really wanted to avoid. We wanted it to feel real,” says Kirsten Peters. Adina Sădeanu adds: “John le Carré’s novels, for example ‘A Perfect Spy,’ are so complex. These characters run away from their own humanity. I have always wondered: How do they live? How do they wake up in the morning, after saying so many lies?”

War is coming in Guy Nattiv’s Golda, onscreen and off. But despite the media’s best efforts to turn the casting of British, non-Jewish actor Helen Mirren as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir into an explosive example of cultural appropriation, both Nattiv’s direction and Mirren’s performance are low-key and careful enough to rise above the controversy. In retrospect, it does seem a little strange that no other candidate was deemed suitable, and the movie won’t do much extra business on account of Mirren’s star power, but those anticipating a tone-deaf disaster will be sorely disappointed.

EXCLUSIVE: The Night Manager’s Indian remake launches this week and its stars are now set to feature on the cover of the original John le Carre novel — a first for an Indian series.

When Anil Kapoor was offered a lead role in the Hindi adaptation of UK drama series The Night Manager, his first thought was how he could apply what he’d learned while making the Indian version of U.S. crime drama 24. 

The Hindi adaptation of UK mini-series The Night Manager, based on the John Le Carre novel, is shaping up to be one of the most highly-anticipated shows in a busy Indian web series season. Produced by The Ink Factory and Banijay Asia for Disney+ Hotstar, the show is set to start streaming on February 17.

UTA has acquired Fletcher & Company, a 20-year-old literary agency with a roster of notable fiction and non-fiction authors.

EXCLUSIVE: Gary Oldman has found “great joy” in playing the Falstaffian, flatulent-sharing, British espionage operative Jackson Lamb in Apple TV+’s Slow Horses, which has just launched season two. Meanwhile, the Harry Potter star confirmed he will play Harry Truman in one scene in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

Writer-director Tarik Saleh’s latest film Cairo Conspiracy follows Adam, the son of a fisherman, who is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power in Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest religious leader, the Grand Imam, suddenly dies and Adam soon becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt’s religious and political elite.

Just under eight months after the acclaimed premiere of the first season of “Slow Horses,” Apple TV+ launches a second outing (and has already commissioned a third and a fourth) on Friday, December 2nd. The good news is that there’s no sophomore slump here in a 6-episode run that actually feels like it has higher stakes and more intense action than the first.

The Night Manager producer The Ink Factory is forging a TV version of John Le Carré’’s A Most Wanted Man almost a decade after making a feature film version, with Snabba Cash writer Oskar Söderlund attached as showrunner.

A disgruntled Scottish security guard has admitted spying for Russia while working at the British embassy in Berlin.

When UTA announced its surprise acquisition of London-based Curtis Brown Group last month, it was heralded as an aggressive and strategic move into the UK talent space, causing industry on both sides of the pond to sit up and take notice. U.S. agencies have been canvassing UK companies for a number of years but this deal marks the splashiest effort yet and potentially draws UTA closer to major talent on Curtis Brown’s books such as Robert Pattinson, Margaret Atwood and John le Carré.

Naman Ramachandran Indian actor Anil Kapoor, known globally for his roles in “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” has a raft of projects lined up.First up is Viacom18 Studios and Dharma Productions’ “Jug Jugg Jeeyo,” directed by Raj Mehta (“Good Newwz”), which is due a June 24 release. The film follows a father and son pair who are considering divorcing their respective spouses, but hold the news back because of impending family festivities.“Sometimes in a serious situation, you feel it is serious, but the way it has been written, the way the storytelling is, it’s very funny,” Kapoor told Variety.

United Talent Agency (UTA) has acquired the legacy UK literary and talent agency Curtis Brown Group, UTA announced Monday.Curtis Brown Group, which was founded in 1899, will continue to operate under its current name and management, including CEO Jonny Geller (pictured center). But the deal expands UTA’s international footprint and this structure will allow both Curtis Brown Group and UTA to continue their longstanding relationships with other agency partners in the UK and US. Curtis Brown has more than 240 employees and is expected to continue to grow as a result of this deal.

Naman Ramachandran United Talent Agency (UTA) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire U.K. literary and talent agency Curtis Brown Group.Under the terms of the deal, London-based Curtis Brown Group, founded in 1899, will continue to operate under its current name and management, including CEO Jonny Geller. The structure will allow both parries to continue their longstanding relationships with other agency partners in the U.K.

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.MOVIES— In the satirical comedy “Emergency,” college seniors Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and Sean (RJ Cyler) set out for an epic night of partying only to return home to a shocking scene: Their door is ajar and a woman is passed out on their floor. The men are Black and the woman is white and they know that calling the police is not a straightforward proposition.

It’s been 6 years since Park Chan-wook’s last feature-length film, “The Handmaiden,” swept critics’ groups and became an instant classic among erotic thriller fans. In that time he’s made several successful forays into TV, directing the 2018 BBC drama series “Little Drummer Girl”—a John Le Carré adaptation starring Michael Shannon, Alexander Skarsgård, and Florence Pugh—and producing 20 episodes of TNT’s “Snowpiercer.” He was also recently announced as the director for the upcoming A24 TV adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner “The Sympathizer” starring Robert Downey Jr.

“ Navalny ” is so taut and suspenseful you’d think John le Carré had left behind a secret manuscript that’s only just coming to light now.This spellbinding portrait of a Russian opposition leader following an attempt on his life has all the makings of a Hollywood thriller. It has shadowy operatives, truth-seeking journalists, conspiracy theories, Soviet-era poisons and, at its center, a handsome, altruistic family man risking his life to fight a would-be despot.But “Navalny” is not fiction.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticThe streaming era, with its glut of viewing options and its omnipresent yet thinly spread advertising, often makes it harder for audiences to get an advance read on a movie. When you see that a couple of actors as good as Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton have teamed up for a spy thriller that’s being released by Amazon Studios, and that it’s called “All the Old Knives” (a title that sounds like it could be about anything or nothing), you wonder — a little more than you might have 30 years ago — if it’s a project that makes good on their talents or whether it’s another ho-hum slab of product.

“I think they’re f*cking losers,” spy veteran Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) says with characteristic brutal honesty to Mi5 superior Diana Taverner (Kristen Scott Thomas) when asked if he really cares for his team of rejects, while they sit on a park bench at 2 am in the middle of a national crisis. “But they’re my losers,” he says with loyal punctuation.

NEW YORK -- A book coming out this fall will show readers a more personal side of the late John le Carré.Viking announced Wednesday that “A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré” will be published Nov. 8.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh from his Oscar nomination, Belfast star Ciarán Hinds is joining Netflix spy drama series Treason.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAlibaba co-founder Joe Tsai and business partner Arthur Wang are facilitating the expansion into Asia of London and Los Angeles-based independent studio The Ink Factory.The Ink Factory has previously delivered adaptations of author John le Carré’s novels including “The Night Manager” and the “The Little Drummer Girl.” It is currently working on a series adaptation of “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”Already working on an Indian adaptation of “The Night

HARDCOVER FICTION1. “State of Terror” by Clinton/Penny (Simon & Schuster/St. Martin's Press)2.

1. “State of Terror” by Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton (Simon & Schuster/St. Martin's Press)2.

Book Title by Author Name - ISBN - (Publisher)1. State of Terror by Hillary Clinton & Louise Penny - 9781982173692 - (Simon & Schuster/St.

when he died last year. But never averse to a literary twist, he left behind a finished novel for ardent readers.

LONDON -- A final novel by John le Carré will be published this fall, 10 months after the spy writer’s death at the age of 89.Publisher Viking said Wednesday that “Silverview,” le Carré’s 26th novel, will be published Oct. 12, in the week that would have seen his 90th birthday.The publisher said the book is the only complete, full-length novel left unpublished at the time of le Carré’s death.

NEW YORK -- Jason Matthews, an award-winning spy novelist who drew upon his long career in espionage and his admiration for John le Carre among others in crafting his popular “Red Sparrow" thrillers, has died at age 69.Matthews died Wednesday from Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), a rare, untreatable neurodegenerative disease, according to his publisher, Scribner.“How a bestselling, critically-acclaimed spy novelist sprung from the head of a quiet CIA operations officer appeared to be a great

John Le Carré may be known as one of the great authors of British espionage and he saved one of his greatest twists for his own life.

One of the world’s great spy novel authors, John le Carré, took Irish citizenship shortly before his death after becoming disillusioned with England over Brexit, hit son Nicholas says in a new documentary.

John Le Carré’s heartbroken widow Valerie Jane Eustace has sadly passed away three months after the famed author.

Naman Ramachandran Top Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan is set to star in the Indian adaptation of John Le Carré’s spy drama “The Night Manager,” Variety can reveal.Roshan will play an Indian version of the Jonathan Pine character, who was played by Tom Hiddleston (“Avengers: Endgame”) in the 2016 adaptation, which aired on the BBC and AMC, and was produced by The Ink Factory.The Indian adaptation is produced by Banijay Asia and will start shooting in Mumbai in April, with international locations

On December 12, a man called David Cornwell passed away in the English countryside. He was 89 and worked under the alias John Le Carré, a pen name that added a mysterious and sophisticated aura to 60 years of spy novels that were often quietly hellbent on demystifying the very genre he mastered.

Hello International Insiders, hope you’re getting into the Christmas spirit. Tom Grater here delivering a sack full of attention-grabbing headlines from this week of film and TV news.