Natascha McElhone has reportedly found love with her co-star Assad Zaman, 36, from the Sky series Hotel Portofino. The romance comes 18 years after the sudden death of her husband, Martin Kelly, a plastic surgeon, who died in 2008 from an undiagnosed heart condition.
Friends of the 56-year-old actress describe her as "head over heels" for Zaman, who is 20 years her junior. He played a doctor secretly in love with McElhone's character's son in Hotel Portofino, which aired from 2022 to 2024.
McElhone, who also starred in Californication, The Crown, and Solaris, raised their three sons—Theo, Otis, and Rex—on her own after Kelly's death, while she was pregnant with their youngest. She has previously spoken about the all-consuming nature of raising her children alone, stating in 2023 that she had become "the wallpaper, the background noise" as they grew older, adding, "I'm glad to be irrelevant."
Zaman is also known for his role as the 500-year-old vampire Armand in the TV hit Interview With The Vampire, renamed The Vampire Lestat for its third series. He also appeared in The Undeclared War.
McElhone's acting career includes roles opposite George Clooney in Solaris and Robert De Niro in Ronin. She also portrayed Penny Knatchbull, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, in the final series of Netflix's The Crown in 2023. Her big-screen debut was in Surviving Picasso at age 24, alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins.
Her husband, Martin Kelly, was found slumped in the doorway of their London home. McElhone wrote his obituary, calling herself "the luckiest woman alive, even though he's not here." She later published After You, a collection of journal entries addressed to him about her grief.
In other entertainment news, Sian Brooke, whose father was a police officer, stars as a police officer in the BBC drama Blue Lights. However, her role as computer-savvy GCHQ intelligence analyst Barbara Napier in The Undeclared War presented a different challenge, as Brooke admitted to having little computer knowledge.
Director Maggie Gyllenhaal's short film Flesh Impact, which will be shown at the Venice Film Festival, features Dakota Johnson as a young Marilyn Monroe. Gyllenhaal defended the casting despite Johnson's lack of physical resemblance to Monroe, stating, "Who cares?" Ellen Burstyn, 93, plays an older version of Monroe in the film.
Quentin Tarantino is reportedly close to finalizing arrangements for his stage comedy The Popinjay Cavalier to run in London's West End. Simon Pegg is being considered for the lead role of a theatre impresario in the 1830s Parisian production. The play is described as a "rambunctious comedy of deception and disguise."