Jack King

London

Freelance Entertainment Critic and Writer at Freelance

Making words at the word factory. GQ UK. Occasionally elsewhere • [email protected]

Articles

What It Feels Like for a Girl is the most interesting thing the BBC has made since I May Destroy You

5 days ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

Britain's increasingly hostile environment for trans people never ceases to depress. So here's a welcome shot of raucous, rebellious optimism: What It Feels Like for a Girl, the new BBC series inspired by transgender writer Paris Lees' best-selling memoir of the same name. Lees adapted the book herself for TV, which shows in its unerring honesty, and its equal commitment to both joy and grit.
Pierce Brosnan on the MobLand finale, Mamma Mia! 3, and the “healing” call for him to return as Bond

6 days ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

November marks 30 years since Pierce Brosnan made his James Bond debut in 1995's GoldenEye. It's almost three decades since his 007 bungee jumped off a dam, bulldozed his way through the streets of St. Petersburg in a tank, and became the greatest-ever inductee to the “killed Sean Bean” hall of fame. It was certainly Brosnan's high point in his stint at MI6 — many consider it the GOAT of Bond films, myself included — as his next instalments were met with tough reviews.
A24's prestige Elden Ring adaptation may have found its lead in Kit Connor

1 week ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

Video game adaptations are usually mid, but recent shows like The Last of Us and Fallout have proven that stories originating from the medium can thrive on TV. Perhaps this success provided the inspiration for A24 to throw their indie clout behind a major film adaptation of Elden Ring, the fantasy masterwork that won Game of the Year awards from pretty much everyone in 2022. Whatever the case, it's a big bet on the newfound viability of a genre that has historically floundered on the big screen.
Michael Cera talks The Phoenician Scheme, his zany Norwegian accent, and reuniting with Edgar Wright

1 week ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

Everyone online seems kind of shocked that The Phoenician Scheme marks Michael Cera's first-ever appearance in a Wes Anderson film. To be fair, it feels like a near-perfect match of auteur and actor both known for their peculiar quirks. Cera has spent a career playing charmingly awkward social rejects, while “charmingly awkward” — in a slightly more bizarre, whimsical manner — tends to be a defining quality of Anderson's style.
Sirens season 2 is “definitely within the realm of possibility”

1 week ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

The following article contains major spoilers for Sirens. It has been said in the late streaming era that audiences want a return to big 20-episode, four month seasons of television, like we used to get with pretty much every major show in the ‘90s and '00s. But this isn’t always the case; sometimes you'd rather a light treat than a full-on banquet.
Damson Idris is off to the races

1 week ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

As he rocketed down the track at the Circuit of the Americas — a Formula One track in Austin, Texas — at 180 miles per hour, Damson Idris could feel it: the force, the power, the thrill. His helmet rattled around his head. It sounds exhilarating, and also incredibly dangerous. Not that this seems to have ever phased him. Case in point: that other time in Austin when his car spun out so ferociously that he managed to clear three entire turns.
The Last of Us season 3 will be all about Abby

1 week ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

The following article contains major spoilers for the finale of The Last of Us season 2. If you've played the game, you'll probably have had a decent idea of where the second season of The Last of Us was going to end for a while, not least with Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) prolonged absence in mind.
Tom Cruise's craziest Mission: Impossible stunts, definitively ranked

2 weeks ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

We do not exclusively watch the Mission: Impossible movies to find out how close Tom Cruise will come to death, but it is undeniably central to the series' appeal. Here's a man whose love of cinema has led him to confront his own mortality face-on, be it by hanging from the side of a cargo plane, climbing up the tallest skyscraper in the world, or jumping off a cliff on a motorbike.
Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor's The History of Sound is surprisingly unsexy

2 weeks ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Jack King

The following article contains minor spoilers for The History of Sound. It's Boston, 1917. Lionel (Paul Mescal) sits at a table in a bar, deep into conversation with friends over whiskey and cigarettes; somewhere in the background, someone plunks out a piano tune. Then comes the voice. It's a man singing a folk song, like the ones that Lionel grew up with. He soon finds himself standing over the man, who has handsome curls and cheekbones, and is somewhat abrupt. His name is David (Josh O'Connor).
The all killer, no filler HBO ranking: From The Sopranos to Succession

2 weeks ago | gq-magazine.co.uk | Daisy Jones |Jack King

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission. In 1993, the sound guys at HBO decided they wanted to do something different. After a couple of decades of long, colourful intro sequences, replete with electric guitar noodling and space-age animation, they felt it was time to strip things back a notch.