camp

I’m A Celebrity… South Africa star Ashley Roberts is marking her birthday with her new campmates

Viewers of I’m A Celebrity… South Africa will see one of the campmates celebrate their birthday in a unique way during the latest episode.

Pussycat Dolls star Ashley Roberts can be seen volunteering for a trial during the episode to be aired on Friday, April 17 – despite it being her birthday. But her co-stars feel she should put her feet up on her special day.

Instead it’s Mo Farah taking on Termite Terror where Ant McPartlin instructs: “You need to make your way into the termite mound and down into the nest below. Once you’re down there, your mission is simple: you must dig, crawl and scramble through the tunnels, collecting stars as you go.”

Meanwhile, birthday girl Ashley has another announcement as she tells everyone they need to leave camp immediately for the day’s challenge – Balance of Power.

She tells them: “Celebrities, in front of you are two pits and eleven balance paddles. You must each take hold of a paddle and keep it steady to prevent your ball from falling into the pit. When you drop your ball, you are eliminated. The last person standing wins.”

The celebrities position themselves behind their paddles and the challenge begins. While some adopt peculiar techniques, they quickly realise it’s an endurance challenge rather than one of skill.

As night falls, most celebrities are still standing, balancing balls on their paddles with focus as the eliminated campmates try to distract them from the sidelines.

The group makes a unanimous decision to throw the game by dropping their paddles and letting one person win. But will Ashley be given that chance as the birthday gift?

How old is Ashley Roberts?

Ashley Roberts is 44 years old. While the I’m a Celebrity episode featuring her birthday airs on April 17, her actual birthday is on September 14.

Episodes of the original series of I’m a Celebrity, which airs in November and December, are broadcast live from Australia but the current all stars series was pre-recorded in South Africa and the latest scenes were filmed seven months ago.

However, the series finale will be broadcast live from London in two parts on Friday 24 April. It will run on ITV1 and ITVX from 7.30pm until 9pm. The winner’s announcement will then air at 10pm.

The entire celebrity cast will gather and the public will get the chance to vote for this year’s I’m a Celebrity legend.

I’m A Celebrity… South Africa is on ITV1 and ITVX

David Haye stuns I’m A Celeb camp with comments about pretty girls and their ‘ugly mates’ in a chat about his girlfriend

David Haye left the I’m A Celebrity camp stunned with a string of sexist comments. In the second week of the ITV show, the 45-year-old former boxer made a series of statements related to how women look and their personalities, during a group discussion.

It all started innocently enough when it was suggested the group of celebs should meet up for a party when they left the show, and David said his girlfriend Sian was a great cook and could possibly provide food for the event. He then added: “She’s like tall, blue eyes. She’s lovely. She’s got the personality of a proper ugly bird.”

Scarlett Moffatt replied: “You can’t say that.” But David brushed off the response and added: “She has. Most ugly girls realise they don’t they’re not pretty enough to….they gotta have a personality to banter and to tell jokes and s**t, so people overlook the fact that they’re not aesthetically amazing, straight away.

“Which is what’s called Ugly Duckling syndrome, where girls are ugly, when they start off, and then they and then they kind of they, they get pretty as they get older. But they still got the personality of when they’re ugly. Does that make sense?”

As Scarlett and others made shocked noises, David continued to express his opinions. Haye added: “You get a girl who’s pretty from day one, you get a girl who’s different day one. Everyone goes ‘You’re so beautiful. You’re amazing’. She grows up thinking, I’m amazing. Everyone loves me. I can open any door. I can go anywhere I want.

“They don’t have to have a personality, because most super pretty girls are just idiots. But then their ugly friend, they’ve got work a bit harder, be more personable. They got to be nicer to everyone. Gonna get you a drink.”

READ MORE: Inside David Haye’s ‘throuple’ relationships where ‘one woman will never be enough’READ MORE: I’m A Celebrity’s Beverley Callard breaks silence on David Haye feud ‘It’s not over yet’

Scarlett again took David to task over the comments. She explained: “It is not just ugly people saying ‘would you like a drink’. What are you talking about? You are just talking s***.”

And actor Beverley Callard added: “Complete claptrap. So do handsome men have s*** personalities? I have never heard anything so sexist in all my life.”

Haye then changed to conversation onto the fact when he was growing up only pretty girls were allowed into nightclubs in London’s West End.

He said: “They only let pretty girls into the club, and the pretty girls go, oh, so sorry about that. They leave their ugly friend behind. I’ve seen it, I’ve watched it. I’ve watched it with my own eyes. I’ve seen it. It’s horrible. I feel terrible for these poor girls. She’s the one normally driving as well.”

Admitting he was “digging” a bigger hole for himself, Bev replied the shovel was “not big enough”.

Sinitta tried to bring the chat back to his own situation and Haye concluded he would be with his girlfriend “even if she didn’t look how she looked”.

But on Haye’s girlfriend, Beverley said: “He has hit the jackpot, but his partner has got the booby prize.”

The camp were not the only ones surprised by the comments from Haye.

Show hosts Ant and Dec also weighed in. Dec said the comments “might be interpreted as sexist” and Ant said he made “nine jaws drop to the floor” without throwing a punch.

Haye has been in a relationship with model Sian Osborne since 2020, but over recent years he’s also been linked to Saturdays singer Una Healy. He has been in the headlines more for his colour love life than his former skills in the ring in recent years, with suggestions he was in a throuple situation.

The one-time heavyweight champion is non-monogamous which is when someone has multiple romantic and sexual relationships, with the consent of a partner or spouse. Ant and Dec have commented on this during the series, but Haye himself is yet to bring up his relationship status in camp.

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Footballer Jimmy Bullard is set to stir things up on I’m A Celebrity All Stars as he joins the camp with Harry Redknapp, completing the full South Africa line-up

Jimmy Bullard vowed to shake things up in the I’m A Celebrity All Star camp as a late entry with some pranks.

The former Premier League footballer, 47, will head into camp alongside Harry Redknapp, and both King Harry and King Jimmy are new monarchs who will pick their subjects from the celebrity campmates to form two teams: the Lions and the Rhinos.

On playing pranks, Jimmy said: “I’m A Celebrity is a very similar scenario to being in the changing room – and it brings the devil out in me! When I did the jungle in Australia, I loved having a laugh playing some pranks and messing around like kids.

“That’s what I loved most about it and I was always playing up! I’ve always done it in changing rooms too and so now this time around, I am sure it will naturally happen because I’m always going to look to have a laugh and wind people up!”

Jimmy hopes to do better than first appearance in Oz when he was first out in 2014 having gone onto the show as one of the favourites to win. He said: “My last time I was there I finished stone cold last because I came out first, so it’s flattering that I didn’t get forgotten. It’s nice to have another bash at it, but it was tough last time and I know the trials are going to be tough again!”

He added: “I was scared of lots of things and I still am fearful of snakes. Doing I’m A Celebrity… did not cure me of any of my phobias!” However his time in the Aussie jungle should at least help him a little bit for his return in South Africa. Speaking before he went onto the show, he added: “I feel a little bit more prepared because you understand what is coming but I have been watching it year after year, and the trials just seem to get tougher!

“I am still scared of snakes and spiders too and I am apprehensive about what is going to happen. You could be jumping out of a plane before you know it or getting chucked in a box full of snakes! But I signed up for this, so I am looking forward to getting started.”

According to reports in November after this series was filmed, viewers will see Jimmy clash with Adam Thomas during a row in camp. And Jimmy did admit it can be difficult living in camp with others,

Looking back on his Aussie experience, he explained: “I learnt that when you are in the camp, it can be difficult because you are with 11 other people you don’t really know.

“You don’t want to rub people up the wrong way. But I did have a lot of fun whilst I was there and it was amazing how bonds form. You get close to the other celebrities so quickly.”

And Jimmy is honest enough to admit that despite not being on the show for long first time around, it gave his career a boost. The show opened doors and gave him new opportunities after retiring from football.

He said: “It’s weird because ever since I did the programme, a lot of families have come up to tell me they watched it. In the past, it was always lads as I obviously used to play football. I don’t think I would have had some of the gigs I have had were it not for I’m A Celebrity… I co-presented Soccer AM for seven years and you do question yourself whether you would have had gigs like that if you hadn’t done the jungle.

“I’m always in front of the camera now with my golf YouTube programme. My life has definitely changed (for the better) post I’m A Celebrity…”

* I’m A Celebrity…South Africa airs weeknights at 9pm on ITV1.

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SPAIN’S popularity might often leave you feeling like there isn’t a part of the country that is untouched and unexplored.

But just over an hour’s drive from Seville, you’ll find the much quieter coastal town of Mazagón.

The town of Mazagon dates back to the 14th century, when it used to be a fishing village.

It was initially a popular holiday destination for rich Spanish families from the nearby cities, and even now just a few thousand people live there.

According to The Telegraph, it is still more popular with Spaniards than Brits.

They said: “The low-key town is popular with Huelva locals, but it’s still relatively undiscovered by holidaymakers from the rest of Spain, let alone Britain.”

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It largely remains untouched for two reasons – one being strict planning rules that ban anything from being built higher than three-storeys high.

Not only that, but the area is protected due to sitting near the Donana National Park.

The largest nature reserve in Europe, it is home to a number of endangered species including the Spanish imperial eagle and the Iberian lynx.

One of the main attractions of the town itself is the 3.4mile beach, backed by rocky, sandstone cliffs.

At the western end of the town, close to the marina, Playa de Mazagón is built up enough to have things like showers, sunloungers and parking facilities.

One tourist said it “offers a peaceful escape from crowded tourist spots,” while others said the calm waters made it ideal for families with young kids.

Along the beach you might also spot ‘chiringuitos’ – small, wooden hut beach bars – usually serving tapas and drinks.

Moving westwards from the town, the Playa de Mazagón leads into Playa de las Dunas – a quieter spot, with a number of villas littered at its edge.

Head even further west and you will reach Playa de Alcor which is a more rural beach that is backed by pine woods and sand dunes.

Don’t expect the beaches to have a promenade, instead you can explore then via wooden boardwalks.

The town centre itself is relatively small, but there are a number of sites worth visiting such as Ermita del Carmen chapel, which was restored in 2014, or the more modern Sagrados Corazones.

There’s also the Mazagón Lighthouse, dating back to 1861 and is still in use – and is bizarrely built 600metres inland.

When it comes to grabbing a bite to eat, the town has many tapas bars where each dish can cost as little as €4 (£3.49), such as cheese croquettes and calamari.

At most bars and restaurants you can expect to pay a couple of euros for a beer.

If you are looking for a place to stay, you can’t get much closer to the beach than Playa de Mazagon Camping which is right on the sand.

There are a range of different accommodation options at the site including bell tents for between two and six people, a two-person cabin and camping pitches.

The campsite also boasts an outdoor swimming pool with a pirate ship, a restaurant and bar, sports courts and a playground.

A bell tent for two people costs as little as €50 (£43.63) per night and the two-person cabin costs from €60 (£52.35) per night.

If you fancy exploring further afield then you could head to the port city of Huelva, just a 20-minute drive away.

The city is famous for being the departure point for Christopher Columbus‘s first voyage to the Americas.

The easiest way to get from the UK to Mazagon is by flying to either Seville or Faro in Portugal – both taking just under three hours.

Flights from the UK to Faro cost as little as £13 one-way in April and May.

Once in Faro, you can either drive or hop on a bus for an hour-and-a-half, costing £16 per way.

Alternatively, if you head to Seville, flights from the UK cost from £15 in May and from the airport it is then an hour-and-20-minute drive or bus journey, which would cost around £6 per way.

For more Spanish destinations, Spain’s hottest city has £2.50 wine and £15 flights.

Plus, the beach city in Spain that ‘has it all’ with flights from £15 – and is loved by A Place in the Sun stars.

To laugh or to cry? It’s a question that feels a little too familiar of late — one confronted often while watching “Maddie’s Secret,” the debut as writer-director from comedian and performer John Early.

Playing the title role with an unnerving sincerity and startling sense of vulnerability, Early stars as Maddie Ralph, a young woman climbing the ranks as a Los Angeles food influencer while secretly hiding her struggle with bulimia.

Early’s performance is a truly remarkable highwire act, all the more so for the wig, padding and prosthetics he wears to play the character. Made in the earnest style of a disease-of-the-week television movie without ever tipping over into winking irony, the film is both funny and tender.

“That, to me, is Maddie’s true secret,” says Early, 38, on a recent video interview from the apartment he is renting in New York City while appearing onstage in Wallace Shawn’s new off-Broadway play “What We Did Before Our Moth Days.”

“The secret of the movie — the real twist of the movie — is not any kind of trope-y reveal,” Early says. “The twist is actually a tonal twist. What I hope is then that becomes funny: the sheer commitment to the stakes of it.

“At any given moment, you can experience it as totally sincere, you can absorb it genuinely and be moved by it,” Early continues, “or you can take a little break and step out of it and find it uproariously funny that we’re even doing this to begin with.”

John Early, front, and Eric Rahill in the movie “Maddie’s Secret.”

(Magnolia Pictures)

Early’s skillfully wrought psychodrama, which had its world premiere at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival, is now the opening-night selection for this year’s Los Angeles Festival of Movies, playing Thursday at Eagle Rock’s Vidiots with members of the cast present for a Q&A, and then again on Friday at 2220 Arts + Archives in Historic Filipinotown.

“Maddie’s Secret,” which opens in theaters June 12, makes for a fitting kickoff for this year’s event. Though the programming includes movies from all over the world, organizers ended up leaning heavily into films made in Los Angeles.

“This year it really does feel like a homegrown festival,” said Sarah Winshall, LAFM’s co-founder and festival director. “What it ended up doing is making us think about L.A. as a small town as a result.”

“I think the movie is an incredible accomplishment,” said Micah Gottlieb, LAFM co-founder and artistic director. “It’s made by somebody who’s not just a great comedian but also is a cinephile, knows the history of cinema, is trying to make something that fits within that lineage, while also just making an all-out entertaining movie.”

“Maddie’s Secret” was shot in the same workaday, creative-class neighborhoods where LAFM unspools. (Maddie’s house in the movie is Early’s own home.) The actor and filmmaker describes it as a “very Echo Park, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, Frogtown, Glassell Park, Highland Park, Los Feliz movie.”

The story is also rooted in Early’s own complicated feelings about the L.A. food scene.

“It’s completely born out of my time in L.A. and my initial shock when I was confronted with a burgeoning restaurant scene,” says Early, who grew up in Nashville and moved to L.A. from New York in 2016.

“Not to always be talking about millennials, but it seemed very much of my generation,” he says, “specifically these kinds of restaurants where the food is really expensive but you’re sitting on a milk crate, eating lots of Middle Eastern food made by white people. There was just something very funny about all of it to me, even though I completely also sincerely loved it and still do.”

The film’s supporting cast is drawn largely from Early’s own circle of friends, including his most frequent collaborator, the comedian and writer Kate Berlant, along with Conner O’Malley, Claudia O’Doherty, Eric Rahill and Vanessa Bayer. The film’s production designer Gordon Landenberger is his ex-boyfriend and Early is excited that a number of other key collaborators, including costume designers Kimme Aaberg and Izzy Heller and cinematographer Max Lakner, are working on a feature for the first time, just as he is as writer-director.

“I think I wanted to force myself at gunpoint into a place of innocence and naivete,” says Early. “I think this movie is a strange mutation of the camp tradition.”

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Berlant plays Maddie’s best friend in the film. She and Early have worked together on shorts, live performances and their 2022 Peacock special “Would It Kill You to Laugh?” The two always share what they are developing and so Berlant first heard about “Maddie’s Secret” when it was just percolating as an idea.

“It was a very wild proposition,” she recalls with a laugh while driving down L.A.’s Beverly Boulevard. “He’s like, ‘I’m going to play a woman who’s struggling with bulimia.’ I was like, ‘Good luck.’ I was astonished that he totally pulled it off and he’s such a true filmmaker. It was kind of miraculous.”

Berlant describes their shared sensibility, the ability to simultaneously play comedy and pathos, as a kind of freedom. “Just the underlying absurdity or joke really gives you the ability to go to these really intense emotional places,” she says. “It gives you the permission to go to places that otherwise would be too unbearably saccharin.”

For Early it was also a chance to fulfill his longtime desire to play an old-school ingénue.

“I think I wanted to force myself at gunpoint into a place of innocence and naivete,” says Early. “I think this movie is a strange mutation of the camp tradition.”

“I was astonished that he totally pulled it off and he’s such a true filmmaker,” says Kate Berlant, Early’s longtime collaborator. “It was kind of miraculous.”

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

He references Susan Sontag’s famous essay “Notes on Camp” to say there are two kinds of camp humor, one that is unknowing and another that is knowing. It is near impossible now to genuinely create the first kind, but the process of making “Maddie’s Secret” was in a sense about being the second and striving for the first.

“In the age of the internet and in the kind of crumbling, depressing world we live in, it’s almost impossible to be the first kind of camp,” says Early, “to feel innocent and naive and to twirl. But obviously there is a part of me, there’s a part of all of us, that is very childlike and innocent and has hope. So I think this movie, it knows itself to be camp but it’s aching to be more like the first kind of camp. It’s aching to be pure and naive.”

Though it may be easy to place what Early is doing in the tradition of drag performers such as Divine’s work with filmmaker John Waters, to Early his performance in “Maddie’s Secret” sits outside of it.

“Drag is often obviously about a certain kind of extravagance and fabulousness and Maddie is very humble,” he says. “And so I don’t really see it as drag. It didn’t feel like drag doing it, whatever that means. It honestly just felt like acting to me.”

In dealing with the serious topic of bulimia, Early was careful never to make the eating disorder the joke. He points to a trio of TV movies — 1986’s “Kate’s Secret,” starring Meredith Baxter Birney; 1997’s “Perfect Body,” starring Amy Jo Johnson; and 1981’s “The Best Little Girl in the World,” starring Jennifer Jason Leigh — along with Lauren Greenfield’s 2006 documentary “Thin” as key influences on how he approached the film’s depiction of the illness. (Other non-bulimia influences include Alfred Hitchcock’s “Marnie,” Paul Verhoeven’s trashy “Showgirls” and Adrian Lyne’s “Flashdance.”)

“I don’t find bulimia itself funny,” says Early. “The genre of these movies — that’s what’s funny. It’s the emotional pitch of those movies and the way that they’re made and the acting style and the kind of moralistic quality while being totally pervy. All that was funny to me. And then also putting contemporary life — young, gentrified L.A. food-content influencer culture — putting all that through a melodrama-style filter, that was funny to me.”

While writing the screenplay, Early says he often found himself weeping, overtaken by the emotions of what he was creating. “I guess I’m not above the genre at all,” he admits.

But playing the part was another matter, having sold everyone involved in the production on a very specific tone and conception of what they would do together.

“I was like, ‘I am so stupid, I can’t believe I have put myself in this position,’” Early says, laughing at the memory. “I had set myself up to do the thing that I really had no proof that I could do, which is to play an almost Juliet kind of character who’s going through these extreme things. And I was the one that promised everyone that we would take it seriously. And then suddenly I was like ‘OK, well you have to do it. You actually have to do it.’”

Even if Early was uncertain in the moment, the result is undeniable: a dizzying, disarming blend of humor and emotion — and one of the year’s boldest performances.

The I’m A Celebrity All Stars have only been in camp a day but Sinitta is already opening up about her famous exes – including Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt

Sinitta has been regaling her I’m A Celebrity campmates with tales of her Brad Pitt romance. The former singer is one of the stars competing in the latest All Stars series in South Africa.

During Monday night’s launch, viewers saw the first set of celebs join the show with latecomers Craig Charles and Gemma Collins set to follow this evening.

A preview for tonight’s episode, sees Sinitta talking about her famous exes. In Main Camp, conversation turns to Sinitta’s former flame Brad Pitt. “Did you, like, kiss and that?” Scarlett asks cheekily while the group all listen giddily.

Reflecting on the relationship in the Bush Telegraph, Sinitta confesses: “Even I do think, wow, it was nice while it lasted.”

When Scarlett asks if the memories still exist in her head, Sinitta confirms: “All I have to do is close my eyes and there he is.”

“I’d be napping all the time,” jokes Scarlett.

Sinitta tells her co-stars she dated the Fight Club actor ‘years ago’ before he was ‘famous’ and ahead of the release of Thelma & Louise in 1991. Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts tells her that was ‘prime’ Brad Pitt as they congratulate her on the experience.

Sinitta has previously revealed she dated Brad for two years in the 80s before he became a major Hollywood star. She has described him as “fun,” “sweet,” and having “the most amazing body.”

Her first high-profile romance was with singer David Essex, when she was 16 and he was 37.

Sinitta said she was initially not interested in Brad, who she thought was a ‘nobody.’

“He was in Dallas at the time and I was more of a Dynasty fan,” she said. After asking for his number, Sinitta said they went on a first date and ‘clicked immediately.’

“We were both quiet people, Christian, normal and healthy people underneath our crazy, public lifestyles and, at that point, he wasn’t really, really famous. He was just the hottest boy – drop dead gorgeous.

“Everywhere we went, all the gay guys were after him, all the girls were after him. Everybody just loved him because he was stunning.”

Gemma Collins says she will prove she is ‘strong woman’ in I’m A Celebrity camp second time around.

Former TOWIE star Gemma Collins has insisted she is committed to I’m A Celebrity second time around.

The reality TV star lasted just 72 hours first time around before quitting in 2014, but has been given a second chance in South Africa. Gemma, who went in as a late entry alongside Craig Charles, said: “Going on All Stars is a real moment for me in my career – it’s redemption. To be able to do this again is the greatest honour ever. I am going to be the best campmate and get those stars. None of us will be starving under my watch.”

The 45-year old also revealed she will be walking into the South African jungle as ‘Gemma Collins’ and not her dive persona ‘The GC’.

She said: “I am dreading the whole lot, I don’t think anyone goes into the jungle going ‘woohoo’. It’s not normal to be faced with animals, but I am going in as Gemma Collins. Gemma Collins is a self-made woman. I have been to hell and back to get to where I am today. I am just looking forward to proving to people I can do it.

“There is no way I am going to be leaving after 72 hours. I am in it to win it. I am going through to the end. Last time, there were no highlights for me. But I wasn’t the strong, assertive woman I am today and I’ve got a totally different mindset.”

She says if she were lucky enough to win the series, it would be the ultimate pinnacle in her career.

Gemma said: “If I could get crowned the ‘Legend’, I would just feel complete in my life. Me quitting has been a shadow hanging over me. It would be my real redemption moment of my career that I had done this and nobody could take it away from me.”

Ahead of filming the show last year, Gemma also said she was looking forward to chatting with Ant & Dec again in the jungle.

She added: “It has been embarrassing whenever I have been to ITV parties knowing their first thought might be, ‘oh no, there is that girl who left the jungle’. They are fabulous. I want to show them what I am made of and get that new-found respect.”

As well as Gemma other returning stars include Olympian Sir Mo Farah, former Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt, Pussycat Dolls singer Ashley Roberts, actor Adam Thomas, singer Sinitta and comedian Seann Walsh.

Gemma and fellow latecomer Craig Charles will be competing in a trial before they arrive in camp tonight.

Asked if the show changed her first time around, she added: “No but now with hindsight, I realise I wasn’t wholesome or grounded when I went in. I was this girl from Essex who was all about Range Rovers, fancy jewellery and fancy coats. I am going to South Africa with a very different mindset.”

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Victoria Pedretti was fresh out of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama when she was cast in Mike Flanagan’s acclaimed 2018 horror series, “The Haunting of Hill House.”

In her breakout role as Nell Crain, the youngest and most sensitive of five adult siblings reckoning with wounds from a childhood summer spent in a cursed home, Pedretti became the undisputed heart of “Hill House,” anchoring the show with a spellbinding performance that christened her as a scream queen. Her subsequent appearances in “The Haunting of Bly Manor” and “You” were characterized by a similar dramatic intensity, solidifying her renown in the horror genre.

But in Pedretti’s new “Forbidden Fruits,” a horror-comedy directed by Meredith Alloway making her feature debut and produced by “Jennifer’s Body” screenwriter Diablo Cody, the actor shines in all-new soapy splendor.

Set in a Dallas shopping mall, “Forbidden Fruits” revolves around an elite clique of retail employees who run a witches’ coven out of the basement of their boho boutique Free Eden. Pedretti stars alongside Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung and Alexandra Shipp.

Victoria Pedretti in the movie “Forbidden Fruits.”

(Sabrina Lantos / Independent Film Company and Shudder)

Initially asked to look at both the roles of whimsigoth physics buff Fig and the bubbly yet emotionally complex Cherry, described by Alloway as a “Texas Brigitte Bardot,” Pedretti fell hard for the latter.

“She really popped off the page,” Pedretti, 31, says on a recent Zoom interview she takes while on a sandwich run in L.A. “I entered into this glorious flow state.”

“I can’t say I’ve had any experience quite like it, where I really didn’t spend a lot of time questioning myself,” the actor says. “She kind of took over.”

That confidence was perhaps the product of Pedretti performing in two stage plays before “Forbidden Fruits” — or maybe it was the nighttime filming schedule. Either way, Pedretti says she improvised constantly and always kept swinging until somebody said, “Cut.”

The result: Pedretti in Alloway’s instant cult classic is a laugh-out-loud-funny unending well of charm, packing humor into even her most routine dialogue. In her best quotable moments, she seamlessly infuses her sometimes shrill timbre with a dash of Southern drawl. One of her most iconic facial expressions in the film is already circulating as a reaction meme online.

“I was enjoying being in this character so much, I just wouldn’t stop,” Pedretti says, adding that Alloway, who was sensitive to cast members’ interpretations of their roles, supported experimentation.

Alloway praises the Philadelphia-born Pedretti for nailing Cherry’s comedic moments yet also grounding the character in a traumatic backstory — a balancing act the director knew she was capable of after watching “Hill House.”

“I saw her in that show and I was like, ‘Who is that?’” Alloway says. “She is magnificent and so raw. I didn’t feel like I was watching someone acting. I was worried for her.”

After later watching Pedretti nail her role in “You” as Love Quinn, a wealthy, charismatic chef who hides a psychopathic nature, Alloway was convinced of her star power.

Victoria Pedretti in the movie “You.”

(John P. Fleenor / Netflix)

Cody was most familiar with Pedretti’s performance in “You,” pegging the actor as an “intense brunet” that didn’t square at first with her interpretation of Cherry as an Anna Nicole Smith type.

“Then I see the movie and I’m like, oh my God, she has that fragility,” Cody recalls. “She has that humor. She has that sexuality. She has all of it.

“Victoria brought all of those layers and I’m really blown away by her,” the Oscar-winning “Juno” screenwriter adds.

Cody says she wasn’t surprised that the film drew such talent. From the moment Alloway and Lily Houghton, who wrote the play “Forbidden Fruits” is based on and cowrote the film’s screenplay, brought the material to Cody and her producing partner Mason Novick, she became obsessed.

“It feels spiritually like a film that I would want to be part of my body of work,” Cody says. She remembers being especially delighted by the echoes of “Jennifer’s Body” present in Alloway and Houghton’s screenplay.

“Jennifer’s Body” was widely considered a box-office flop and critical failure upon its release in 2009 — grossing only $31 million worldwide against a $16-million budget — but in recent years has enjoyed a reappraisal as a stealth-feminist essential, reclaimed by superfans.

“I don’t think that the world was ready for these kinds of themes,” Cody says of the movie’s ideas, including the cost of toxic femininity, the nuances of female friendship and the pervasiveness of the male gaze.

When it came to promoting “Jennifer’s Body,” the producer adds, “there was a huge emphasis on trying to market it to straight men, based on Megan [Fox] being attractive, and that was not at all the point of the film, so that was frustrating.” Conversely, “Forbidden Fruits” speaks intimately to the female experience and “doesn’t attempt to pander to any other demographic.”

“The current zeitgeist is a great place for a movie like this,” she says. “This movie is for the girls, gays and theys, as they say.”

Alloway, a trained actor who worked as a film journalist before moving into directing, was struck with a similar feeling when she first discovered Houghton’s play, right around the time she was consuming copious media about women criminals, such as Tori Telfer’s 2017 book “Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History.”

“I was so entrenched in why women commit acts of crime,” Alloway said, adding that she was disappointed to find that revenge films on the subject still often revolved around men.

Picking up Houghton’s script, the director recalls feeling relieved. “Oh, this is just about women,” she says, her face brightening. “This is about women friendships, women being pitted against each other.”

In an early meeting with Houghton, Alloway told the playwright she’d like to bring a genre lens to “turn up the dial on the emotions that you feel reading the play and make them accessible to people who haven’t had these experiences — or validate people who have.”

Outside of the opportunity to work with so many other young women, Pedretti said she was drawn to “Forbidden Fruits” because of its use of style and tone.

“It asks a lot of people to try to step into a world like this one,” the actor says of the unabashedly histrionic screenplay. “And as nerve-racking as it may be to take that big swing, you gotta take the big swing.”

“She has that fragility,” says producer Diablo Cody of Pedretti. “She has that humor. She has that sexuality. She has all of it.”

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

And swing she does: Pedretti plays up Cherry’s emotional volatility, giving her a full-bodied form of expression. The actor even did her own onscreen makeup (as did Reinhart) and collaborated heavily with costume designer Sarah Millman on Cherry’s wardrobe and styling. Plus, she performed her first topless scene — in a sequence that doesn’t involve men or even sex.

“I’m really proud of the way we use nudity to show a certain kind of unspoken comfortability among women,” she continues. “I remember always getting such a thrill at the comfort level of a girl being like, ‘We’re going to the bathroom together,’ and to me, that is that moment.”

It’s a perfect example of a scene that doesn’t try to speak to anyone except those it’s specifically written for, and one that you only get with women at the helm of a production.

Reflecting on the agency she had to shape Cherry, Pedretti says she is more inspired to explore directorial projects of her own.

“I am so interested in protecting these spaces to be positive, creative experiences for everyone involved,” she says.

Whenever Pedretti does make her feature debut behind the camera (she’s already made a short or two), perhaps Cody will pick up the phone.

Scotland assistant coach Steven Naismith hailed Curtis’ drive to move out on loan and not be content with being a squad player at Rangers.

“This desire, this instinctive nature to get chances,” Naismith added on BBC Sportscene when analysing the youngster’s weekend goal.

“He’s got a bit of pace, he’s direct, he commits defenders – these are all things that have caught the eye.”

Former Celtic and Hibernian midfielder Scott Allan added on the BBC’s Scottish Football Podcast: “When we don’t have Gannon-Doak, we don’t have someone who can really travel with the ball. Curtis does have that.

“Yes, he’s still developing and doesn’t always have that final ball, but that can be worked on. We aren’t blessed with a lot of pace, especially in the attacking areas.

“You have to have pace in those areas, especially when at times we’ll be forced back and when we’re then trying to get up the pitch. Players with pace can be the difference.”