BACK IN AUGUST 2014, on her very first day of filming on Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, Rebecca Ferguson jumped 120 feet off an Austrian rooftop. Not bad for a sufferer of vertigo. And so impressed was Tom Cruise, that later in the shoot he asked her how she felt about joining him in another stunt — her attached to the wing of a biplane, him piloting it. “I said, ‘You must be fucking joking!’” she recalls replying. “‘What? Absolutely not!’”

Bedroom pop producers have been keeping busy during the coronavirus lockdown, and Jawny, the West Coast DIY artist born Jacob Sullenger and previously known as Johnny Utah, is just one example. His latest project ‘For Abby’, a 10-song ‘mixtape’ which is “definitely not an EP, but also not an album”, was completed during a productive period of isolation...

“Welcome to the internet – we’re live in the internet!” charismatic Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley excitedly bellows into a computer screen, the Oxford indie-pop quartet becoming the latest group to turn to virtual gigging during the strange new normal. “We’re going to try to use the power of the internet to get something you can’t get during a show...

When it emerged late on Saturday evening that Cineworld were rumoured to be temporarily closing all of their cinema chains, staff members in the ‘Cineworld Action Group‘ – a group formed and run by Cineworld and Picturehouse employees around the UK – reacted to the news. A front-page story in The Sunday Times said that they were about to be made redundant...

Prior to lockdown, she hadn’t stopped since arriving in LA. After filming finished on Blonde, de Armas got the call to return to Bond once more. “It was kind of a mess in my head,” she laughs, explaining how she went from playing Marilyn to Paloma in the space of just three days. “The second time I had to go back to shoot Bond, I finished filming Blonde on the Friday and started shooting No Time to Die on the Monday..."

Michael Kiwanuka was tonight crowned the winner of the Hyundai Mercury Prize 2020 for his third studio album, ‘KIWANUKA.’ In a five star review, NME described the album as “the sound of an artist coming into his own through brave and dizzying experimentation” and “a daring leap of self-affirmation.”...

On July 31, news came that legendary London-born filmmaker Alan Parker had died at the age of 76 – leaving behind a legacy of incredible movies, bringing his extraordinary craft to kid-gangster musicals, blazing prison movies, supernatural noirs, and Irish soul dramas alike. In the Dune issue of Empire – on sale now – we asked Hollywood’s finest to share their tributes to the man himself. Among them is actor Alec Baldwin...

“Well, there’s probably not a better qualified actor in the country to play a policeman than me,” Daniel Mays laughs as NME asks him about his long history of playing police officers. He’s played a Victorian officer in The Limehouse Golem, a 80’s DCI in Ashes to Ashes and a corrupt cop in Line of Duty. He’s even played a brought-back-from-the-dead, re-animated officer alongside Stephen Graham in Code 404 – one of lockdown’s television highlights...

Everything Everything haven’t had the best start to 2020: in fact, it has been downright atrocious. If you’d have told the Manchester art-rock quartet at the start of the year that they’d have been dealing with fires, floods and an actual pandemic – well, they’d have said it sounds more like something from one of their apocalypse-fearing songs than real life...

This was one of the fastest tracks I ever produced. It was 1999, the night before I was due to fly to Miami for the Winter Music Conference, where all aspiring DJs and producers went. I was trying to stay awake for my early-morning flight and put on an unreleased version of Carol Williams’ Love Is You. I ended up sampling it and, in a couple of hours, I had Groovejet more or less written....

Leah Weller has had a busy few months. Managing to write and release debut single ‘Change’ back in April despite the difficulties of lockdown (Ocean Colour Scene‘s Steve Craddock produced her single remotely), she now shares new song ‘Strangers’ today as part of an EP, or “possibly an album”, Leah says...

A tribute to the late, great, filmmaker Alan Parker for Empire Magazine. Features interviews with Dexter Fletcher, Alec Baldwin, Gurinder Chadha, Lord David Puttnam, Matthew Modine and more...

Jade Anouka hasn’t stopped during lockdown. In the space of three months, she starred in Aisha Zia’s powerful isolation video, Bedlam Before the Burnout, produced a Shakespeare video which went viral (helmed by Judi Dench, no less), as well as writing, directing and starring in her own powerful new short film, Her & Her – and all from her south London flat...

Elisabeth Moss’ latest release, 'Shirley', sees her playing one her most fascinating characters to date: notorious American horror author, Shirley Jackson. Josephine Decker’s thrilling film sees Moss and co-star Michael Stuhlbarg (he’s playing Shirley’s philandering husband, Stanley) blur fact and fiction in a film offering an imaginative re-working of the traditional biopic. Here, Moss explains why she’s always drawn to playing complex characters, her naturally instinctive process and how she thrives under pressure...

As dream starts to careers go, 24-year-old Tiana Major9’s is certainly up there. Last year, her emotive song ‘Collide’ – a collaboration with Dreamville rap duo Earthgang – soundtracked one of the biggest cinematic hits of the year, Queen and Slim. She was personally chosen by Stormzy to appear on ‘Heavy Is The Head’ album standout ‘Rainfall’ and a show-stopping performance with the grime star at this year’s BRITs followed. Now she joins forces with the iconic Motown Records for new EP, 'At Sixes and Sevens'...

Parisian space-pop group L’Impératrice should be on a world tour right now. They should be in the thick of delivering 60 dates across the globe – including a headline slot at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire: it would have included their biggest shows to date. But you know by now, that socially-distanced live gigs are scarce – even if backed by the UK government. the world stopped through coronavirus and live music as we knew it ground to a halt...

Stuck in lockdown in Colorado, renowned stuntwoman and actress Zoe Bell saw a video where a group of French stunt artists created an incredible mass fight scene. Filmed individually in the safety of their own homes, the clips were edited into one cohesive whole proving that lockdown need be no barrier to creativity...

For the past 20 years, Simon Pegg hasn’t stopped. From Spaced to Star Trek and Shaun of the Dead to Star Wars, Pegg’s ascent from cult television hero to red carpet regular has been a breathless watch. It’s no wonder then, that when he greets NME on the phone from his home in Hertfordshire, where he’s staying with his wife and daughter, Pegg sounds grateful for the enforced rest that lockdown has brought...

“I’ve been finding it hard to put words to how I feel in lockdown,” Lucy Dacus tells NME from her home in Richmond, Virgina. “I think a lot of people are existing in a fog and that’s where I am too. At my best, I’m focusing on work, writing and doing some other projects. The most important work going on now is educating myself further about systemic racism, how to be a better anti-racist, and how to show up for my community more tangibly..."

Right about now, many of us would have been getting ready to jet off on our holidays. But instead of sun-soaked, cocktail-fuelled evenings on the beach, we’re stuck indoors contemplating the very nature of our existence as lockdown citizens. It sucks, to be honest. However, if anything has made life more bearable since Contagion ceased to be a fictional account, it’s TV. In fact, there’s one TV show in particular that has made us all feel a bit more vibey. Yup, we’re talking about White Lines...