‘True activism has to cost you something’: Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan on politics, paparazzi and parasocial fandom

Back in 2008, when Nicola Coughlan was at drama school, a guy in her class swaggered over and, with all the brimming confidence of young men in the noughties, asked her, “Do the Irish think the English are really cool?” Coughlan, born in Galway, mimes processing the question. “Well,” she said, “it’s quite complicated. Like, there’s a lot of history there, between the two countries. Like, there’s a lot going on.”The Guardian’s journalism is independent

From Eternity to Jamiroquai: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

Eternity Out nowMiles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen star, along with Callum Turner, in a quirky metaphysical romantic drama from A24, in which, upon arriving in the afterlife, everyone must decide where, and with whom, they would like to spend eternity. Should Olsen’s character pick the man she settled down with (Teller) or her first love (Turner)?It Was Just an AccidentOut now This Palme d’Or-winning feature from Iranian director Jafar Panahi blends social realism with political commentary, as a man (Ebrahim Azizi) and his pregnant wife (Afsaneh Najmabadi), travelling with their young daughter (Delmaz Najafi), are involved in a minor car crash.Folktales Out now Documentary-makers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp) follow a group of teens as they take a gap year at a traditional folk high school in Arctic Norway, where the emphasis is less on a traditional curriculum and more on dog sledding and survival skills.Five Nights at Freddy’s 2Out now Based on the second video game in the popular series, this sequel sees Josh Hutcherson reprising his role as night guard Mike Schmidt, and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop back on puppet duty, for this horror about animatronic critters possessed from within by unquiet souls. Catherine BrayThe CharlatansO2 Academy Leeds, 6 December; touring to 12 DecemberReleased in October, the Charlatans’ 14th album We Are Love found the indie perennials continuing to push their sound via production help from Dev Hynes

The Guide #220: The best things we watched, read and listened to this year – that weren’t from 2025

We’ve just inched into December, which of course means Christmas list season. Already, five days in, plenty of publications have shared their cultural best-ofs for 2025 – you can read the Guardian’s best books and songs of the year right now, with our countdowns in TV, film and music coming very soon.Meanwhile, many of you will have been bombarded on social media by screengrabs of your colleagues/friends/enemies’ Spotify Wrapped playlists (though Mood Machine author Liz Pelly has written pretty convincingly about why you shouldn’t share yours). This year’s Wrapped includes a “listening age” feature, which uses the release dates of the music you streamed to determine how horribly out-of-date your tastes are – revealing to some users that they are, in fact, centenarians.But there is, of course, no shame in taking a break from the deluge of new releases to catch some forgotten or not-forgotten classics

Stephen Colbert on Pete Hegseth’s Venezuela scandal: ‘Frantically pointing the finger’

Late-night hosts talked Donald Trump’s renaming of the Institute of Peace, Pete Hegseth’s ongoing Venezuela scandal and a new batch of photos from Epstein Island.Stephen Colbert opened Thursday’s Late Show with a note about the president’s meeting with leaders from the auto industry, where announced that he would do away with the guidances enacted by Joe Biden to make more electric cars. “This is a Green New Stand,” said Trump in the Oval Office. “And people were paying too much for a car that didn’t work as well … All of the nonsense is going to be taken out of the cars.”“All you need in a car is the basics, folks,” said Colbert in his Trump voice

Barbican revamp to give ‘bewildering’ arts centre a new lease of life

Project will make the famously confusing London landmark easier to navigate and more accessible“Everything leaks,” says Philippa Simpson, the director of buildings and renewal at the Barbican, who is standing outside the venue’s lakeside area and inspecting the tired-looking tiles beneath her feet.Water seeps through the cracks into the building below and serves as a reminder of the job facing Simpson and the team who are overhauling the 43-year-old landmark.The first phase of the project will cost £231m, and Simpson – who did a similar, if less daunting, job for the Young V&A in east London – hopes it will be finished in time for the 50th anniversary in 2032. The overall bill is estimated to be £451m.A mammoth task awaits her

Jimmy Kimmel on Pete Hegseth, ‘our secretary of war crimes’

Late-night hosts tore into Pete Hegseth’s Venezuelan boat blame game, Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting naps and the annual Spotify Wrapped lists.Jimmy Kimmel opened his Wednesday-evening monologue with an acknowledgement of a yearly tradition: the annual Spotify Wrapped list, documenting users’ listening habits for the year.“This Spotify, they really have it figured out,” he said. “They spy on you all year. It’s what they do