#vee fisher icons

[junk-drop]

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate Shameless’ V Fisher (aka Shanola Hampton)—she has best style!

[bowiehunts]

Under the cut are #45 icons of SHANOLA HAMPTON during her role on SHAMELESS (US). I made them all but credit for the screencaps go to screencapped.net. Please LIKE/REBLOG if using or just to spread the love.

[bbbrianjones]

talk bob dylan facts to me babe 🥴😍

babe it's like u know.......

when he got inducted into the rock n roll hall of fame, he thanked mike love for not mentioning him

he was set up to meet donovan in 1965 and when donovan arrived, he found bob wearing halloween masks

this exchanged between bob & carrie fisher

when he was touring in 1966, he would make everyone go to castles and historic sites with him. just to have a look around.

big fan of prince

apparently, he said to the turtles they should record it ain't me babe after a performance but their version was already in the top twenty at the time

of course the iconic moment elton john thought bob dylan was his gardener

also about how some guy called the cops on bob because he thought it was a homeless guy... i sense a trend

he run away from jimi hendrix because he didn't know who he was (he eventually realised and stopped to talk)

he didn’t want his part of the last waltz to be filmed and everyone losttheir god damn mind over it. there’s even a wiki section about it.  

he used to pretend he was bobby vee, going so far as to tell his cousins he was bobby vee. people would even come to bob after bobby vee had a record out and go 'that was a real nice song bobby'

he also appeared in an ad for lingerie???

he did a press conference in paris where he bought a puppet and would "bring the puppet to his ear and pretend like it was giving an answer"

the puppet was called finian

[koganphrancis]

WE ARE FINALLY, TRULY CAMLESS!

Season 9 Episode 6 Recap

First and foremost, I want to single out Noel Fisher for being a truly class act and returning to this demon show to give fans what happiness he could-the ONLY happiness a lot of fans have found here, myself included, in a very long time.

Next a serious piece of appreciation to Cameron Monaghan.  I know he worked hard on what little they gave him to do in the past few years, and I’m thankful he had Gotham to work on to actually use his talent while mired down in the stinky swamp this show has become.  In another actor’s hands, I don’t know that Gallavich would’ve been as captivating as it was-without Noel I know it wouldn’t have been, but Cam does deserve credit for bringing the other half of the couple to life-when they were on screen together, they had an undeniable magic happening.

Finally to any of the “fans” that are thinking or posting that we got this actually pretty shitty prison endgame because people pestered the show producers, writers, and actors too much to “bring Mickey back” may I please direct you to watch the early episode (I believe it was in Season 1, but certainly no later than S2) where Lip tells Ian prison must be a gay man’s dream with all the tattoos and unlimited sex partners.  THAT is John Wells’ perception of gay men and it has been since long before he even thought of breaking Ian and Mickey up, let alone bringing Mickey back.  

Personally I’m supremely disappointed this gay couple, like so many others, did not get a free and truly happy ending in canon, even though my friends know I predicted this could very well be all we got in the end.  FFS it’s the year twenty gayteen-couldn’t ONE iconic gay couple be given a nice, normal happy ending?  John Wells is a fucking dinosaur.  He needs to go to a sensitivity training camp run by Dan Levy, Emily Andras, and Ryan Murphy.  

Anyway-my last recap (baring a miracle) of this shit show is under the cut

(screen cap credit: justmikhailothings)

This episode was brought to us by White Castle.  I’d like to think they gave every dime they got from them to pay Noel, but I’m sure it went to the other “big name” guest stars.

Also the show was (disappointingly) written by Nancy “Ratfucker” Pimental, so you know it’s gonna be bad.

The show begins with Ian putting his stuff away up in the attic and claiming he wants to eat a shitload of White Castle.  Sure, whatever.  Everyone is trying to offer ideas of what they should all do on his last day of freedom, but suddenly THIS Ian is talking and making decisions for himself.  WHERE HAS HE BEEN THE PAST 4 SEASONS?  He only appears when Mickey’s about...

Debbie offers to bring him to a gay bar to “get laid” (flashing back to Monica in S3, ugh-it was a bad idea then, it’s a bad idea now), Ian says, “Pretty sure I’ll get laid a lot in prison.”  He says it with a grim expression, but considering how they end the show/who his cellmate is, he should be so lucky.  

Frank pretty much ignores Ian in the scene, and they certainly don’t interact.  Frank recommends Ian should read James Joyce’s Ulysses in prison, but other than the fact that it’s by an Irish writer and it’s extremely long and dense to get through (aka it’ll take Ian some time to do it), I don’t know if there’s any significance to his suggesting it.  

This scene with just a throwaway send off from Macy seems to be in line with John Wells’ vision to have the series fade away with the characters going about their daily lives rather than end, but I really think both Cam and WHM were screwed out of not having a final scene together with just the two of them.  Their comedy timing was always the best out of Macy and all the Gallagher kids.  The lack of respect is just astounding-especially since the show wasted so much time on rando actors/characters we’re never going to see again.

The rest of Frank’s story this week takes place with Liam in tow again and it’s just dumb and boring.

The next scene shows Fiona and Bored looking at an apartment-they’re going to move in together (why?  And when was this decided?  Not that I care, but they could’ve cut a scene of them bickering to show a scene where they arrived at a decision together for once).  It makes absolutely no sense-they have Fiona’s whole place to themselves, why waste $3000 a month living in some other apartment all to themselves?  Just because it has two bathrooms?  Do they shit that much?

And then, ooh, bad news for Fiona-her business partners require her to kick in another 25 grand or their investment will be dead in the water.  I still don’t know how she went from having $50K to invest to $100K, so this new twist is just more bullshit that I can’t care about.  

Then there’s a scene where we have to see Carl’s new girlfriend’s head in Ian’s lap.  WTF.  We need to see Mickey’s head there-or better yet, Ian using Mickey’s perfect thighs as a pillow.  

There’s a couple of boring, unfunny bits of the nun and then the priest (is it supposed to be hilarious that the dad from Full House is spewing out sex scenario names Nancy must’ve googled?) from Kev and Vee’s kids’ preschool with a dildo.  Seriously, Nance, not even close to funny, probably time to put yourself out to pasture, old girl.  This show has used dildos as a sight gag so many times at this point there’s just nothing more to do with them except maybe shove them up the writers’ asses.

Lip’s storyline this week is something out of very, very bad fan fiction: A movie star comes to their house!  Cuz, that happens, okay?  I’m sure studios and billion dollar make up companies don’t run any kind of background check on people they hire to babysit their clients-why would they?  It’s not like a crazed fan would rape/maim/kill the object of their obsession or anything.  ANYONE can be a star minder for one day, surely.  

BORING ALERT: Lip has a couple more running scenes this week, because no one got enough of that last episode.  This week the least they could’ve done was play the Friends theme song over the endless footage where he’s chasing Courtney Cox around on location in Chicago.  

While watching, I was wondering if Courtney’s role was written for her or they just settled for her when Roseanne Barr was suddenly unavailable-the stuff they had her say and do (except for the sprinting) seemed like it was written for a more jaded motherly type-but I’m jumping ahead.  Since we DID get CC, here’s a couple of stray observations.  1. She looks like a rich man’s Emmy Rossum, and 2. was part of the purpose of her storyline to throw shade at Jennifer Aniston?  Her character is named Jen Wagner, and there’s this whole dumb thing where Nancy’s trying to make, “Face it, you’re gorgeous” happen as her make up commercials’ tag line-which was reminiscent of Aniston’s ads for L’Oreal that stated “I’m/you’re worth it”.  

Meanwhile, after Fi gets the devastating news that she needs to come up with more money she tries to get out of taking the new apartment with Bored by lying to him and telling him she smelled mold there-HE RESTORES OLD HOUSES/BUILDINGS FOR A LIVING why does Nancy think that was a clever lie for Fiona to come up with?  How stupid is Fi supposed to be?

Back at the Gallaghers, Ian is practicing self defense moves with Carl and Kelly to prevent someone from raping him at knife point.  Everyone’s flipping each other in these scenes and it just felt like they wanted to give their stunt coordinator (and Cam’s double) a lot of (boring) shit to do this week...Ian’s final scenes being played out with this meaningless newbie (who Carl will probably wind up killing or dumping or both) made me very sad.  I guess maybe it was to build dramatic tension for when Ian’s in his cell later and the door slides open before he turns around.  But it’s lame because the scenes play like he’s JUST realizing prison’s rapey.  

Someone knocks at the door-my heart started racing but it wasn’t Mickey.  A guy who wasn’t in the jail scenes tells Ian Joselito sent him.  Ian starts asking him about the guys he was in county lock up with-WHO CARES.  The guy tells him the couple he’s asking about broke up when one of them got out and Nancy throws in a line about long distance relationships not working.  Joselito sent this Antonio guy to give Ian an “in-depth safety orientation about Beckman Correctional” before they send him up.   

Antonio draws Ian a map of the facility and tells him the areas to avoid, then draws a big circle with Mickey Mouse ears on it and tells him that’s “Disneyland” and he can get all good things there-smooth blowies, weed, Snickers...I’m sure ol’ Nancy thought she was being clever, but it just took me out of the scene hearing Antonio say “Disney” at least three times-reminded me of Cam’s publicity stunt “coming out date” there last year.  

Fi comes in and asks if anyone has any money (shades of S4 when Ian gave her his Fairy Tail tips) and that she needs 25 grand.  She’s so stupid.  And she’s honestly that out of touch with the family that she thinks maybe one of them has thousands of dollars they could give her?  (although, if she had only gotten to Lip before he tried to buy Xan...)

Fiona tells Ian, “Don’t forget, I’m driving you to prison tomorrow.”  And that’s the last time they see each other.  So much for family, eh, Nance?

A huge time waster of a scene where Kev and Vee pack up all their sex toys and then another drawn out scene of them throwing the stuff off a bridge happen.  Seriously, these are Cameron’s final moments on this shit show-they couldn’t think of anything for him to do?  This was all screen time Cam and Noel could have had, SHOULD have had!

I have to recap this next bit because it was beyond belief unrealistic-Frank steals a bicycle and goes following Katey Sagal and her ex-husband when they leave the hospital in an Audi-and Frank manages to keep up with them all the way to their nice neighborhood that must be some distance away since it was daylight when they left and dark when they get to their door.  Frank.  On a bicycle.  Kept up.  YOU’RE SUCH A DUMB FUCK, NANCY.

Then there’s more White Castle with the money shot of the food and packaging all over the Gallagher kitchen table.  Courtney gets to make a bulimia joke Nancy wrote into the scene.  Hope you weren’t looking for a Guest Starring Emmy, CC.  

Ian tells a “Carl story” about him puncturing his scrotum (on purpose) with a screwdriver when he was a kid.  Carl must have the most mangled dick and scrotum on the planet between his several botched circumcisions and now this.  Kelly asks him if that’s why he has “that scar”.  You know what, Nance?  While some people do in fact find scars sexy, self inflicted ones on scrotums don’t make that list.  

Debbie comes in, recognizes “the chick from the make up ads” having dinner with them.  I’m sorry-having WHITE CASTLE with them.  Now everyone else sees it too, and Kelly insists that CC says “the” line that Nancy made up to make happen-why do they keep trying to make meaningless things A Thing?  

After dinner, Jen is giving Ian advice about prison: “Find a hobby, it makes time go so much faster.”  Ian asks, “Did you learn that from one of your movies?” and she says she did 48 hours for DUI (hey, just like Ethan, Nancy!).  Jen really needed to get into making TP paper mache to get through 2 days?  

Debbie, desperate to make shit about her says, “Maybe I should go to prison too.  It seems like the only way I’ll find a real relationship.”  WHY are they acting like Ian’s going away on a single’s cruise?

Jen says to Debs that’s not true and Debbie says it is, that she’s unlucky in love (when the fuck has she ever been “in love”?)...”men, women...”  

Jen tells her she’s a special woman (how the fuck does she know?) and that she doesn’t want just anyone, she wants somebody “who gets you” and then for the second time in two weeks an older woman, without determining if Debbie is of age, pulls her into a kiss and the others (Ian, Lip, Carl, Kelly) stare like, “WTF?”  The kiss ends and Debbie looks all amazed like she did after the Mel kiss, but then Jen looks at everyone and says, “I played a lesbian once in a movie.”  And that’s what your research into that role led you to believe lesbians do?  Kiss random teens when they’re whining?  Lip starts the “Face it” line and everyone else chips in with “you’re gorgeous” and everyone laughs and I don’t get why it’s funny or even why it’s supposed to be funny.  Seemed like they were trying to drive home the point that ACTORS only PLAY gay characters, but no matter how convincing they seem, they are in reality the much more “preferable” heterosexuals we can feel safe with and really want them to be.  Fuck you, Shameless.

Also, Courtney/Jen is three times older than Debbie-CC is 54 irl and Debs is forever 17 now, so more Kash vibes for anyone who was missing those.  Also perpetuates the writer room’s fantasy that hot young actors would find middle and past middle age folks suitable sex partners.

Fi goes to Patsy’s Pies and there’s another hysterically lame scene where she opens the office safe and is counting out money-I don’t know how much a place like Patsy’s rakes in (or keeps in their safe) but I would think it would take a long time to accumulate 25K in CASH in this day and age of debit and credit cards.  She abandons that bad idea and winds up going down to the docks and drinking with a Patsy’s employee and reciting all her “mo money” problems while he counters with the facts that his car’s been repossessed and that he and his moms are being evicted from the projects.  Then the guy kisses drunk Fi but she tells him she has a boyfriend and that she has to apologize for lying to him (although, really, the underlying implication is she has to apologizing for never seeing that he’s always right about her being a dumb woman who has no head for business decisions).  

Lip and Ian have their last one on one scene.  After the movie star mom for a day leaves, Ian’s fake smoking on the front steps and Lip joins him.  Lip gives him money for his commissary account and Ian says, “I’ll pay you back,” (but not thank you) and Lip says, “No you won’t,” and I’m at home saying, “Lip, why are you being such a dick?”  Ian goes to hand him the lit cigarette, but pulls it away when Lip reaches for it, but then gives it to him and rubs his shoulder.  I guess this is supposed to signal to us that they’ve said everything that’s needed to be said?  Except we’ve been watching and we know Lip is supposed to be a mouthy motherfucker and in the old days they would’ve had actual conversations that they DID NOT have at all-all their conversations this season have been short and awkward.  Ian’s been made into a fucking mute now, even in these final moments.

Their last scene should’ve been in their room, in their beds-Ian can’t sleep and they talk things out in the dark like the brothers they used to be, but no.  Can’t have that.  

The Fiona drama finding out Bored has a wife, kid, and house and then drunkenly smashing up her leased vehicle is so “bad soap opera” I can’t believe this show is still on the air.  If we were supposed to cry for Fiona as her make up  and fake blood ran down her face after her millionth time of being let down by a guy everyone else could see was an ass from the start-well, we just didn’t.  

Next day the Gallaghers are waiting in the living room for Fiona to take Ian to prison.  Kev steps up to drive them all in his truck.

They get there, get out, and Ian looks around, then says to his family, “All right.  I thought Geneva and some of the others would be here but...”  Thank christ they weren’t!!!  The show/Ian wasted too much time on those randos as it was.  However, credit where credit is due-the show got us all the way through this swan song arc without bringing up Terror once!  But I digress, back to our scene.  Carl says, “You can only count on family, dude.”  I scream BULLSHIT at my TV screen.  

Debbie says, “I’m gonna miss you.” 

Group hug.  Kev says, “Don’t get too raped in there, aight?”  Everybody breaks apart, the moment ruined.  Kev says he doesn’t know what to say in these situations (and clearly no one can improvise but Noel).  Vee says, “How about goodbye and I love you?”  

Kev says, “Goodbye, man. I love you.”  

Ian says, “I love you guys too.”  Wasting it on the wrong fucking people!  All of them-except Kev and Vee who never voiced an opinion-didn’t care if went to prison!  

Ian looks at Lip, walks over to him.  “Hey, uh, thanks for being my brother.”

Lip, still a dick, says, “Never had a choice.”  That’s right, bitch-you didn’t get to choose to play the interesting gay brother, you got cast as the dick know-it-all who never cared about anyone but himself.  

During this entire farewell scene I was sitting at home, strangely unmoved.  I felt nothing watching it, probably because everyone was such an asshole about Ian going to prison all season, plus never caring about what he was doing all last season, plus the fact that none of these characters are the characters we first got to know.  It hasn’t been a case of character growth and development, it’s been character assassination and retconning.  

Ian breaks the hug.  “All right.  See you guys.”  He goes to the gate, shows his papers, gets let in through the gate, waves to his family as he walks past the fence, walks into the prison, slaps his phone (wouldn’t he just give that to Lip to hold on to?  Battery’s gonna be dead by the time he gets out) and watch (probably ditto on the watch battery) onto a counter, strips down so we see one last quick shot of his naked ass (what, no cavity search?  And just how long has it been since we’ve seen his unclothed ass anyway?), and a glimpse of the boob tattoo.  

Next we see him in his yellow “I Love You, Philip Morris” jumpsuit, carrying his bedding through the GP.  He’s attracting “fresh meat” attention and Cam actually does a really good job of looking a bit scared while trying to look tough and “don’t fuck with me”-there’s a vulnerability there, but he’s not overplaying it, and he’s certainly not overplaying the fronting.  His acting was really powerful in that scene.  

They put him in his cell and slam the door and he winces a little at the sound, then he sadly looks at his 6X8 foot (or whatever the dimensions are) room, puts his bedding pile on the top bunk and leaves his hands up there and lets his head hang down.  He hears the door slide open behind him again and gets this, “Ugh, here we go,” expression on his face and turns around to see it’s Mickey standing there.

Me at home: Not what I wanted for end game but I’m still thrilled to see the man, the myth, the legend again anyway.  He’s all beefy still from when he was shooting Fonzo and looking good.  

Ian’s looking at him like he’s not sure he’s really there.

Mickey mildly says, “I rolled on the cartel I was working for and in exchange guess who gets to pick where he gets locked up?”  

Ian’s got tears in his eyes now and says, “Holy fuck.”

“Oh hey-I got bottom,” Mickey says as he points to the lower bunk.  Then he walks past Ian and says, “So...you’re on top,” in a bit of a sing-songy voice. 

He flops down onto the bunk, puts his hand behind his head-and check out the gifs closely, especially on Twitter-in the jumpsuit you can see the outline of his dick and it “twitches in interest” as the fan fics say (don’t know if Noel did it by adjusting his thigh, don’t know if it was intentional or what-but it was a sight to see whatever the case).  He does a lip lick/bite combination, Ian’s face lights up a bit and he gives a smile, he crawls onto the bunk on top of Mickey, pinning his hand down while Mickey smiles softly, they gaze at each other a beat, Ian gently strokes Mickey’s cheek, Mickey wraps his free hand behind Ian’s neck, their noses boop, and Ian sort of gently thrusts into a kiss (it was good-definitely had a bit of a sexual vibe to it), which Mickey expertly returns.  It was a very good kiss, tender and loving, but that scene needed words, needed Ian to say SOMETHING to Mickey-needed an “I’m sorry” and a “thank you for always being here for me” and exchanged I love yous.  Neither of these boys are ever told they’re loved!  JFC, nine seasons and the show couldn’t manage to work mutual ILYs in ONCE?  Fuck you, Shameless.  They didn’t even say each other’s NAMES!  

Mickey (and Noel) looked so fucking good lying there-relaxed and happy, finally back with his love where he’s always belonged.  Even when his eyes are closed, they’re perfect.  The angle the scene was shot at, we see more of Mickey’s microexpressions than Ian’s.  

An after the credits began scene of them lying in an afterglow embrace would’ve been nice.  Mickey could’ve mocked Ian’s hair (give us one last “Fire Crotch” you cowards!) and boob tattoo (or offered to fix that for him while they’re in the joint).  

Mickey’s got new ink on his forearm we never see clearly.  Until and unless we’re told otherwise, I’m saying it’s a big ginger root ;)  Bam.  

On a personal note, and not to rain on anybody’s parade, while I believe 100% in Drunk Crew Guy and what he said, I really don’t see us getting another scene in the finale.  This show’s attention span is down to nothing now, and I can’t see them dragging these guys back out now that they’ve given us (shitty) endgame. I don’t think enough time will have passed to let them out of prison by then, I think those final episodes are going to be about Fiona leaving and not Ian and Mickey getting to Mexico-and I can’t really see Mickey being able to go back there now that he’s crossed a cartel.  My feeling is the show filmed 2 possible endings using Noel to choose from-one ending with them in Mexico and the other being the one we got.  They probably ripped off The Shawshank Redemption too much with a Mexico ending and decided to go with this “original” idea instead.  I’d love nothing more than to be wrong, and to get one more scene of these two free and happy.  Cam’s question mark at the end of his farewell post and the fact that I do trust everything DCG said leaves a spark of hope burning in my heart, but hopefully I can back away from endless online speculation and theories about it over the next 5 months.  If it happens, beautiful.  If it doesn’t, at least we got one last look at Mickey and he’s getting dicked down and the love he’s always deserved, even if I hate the fact they’re locked up and will be in danger whenever they’re not in their cell-not to mention this is the shitty way gay love stories get handled in general, but I must not go down that path again in this recap.  

I want to add that Mickey didn’t sound all that “Mickey” in his scene, but maybe he didn’t need his swagger and was being more “real” to let Ian know he had a choice (as always, Mickey didn’t force himself on Ian-he let him come to him).  And kudos to Cam for not doing his hideous Chicago accent for most of the episode.  

There WAS love and chemistry in that final scene.  Just sucks that we don’t get it anywhere else in the show and they wasted so much time last night that could’ve been given to Cameron and Noel.  

But hey, I’m finally free of recapping ;)  While I’m sorry the Gallavich parts are now over, I’m not sorry I can finally quit missing what we used to get while watching what the show now does.  Mickey and Ian are back together now, so, fuck you, Shameless.  

[galacticnewsnetwork]

FROM FAN TO FILM: LEE TOWERSEY ON BRINGING DROIDS TO LIFE IN THE LAST JEDI

LEE TOWERSEY SPEAKS TO STARWARS.COM ABOUT BUILDING ARTOO, SCOUTING AHCH-TO, AND MEETING THE LATE KENNY BAKER.

For Lee Towersey, everything changed at Celebration Europe in summer 2013. He’d been a member of the R2-D2 Builders Club for six years, having built his first film-accurate astromech in 2009, when Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy toured the club’s exhibition booth. Three months later, he was hired — along with fellow Builders Club member Oliver Steeples — as part of the creature-effects team at Pinewood Studios for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In 2016, Towersey found himself lying on his back aboard the Millennium Falcon, remote control in hand, as Mark Hamill and Artoo (played by newcomer Jimmy Vee) were reunited for one of the greatest scenes in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. StarWars.com called up the master droid builder to chat about his experience on set at Pinewood and Skellig Michael, adapting his Artoo units for Jimmy Vee, and paying tribute to the late Kenny Baker.

StarWars.com: When you were first hired to work on the new trilogy, you were just a fan like the rest of us. What challenges did you face in getting your droids ready for the big screen?

Lee Towersey: Well, thankfully, Oliver [Steeples] and myself had already built R2-D2s for our own purposes, which is ultimately what got us the job on The Force Awakens. Then, when it came to making a film droid, it was a little bit easier, in part because it doesn’t need to have as many bells and whistles on it as a lot of the builders make themselves for their home projects. Fan-built R2-D2s tend to have more gadgets on them. But, as we discovered early on into the job, the more gadgets that’s on Artoo, the more that can go wrong, which you can’t really afford to have when you’re filming. So we kept them basic — we copied them, as per the original R2-D2, to the best of our knowledge. We had the originals as reference, and the parts we pretty much built ourselves from scratch.

The first job that I needed to do for The Last Jedi was to get [actor] Jimmy Vee in there. For The Force Awakens, we didn’t actually have anyone inside R2-D2; for the movement, when he was in two-legged mode, it was all pneumatics in the feet to make him rock side to side. But for The Last Jedi, we knew Jimmy Vee was gonna be available, so I took the hydraulic system out of the feet and adapted R2-D2 to take Jimmy’s legs. Because his feet go into the foot gels of R2-D2, and you have to do some cutouts in the battery boxes, and then there’s some leg hoses which cover Jimmy Vee’s legs — which is the main method used for Kenny Baker in A New Hope. We had the option of putting Jimmy in greens, so that we could CG his legs out, but as a nod to Kenny Baker we decided to keep the foot hoses.

The first shot we did with the two-legged Artoo was on Skellig Michael. I’d done a recce in early 2015, with Rian Johnson and a few other people on the production, just to make sure, logistically, that we could get R2-D2 over there, and to visualize where the scenes were going to be shot. Getting on and off the island is always by boat, so we couldn’t just stick Artoo on a boat and take him over the sea for an hour. That wouldn’t have been possible, because the saltwater getting into the droid could have caused us problems, so we came up with a method of breaking him down into four parts: two legs, the body, and the dome. And we boxed them up and took them over to Skellig Michael when we started filming, and stored them on the island with all the props and creatures and so on.

We shot a gag scene where he’s trying to get up some steps, to follow Rey and find Luke — a bit of a comedy moment — and his middle foot’s trying to pull at the first step: “Hey, guys, I can’t make it up these steps.” Unfortunately, we tossed it and it wasn’t seen. But the work we had to do with R2-D2 back at Pinewood, knowing this scene was coming, was done with the help of [animatronic designer] Giles Hannagan. Giles came up with this mechanism for the foot to retract in and out, while Jimmy Vee was in the droid, which would go in between his legs. That was remote-control-operated. And then we have the dome, which we control as well, and we had to check the gears for the dome rotation to make sure Jimmy Vee didn’t get caught up in that at all.

The performance of Artoo, as far as the movement is concerned — wiggling from side to side, rocking the body backwards and forwards — is where Jimmy Vee comes in. So the preparation I had to do for The Last Jedi was basically converting the pneumatic R2-D2 to the Jimmy Vee version.

StarWars.com: During production on The Force Awakens, did you ever have a chance to meet Kenny Baker?

Lee Towersey: Yes, I did. I’d previously met him — we’d worked together in the past at comic-cons and so on a few times. But fortunately, he did come in on one day of filming. We were shooting the interior of Maz’s castle at the time, and Kenny Baker came along, and J. J. kindly stopped filming and made an announcement that Kenny Baker had arrived. And he got a round of applause from all the cast and crew that were on set, and then he came to the photography studio and had a few photos taken with R2-D2. So he did come in for the day, and I spent some time with him. He was in good form. He wasn’t very well at the time, but he still had his sense of humor.

StarWars.com: Did the scene with Mark Hamill on the Falcon make for a pretty emotional day?

Lee Towersey: Yeah, it did. I felt at the time that it’s quite an iconic scene that we were filming. I’ve had a few people ask me questions about that scene since The Last Jedi’s come out, and they felt that it was quite an up-there moment in the film. And when we shot it I felt it was quite special, as well. Mark was as professional as ever; he was in the moment. We did a few takes, and I remote-controlled R2-D2 across the floor space in the Falcon.

Something else people ask, with the projection of Princess Leia, is, “Was that an homage to Carrie Fisher?” Because she’d sadly passed away. And no, the answer there is that we’d already shot that; that was always going to happen. But it means even more now — it’s even more special because of that classic scene. And when we shot that, and Luke is talking to Artoo, Jimmy Vee was inside. That’s the two-legged version; we did a quick switcheroo. Jimmy’s in the droid the whole time, I’m doing the remote control on the head, and some of the shots are quite wide, so there’s nowhere for me to hide except for at Mark’s feet. So while that shot’s being taken, I’m lying on the floor in between Mark and R2-D2.

StarWars.com: Do you have any other fond memories of visiting Skellig Michael?

Lee Towersey: What an experience. The recce was fun. I didn’t know Rian Johnson — I’d never met him before, but I got to spend some time with him. He was so down to earth, and was just going along for the ride. He thought it was as cool as the rest of us did. I’ve come into this business being a Star Wars fan first — pretty much all of us are Star Wars fans, anyway — we’re all in the same boat. We all get excited and have to pinch ourselves now and again.

Skellig Michael itself is such a spectacular place already, but now it’s got the Star Wars magic to it. And when we went there, the puffins were still on the island. That was fun. The puffins just sit there and watch you go by; they seem tame. Rian was there just taking it in. He’s always got his camera with him, so he was clicking away taking shots. When we filmed on Skellig, there were these sherpas employed — local guys that worked for the tourist board, I think — who were amazing, because they were carrying all the equipment. Even though we were happy to carry our own gear going up the steps, it’s so treacherous that you have enough trouble looking after yourself.

I believe there’s some photos out in the wild of R2-D2 on a stretcher, the way they carried him up there on a daily basis: literally just two guys on either end of a stretcher carrying him up this hill. And he’s not lightweight; it’s all aluminium, so it’s quite heavy. That was quite a thing to see them working every day, carrying all the equipment up. Including Jimmy Vee! Jimmy Vee was always carried up the hill, as well. I was never fortunate enough to have that luxury, but Jimmy did.

StarWars.com: Tell me about some of the other droids. Are things like the First Order mouse droids sort of the easy part of your job?

Lee Towersey: It is, really. Yeah. It’s good fun. It’s very nice, actually, because I get to make the droids and then I get to carry on and perform them when we start shooting. When R2-D2’s being performed, I’m always there, but along with that comes other remote-control work with things like the mouse droids and the white First Order sentry droids, which we classed as sort of a mouse-droid update, if you like. And I’m usually controlling them on set, as well.

It’s fairly easy, but the trouble with the mouse droids is that they’re black, and they’re driving around on a black floor, so you do have to always be mindful of the cast and crew members that are around, because they easily get kicked or tripped over. But it’s a glorified remote-control car. I’m used to driving remote-control cars, and I’ve been doing it most of my life, so my childhood hobby of racing toy cars down the street paid off. Now, it’s my job.

StarWars.com: What’s it like interacting with some of these great performers — Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley — through the unique mechanism of remote control?

Lee Towersey: It’s two different things, actually, because you’ve got the older cast members that were in A New Hope and so on, such as Mark Hamill. And he’s seen the technology progress. So what they were doing in the ‘70s and the ‘80s — he compares that to what we’re doing now. And as technology has moved on, we’re able to supply a better product than what they had in the original films, so Mark and Anthony Daniels both tell stories about how they used to struggle with Artoo. They used to pull R2-D2 along on wires, for example, because with remote control he used to crash into walls, and it was so unreliable. The radio equipment used to interfere with other things on the film set, so it was easier to just use wires. If I had to do that now, I would feel that I’d failed. Thankfully, the technology hasn’t let us down.

With the newer cast members — Oscar and so on — they started around the same time as me, so we’ve sort of grown into this together, I feel, and it’s a great group of people to work with.

StarWars.com: You’ve traveled the world meeting fans with BB-8; you’ve left your mark on incredible films like The Last Jedi. What’s been your favorite part of that whole journey?

Lee Towersey: Working on set. It’s so nice to be able to make a product, to make a droid, and see it be able to perform, and then go to the cinema and see your work — not only what you’ve made but your performance, as well. And the camaraderie. We get on so well, we spend a lot of time together, and the team spirit is there. There’s such a good feeling on set.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is available now on Digital and via Movies Anywhere, and comes to 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and On-Demand on March 27.

Alex Kane is a journalist based in west-central Illinois. He has written for Glixel, Kill Screen, Polygon, the website of Rolling Stone, and other publications. Follow him on Twitter at @alexjkane.

[male-model-confessions]

Year in Review It is time for the Year in Review again. I want to start out by thanking all my followers. It has been a long year and I have not been on top of things like I should. I finished my MBA and have been looking for a job. I am sorry this year in review is late. I had trouble deciding how to begin. This year has been filled with so many tragedies and deaths. It seems to me, that there are way more deaths this year than I can include in this post. Everyone in the media is subjected to scrutiny and can influence the world of fashion. I have decided that I will provide a list of the names of the people that passed away. 

January 10 David Bowie, 69, Rock icon January 14 Alan Rickman, 69, Actor January 18 Glenn Frey, 67, Eagles rocker January 23 Jimmy Bain, 68, Rainbow rock star January 30 Frank Finlay, 89, Acting great January 31 Terry Wogan, 77, TV & radio legend February 3 Maurice White, 74, Earth Wind & Fire star

February 4 Katie May, 34, female model February 19 Harper Lee, 89, To Kill A Mockingbird author February 28 George Kennedy, 91, Movie great March 8 George Martin, 90, Beatles producer March 11 Keith Emerson, 71, ELP rock legend March 15 Sylvia Anderson, 88, Lady Penelope March 16 Frank Sinatra Junior, 72, Sinatra’s singer son March 17 Paul Daniels, 77, Comedy magician March 29 Patty Duke, 69, Child star March 31 Ronnie Corbett, 85, Comedy legend March 31 Denise Robertson, 83, TV agony aunt April 6 Merle Haggard, 79, Country legend April 12 David Gest, 62, TV personality April 20 Victoria Wood, 62, Comedian April 20 Joanie “Chyna” Laurer, 46, WWE wrestling legend April 21 Lonnie Mack, 74, Blues guitar great April 21 Prince, 57, Pop icon April 21 Guy Hamilton, 93, Bond director April 24 Billy Paul, 80, Chart star May 17 Guy Clark, 74, Country legend May 19 John Berry, 52, Beastie Boys star May 19 Alan Young, 96, Mister Ed TV star May 21 Nick Menza, 51, Megadeth drummer May 24 Burt Kwouk, 85, Pink Panther star May 31 Carla Lane, 87, Liver Birds writer June 3 Muhammad Ali, 74, Boxing legend June 14 Henry McCullough, 72, Wings guitarist June 19 Anton Yelchin, 27, Star Trek’s Chekov June 24 Bernie Worrell, 72, Funkadelic star

June 25 Billy Cunningham, 87, Fashion photographer June 28 Scotty Moore, 84, Elvis’s guitarist July 2 Caroline Aherne, 52, Comedy actress July 16 Alan Vega, 78, Suicide punk pioneer August 13 Kenny Baker, 81, Star Wars’ R2-D2 August 29 Gene Wilder, 83, Comic genius September 11 Alexis Arquette, 47, Transgender actress September 17 Charmian Carr, 73, Sound of Music’s Liesl September 25 Arnold Palmer, 87, Golfing legend October 14 Jean Alexander, 90, Corrie’s Hilda Ogden October 23 Pete Burns, 57, Dead or Alive chart star October 24 Bobby Vee, 73, 1960s teen idol November 7 Leonard Cohen, 82, Iconic singer & writer November 11 Robert Vaughn, 83, Veteran actor November 13 Leon Russell, 74, US rock legend November 24 Colonel Abrams, 67, 80s chart star November 25 Florence Henderson, 82, Brady Bunch star November 26 Ron Glass, 71, US TV star December 1 Andrew Sachs, 86, Fawlty Towers star December 6 Peter Vaughan, 93, Game of Thrones star December 8 John Glenn, 95, First to orbit Earth December 8 Greg Lake, 69, ELP legend December 13 Alan thicke, 69,Actor, composer, television host December 18 Zsa Zsa Gabor, 99, Actress December 24 Rick Parfitt, 68, Quo Rocker December 25 George Michael, 53, Singer December 26 George Irving, 94, Actor December 27 Richard Adams, 96, Author December 27 Carrie Fisher, 60, Actress

December 28 Debbie Renyolds, 84, Actress and mother.

December 31 William Christopher, 84, Actor

Of course, not everything is about death. Some good things happened this year. I’m going to stick to the fashion world, in this one. 

• More insight and awareness was achieved in the struggles and pressure male actors Cover Girl hired James Charles, the first male model to advertise make up. This is a big step in normalizing the use of make up, by men.

 • Several models, including Jaden Smith, stood up against gender norms and began advertising skirts and dresses

.• Colton Hayes received the visibility award from the Human Rights Campaign. This year has been amazing at highlighting gender issues and destroying gender stereotypes. 

Top five favorites confessions:

1. I think it is important to raise awareness on this matter. It is usually easy to dismiss the idea that men do not suffer from sexism but here is the unglamorous truth and the problem with the social constructs of masculinity. [I think it is important that we address this issue. Sexism is not excluded to female models.]

2. I just saw the BBC report on modelling agencies demanding to end gender pay gap in modelling. The argument is actually very fair, but in the long run male models and their agencies will never see it, because as Ty Ogunkoya (featured in the report) said; nobody wants to speak out because they will lose modelling jobs, and male models are just happy that they’re given the opportunity. [I like this one because It sheds light on a major problem in the fashion industry.]

3. I hate what that person said about Marc Schulze’s girlfriend. She’s super pretty and just because someone’s SUPER attractive (Marc) doesn’t mean that they aren’t allowed to like people who are less attractive. Which I don’t even think she is less attractive. [I love that someone stood up for a model’s girlfriend, rather than tearing them down.] 

4. It’s pretty damn sad to see people say “oh it’d be sad if” or ‘what a waste if “ Ben Allen is gay. People - it’s not a 'waste’ or 'sad’ if someone isn’t heterosexual and you are. That’s you being selfish and talking about a person as if they are 'property’ you could potentially own, and you dismissing their worth based on your personal preferences. Rude! [I agree with this statement on so many levels. It is not sad that these people have a life outside of modeling.]

5. Felix Gesnouin is not ugly at all, i like the fact that he is not dating a model…(like most of male models nowdays) and he is really a funny guy,i worked with him once in London. [I seriously love when people right in and defend the models.]

5 of my least favorite confessions:

1. No thanks. CoverGirl used James Charles as a token. Not groundbreaking…[I disagree. This was a groundbreaking move for CoverGirl.]

2. Ben Allen is so gross, honestly. I was at a small party that he was at and everyone was so uncomfortable around him and no one wanted to talk to him because he was saying some ridiculous shit and acting real fucking cocky. He is hot garbage. [I hate when people completely tear into the models.]

3. I’m so happy RJ King finally came out! I mean, it felt like everyone already knew except him. There were already so many rumors circulating back then. Much love to them both! [I love the positivity in this post, but I don’t like outing anyone.]

4. French model Paul Hameline comes off as over-sexed and lustful, but in a good way that makes you want to rip his pants off without shame. His Instagram is full of nearly naked men, sometimes engaging in sex! I think he has a fling with Jonas Gloer. [His Instagram seriously disturbed me, but I thought this confession was too judgmental on the man’s sexuality.]

5. This is a photo of Kristof Kralik taken by Nicolas Hagius (another male model) that pretty much show how pigs and misogynist some male models can actually. The “funny” thing is right after this Kristof and Nicolas stopped working for some time in the big markets, upto some time ago (Kristof walked Versace A/W 2016). I’ve always wondered what is the real reason why guys become male models, they always say because of traveling and meeting new people, it seems like some of them want to be a douchebag in as many different countries as they can be. [I think the picture was taken out of context. You cannot always judge a picture at face value.]

Well, that is another year in review. I wish everyone a Happy New Year.