Adam Driver leaves interview 'because he can't stand listening to himself'

Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver star in Marriage Story 

Many of us can't bear to listen to or watch recordings of ourselves. But when you're the star of some of the year's biggest films, that can get difficult.

Adam Driver walked out of a US radio interview when they played a snippet of him singing in Netflix's acclaimed drama Marriage Story.

The actor left NPR's talk show Fresh Air during a clip of his performance, the show's executive producer said.

The Oscar-nominated American is also in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

He previously starred in BlacKkKlansman and recently earned praise for The Report, about an investigation into the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" after 9/11.

But despite his success, Driver has previously spoken about his aversion to revisiting his own performances - which was described as a "phobia" in a recent New Yorker profile.

That phobia apparently struck when NPR played a clip of him singing Being Alive - originally from the musical Company - in Marriage Story, according to The Daily Beast.

Executive producer Danny Miller told Variety in a statement: "We don't really understand why he left... We knew from our previous interview with Adam Driver that he does not enjoy listening back to clips of his movies (that isn't unusual, a lot of actors feel that way)."

Driver was in a studio in New York, with host Terry Gross in Philadelphia. Gross suggested he take off his headphones to avoid the pain of listening to the 20-second clip - the same arrangement they used in a 2015 interview.

"But this time around, after the clip concluded we were informed by our engineer in NY that he had walked out of the studio, and then left the building," Miller added. "We still don't understand why Adam Driver chose to leave the interview at that point."

Driver has not yet commented on the exchange.

Five other celebrity interview walk-outs

• Robert Downey Jr accused Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy of being "a bottom-feeding muckraker" after walking out of a 2015 interview for bringing up his past problems with drugs.
• Coldplay's Chris Martin left an appearance on BBC Radio 4's Front Row in 2008 because he was "not really enjoying this", adding: "I always say stupid things and I think Radio 4 is the place that will most remind me of that." He returned for one final question.
• Front Row had another walkout when Russell Crowe took umbrage with host Mark Lawson's suggestion in 2010 that the actor's accent made Robin Hood sound like "an Irishman who took frequent holidays in Australia".
• Jean Claude Van Damme walked out of a TV interview in Australia in 2017 after saying the questions he was being asked were "boring".
• The PR officer for pop group S Club (formerly 7) halted an interview on late lamented BBC Three showbiz show Liquid News in 2003 after host Claudia Winkleman asked about the amount of money they had made.

Adam Driver and wife Joanne Tucker at the premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

In the 2015 interview, Gross asked Driver why he declined to listen to himself. "I don't want to hear the bad acting that probably was happening during that clip," he replied.

"I've watched myself or listened to myself before, then always hate it. And then wish I could change it, but you can't."

He has also spoken about feeling "like I had to puke" when he was obliged to sit through 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but hid in a green room during the Cannes premiere of BlacKkKlansman, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor earlier this year.

Star Wars and Cats: What is the first reaction?

The Star Wars crew (L to R): Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Naomi Ackie, Kelly Marie Tran, Anthony Daniels and Oscar Isaac 

Anticipated movies Cats and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker have received their world premieres and early reaction has been quick to drop.

The final film in the epic Star Wars trilogy had its debut screening in Hollywood, while the Cats premiere took place in New York.

One Twitter user described Cats, which stars Idris Elba and Rebel Wilson, as "bewildering... and magical".

Star Wars fans hailed The Rise of Skywalker as "a terrific finale".

Plot details for Star Wars have been kept tightly under wraps but director JJ Abrams has said the trio's characters - Rey, Finn and Poe - will be reunited on-screen, after dividing in 2017's The Last Jedi.

Heading the line-up at the Star Wars premiere were the film's young stars Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, John Boyega, who is Finn, and Oscar Isaac, who plays Poe.

Mark Hamill delights fans at the premiere 

Star Wars veterans Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, and Harrison Ford, who plays Han Solo, were also there to bid farewell to the movies that launched their careers in a venue made up as a futuristic hangar filled with life-size X-wing starfighters.

Anthony Daniels, who has played C-3PO in each of the main Star Wars movies, said the event felt "quite bewildering".

"In fact, it's such a big experience that I'm not sure I can quite cope with it. But I do feel proud to be here and proud to be part of it."

The Rise of Skywalker officially concludes the so-called "Skywalker saga" of films begun by George Lucas in 1977.

The film is set one year after its predecessor and, at 141 minutes, will be slightly shorter.

Formal press reviews have been embargoed until Wednesday but social media reaction from those inside the three Hollywood theatres used to hold Monday night's event was broadly positive.

"Epic. All of it," tweeted Erik Davis, managing editor of the Fandango movie website, calling the finale a "wonderful way to end the Skywalker story".

"It's amazing," wrote The Hollywood Reporter's Ryan Parker.

Variety's Adam B Vary tweeted: "There's so much movie in this movie."

"The emotional highs are spectacular, and there are a lot of payoffs (some earned, some not). But some choices feel like an unnecessary course-correct from The Last Jedi and some just plain don't make sense," said Laura Prudom of IGN.

Meanwhile sci-fi writer Jenna Buche de Noel declared she was "blown away".

Meanwhile, at New York's Lincoln Center, Cats stars including Taylor Swift, James Corden, Idris Elba and Rebel Wilson walked the red carpet on Monday night.

The movie is a big-screen version of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's hit stage musical. Formal reviews are embargoed until 19 December.

Elba - who plays the cat Macavity - was more than happy to give Variety some top tips on acting feline, which apparently includes a lot of "nuzzling" and "smelling".

Despite the all-star cast, which includes Dame Judi Dench, reaction to the trailer when it was released earlier this year didn't bode well for the finished film.

But the movie seemed to endear many early viewers, as the first reactions started to roll in on social media.

Broadway star Alan Henry called the movie "spectacular".

Idris Elba learned a lot from playing Macavity 

Variety's Caroline Framke was equally effusive, even if in a rather different way. 

Writer Ben Mekle declared Cats to be "magical".

However Rebecca Rubin, also of Variety, feared for her future slumber after seeing the movie. 

Cats is released in the UK and US on 20 December and fans of the stage version will be eagerly waiting for cinema doors to open, no doubt buoyed by Monday night's intriguing reaction.

The story, which was originally based on TS Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats from 1939, is about deciding which of the cats will ascend to the Heaviside Layer - aka cat heaven.

The director said earlier this year that the story had a deeper message too that makes it relevant to human life in 2019.

Taylor Swift as the flirtatious Bombalurina 

"At the centre of this incredibly entertaining, comedic, fantastical musical is a very timely story about the importance for inclusion and redemption," said Tom Hooper, who also adapted another classic musical, Les Miserables, for the big screen in 2012.

As for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - released on 19 December both here and across the pond - Disney boss Bob Iger told AFP at the premiere that fans would get "some kind of closure, some sense of satisfaction" for their favourite characters.

"Star Wars is probably the most important, most valuable mythology of our time, of the modern time," he said.

"If you just consider the global base of fans that have worshipped this storytelling since 1977, over 40 years... tonight being a culmination of nine films is an incredibly important night."

Tim Richards, CEO of Vue International cinemas in the UK, told BBC News he was expecting "one of the biggest weeks in years for cinema admissions".

"Most of our screens in the UK and Ireland will be playing late night sessions between Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th, starting at 00:01, with a few cinemas like Manchester Printworks and Westfield London staying open all night for subsequent screenings into Thursday morning," he said regarding Star Wars.

And for Cats, Richards was also anticipating a good turnout: "Tom Hooper's amazing Cats has had huge pre-sales and looks like it will also be a huge hit, replicating its success on stage.

"Overall it looks like it's going to be another record-breaking year for big screen entertainment."

Charlize Theron 'not ashamed' to talk about her mum killing her dad

Charlize Theron says she's "not ashamed" to talk about the moment her mum shot and killed her dad in self-defence.

The actress was 15 when her alcoholic dad shot through the door of the room where she was hiding with her mum.

"None of those bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle. But in self-defence, she ended the threat," she told NPR.

She added: "The more we talk about these things, the more we realise we are not alone in any of it."

Charlize grew up on on a farm near Johannesburg in South Africa with her mum Gerda and dad Charles.

She described her dad as a "very sick man" and said living with an alcoholic was a "pretty hopeless situation".

Charlize Theron and her mum Gerda were at the Oscars together in February 

"The day-to-day unpredictability of living with an addict is the thing that you sit with and have kind of embedded in your body for the rest of your life, more than just this one event of what happened one night," she said.

Speaking about what happened, she said her dad was so drunk he "shouldn't have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun".

"My mom and I were in my bedroom leaning against the door, because he was trying to push through the door.

"So both of us were leaning against the door from the inside to have him not be able to push through.

"He took a step back and just shot through the door three times. None of those bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle. But in self-defence, she ended the threat."

Charlize says the violence she experienced within her family is something that she shares with a lot of people.

"I'm not ashamed to talk about it, because I do think that the more we talk about these things, the more we realise we are not alone in any of it.

"I think, for me, it's just always been that this story really is about growing up with addicts and what that does to a person."

Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie star alongside Charlize Theron in Bombshell 

The Oscar-winner also spoke about the time a film director inappropriately touched her after inviting her to audition at his home.

She said she was the one who apologised to him before leaving - something that made her angry with herself.

"I put a lot of blame on myself... that I didn't say all the right things, and that I didn't tell him to take a hike, and that I didn't do all of those things that we so want to believe we'll do in those situations."

The subject of sexual harassment is one that she tackles in her latest film Bombshell - in which she plays a real TV presenter called Megyn Kelly.

It tells the story of when women who worked for US broadcaster Fox News came forward to accuse the then-CEO and chairman Roger Ailes of sexual harassment.

She said the film explores the "grey area of sexual harassment" and is something she's come across.

"It's not always physical assault. It's not always rape," she says.

"There's a psychological damage that happens for women in the everyday casualness of language, touch or threat of losing your job.

"Those are things I've definitely encountered." 

Anna Karina: French New Wave cinema legend dies aged 79

Anna Karina rose to prominence as Jean-Luc Godard's muse 

Anna Karina, an icon of French New Wave cinema, has died at the age of 79.

The Danish-French actress died in a hospital in Paris after living with cancer, her agent told AFP news agency.

French culture minister Franck Riester tweeted in tribute: "Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends."

Karina rose to prominence as the muse of her director ex-husband Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s.

She got her big break as a teenager, soon after moving to Paris from her native Denmark - apparently when Godard spotted her walking down the Champs-Elysees.

He wanted to cast her in his first and most famous film Breathless, Karina recalled years later, but she turned him down because the role required nudity.

Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard got married in March 1961 

After a few months he offered her another role, cementing their fruitful working relationship and her place in cinematic history.

In 1961, she and Godard got married - and just months later, Karina won best actress at the Berlin Film Festival for Godard's A Woman is a Woman.

Although they divorced just four years later, their relationship became almost as iconic as the films they made together.

Karina on the set of Godard's film Pierrot le Fou in July 1965 

"It was really a great love story, but very tiring in a way for a young girl because he would go away a lot," Karina told Vogue in 2016.

"He would say he was going to buy some cigarettes and he would come back three weeks later."

After their divorce, she continued to have a long and prosperous career, working with filmmakers Jacques Rivette, Luchino Visconti and Tony Richardson.

In the early 1970s she worked behind the camera too, directing Vivre Ensemble, a film about a turbulent romance between a history teacher and a free-spirited young woman that ends in domestic violence and drug abuse.