Empire (film magazine)

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media of Hamburg based Bauer Media Group. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008. It is the biggest selling film magazine in the United Kingdom and is also published in the United States, Australia, Turkey, Russia, Italy and Portugal. Empire organises the annual Empire Awards which were sponsored by Sony Ericsson, and from 2009 sponsored by Jameson. The awards are voted for by readers of the magazine.

Regular features

Empire is populist in both approach and coverage. It reviews both mainstream films and art films, but feature articles concentrate on the former.

As well as film news, previews and reviews, Empire has some other regular features. Each issue (with the exception of issues 108–113) features a Classic Scene, a transcript from a notable film scene. The first such classic scene to be featured was the "I could have been a contender" scene from On the Waterfront.

Ryan Reynolds

Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian actor and producer. He portrayed Michael Bergen on the ABC sitcom Two Guys and a Girl (1998–2001), Billy Simpson in the YTV Canadian teen soap opera Hillside (1991–93), as well as Marvel Comics characters Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity (2004) and Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and Deadpool (2016).

Reynolds has starred in films such as National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), The Amityville Horror (2005), Definitely, Maybe (2008), The Proposal (2009), Buried (2010), The Change-Up (2011), Safe House (2012), The Voices (2014), Mississippi Grind (2015), and Woman in Gold (2015). He also portrayed the Hal Jordan version of the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern in the film of the same name (2011).

He has made cameos in popular films such as Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), Ted (2012), and A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014).

Early life

Ryan Rodney Reynolds was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, James Chester "Jim" Reynolds (1941–2015), was a food wholesaler, and his mother, Tammy, is a retail salesperson. He is of Irish ancestry and was raised as a Roman Catholic. The youngest of four brothers, he graduated from Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver in 1994. He attended Kwantlen Polytechnic University, also in Vancouver, until dropping out. Two of his elder brothers work as police officers in British Columbia, one of whom is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police member.

Andy Serkis

Andrew Clement "Andy" Serkis (born 20 April 1964) is an English film actor, director and author. He is best known for his performance capture roles comprising motion capture acting, animation and voice work for such computer-generated characters as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), the eponymous King Kong in the 2005 film, Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Captain Haddock / Sir Francis Haddock in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Upcoming motion capture roles include Supreme Leader Snoke in Star Wars Episode VIII (2017), Caesar in War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), and Baloo in Jungle Book: Origins (2017).

Serkis' film work in motion capture has been critically acclaimed, and he has been called the "godfather of motion capture". Serkis has received an Empire Award, a National Board of Review Award, two Saturn Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his motion-capture work. Serkis also earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for his portrayal of serial killer Ian Brady in the British television film Longford (2006) and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for his portrayal of new wave and punk rock musician Ian Dury in the biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010). In 2015, he had a small role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Serkis has his own motion capture workshop, The Imaginarium Studios in London, which he will use for his directing debut, Jungle Book: Origins.