A blog of recent clips, reporting and notions on what's happening in pop culture of interest to me. Written by Cynthia Wang.
My page for current articles and reporting, random thoughts on TV, music, movies, etc.
U.S. audiences have seen her in various shows such as Elementary and Blue Bloods, but Australian audiences are welcoming back theatre veteran Penny McNamee, this time to homegrown mainstay Home and Away.
I had the good fortune of speaking to "The Spice Girls," Tasia and Gracia Seger, for a small feature prior to their win on My Kitchen Rules. To read more from my initial chat with them, click here, and to read my 'winner' interview with them, click here. If you are not familiar with the show, get familiar with these remarkable sisters below.
Alfie Allen swung through Australia and New Zealand to promote season 6 of Game of Thrones as well as the season 5 DVD release. More of my chat with Alfie can be found here.
Taking a deep dive into Game of Thrones for Empire Australia was a real treat. I researched locations in Spain for season 6 to produce a traveller's guide and I spoke with language creator David J. Peterson for a preview of Dothraki usage in the latest series.
The original story written and reported by Patrick Gomez for People proved too short for the Who layout. I added paragraphs to the text, a box and new captions.
Last year, celebrities hit the second weekend of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival with a vengeance. This year? All loaded to the first weekend.
Yes, I wrote about Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna, again, in Hot Topics, as well as Selena Gomez's surprisingly thicker lips in this issue, but the best second-cover story this week was about the lovely wedding between Emma Watkins and Lachy Gillespie, two members of the children's entertainment group The Wiggles. You can read more about their fantastic day on Who.com here.
I got to speak with one of my favourite chefs, Adam Liaw, to talk about his latest TV series, Destination Flavour Scandinavia.
I really enjoyed putting this week's Backchat together. First, there's an interview with Dalvinder Gill-Minhas, one of the featured Indian Australians looking for love in the SBS documentary Indian Wedding Race, then a look at the new line of Mean Girls dolls and a review of celebrities using Snapchat's puppy-face filter. Nicholas Fonseca and I had a great time compiling Bette Midler's best Twitter zingers, and I got to write all of the Gossip to Go boxes.
There are more and more music award shows to cover each year and this is one of them.
It's a Heart Monitor spread in this week's Who, leading off with Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom. A couple spreads later and we see Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez.
Now for some U.S. press, this time for The Post Game. I talk to Survivor: Fiji winner Earl Cole on his new venture to help NCAA athletes get a morale boost and a financial one during March Madness.
I've been fortunate to do first interviews with many now-famous people for both People and Who. One of these is young Australian actress Odessa Young. It will be great to see her career become more high profile.
When I was at People, I reported on a lot of 'Beauties' but often my files were just written up by someone else. At Who, I'm the writer. You have to craft something interesting to say about the person but it can't be too much about product or fashion. Here are a couple of the people I did my best to describe.
People had already gotten fun 'beauty confessions' from a bunch of celebrities but Who must stay mindful of the Australian audience. In the end, I was able to add models Elyse Taylor and Samantha Harris to our mix. If you would like to read more from Elyse, click here.
In that same vein, I was happy to speak with Wentworth's Danielle Cormack and Love Child's Miranda Tapsell about their charitable work for the Beautiful Hearts act. In fact, they had so much good stuff to say, I included more of our chats in Who.com pieces. For more from Danielle, click here, and for more from Miranda, click here. The full act as it appeared in Who:
Surprise! Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna continue to stay in the celeb spotlight. I also adapt a series of People Stylewatch posts on Britney Spears's tour costumes into an item.
My education in homegrown talent continues as I speak with actress Geraldine Hakewill about her role in the Seven series Wanted and actress/radio personality Kate Ritchie about her recent trip to Las Vegas for Nova FM.
I always enjoy writing up details on the fabulous gowns worn on the Oscars red carpet and this year was no exception. Text-wise, however, I am highlighting my turn at summing up the red-carpet action, usually handled by Jennie Noonan.
In 1991, Sally Field starred in the film Not Without My Daughter: The Story of Betty Mahmoody, which was based on the real-life tale of a woman's escape from Iran with her daughter in the '80s. Twenty-five years later, I speak with that daughter, Mahtob Mahmoody. I found her clear-eyed, serene and a real survivor. Here is the story, teased on Who.com here.
Another week, another Kardashian story. Two spreads, tho!
