Annabel Nugent

Features Writer and Commissioning Editor

Annabel Nugent is a Features Writer and Commissioning Editor at The Independent, covering music, TV and film. She reguarly interviews Hollywood's biggest stars and reviews music's most talked-about concerts and releases. She first joined The Independent in 2020 as a culture reporter

<p>Mikey Madison in Sean Baker’s Oscar-nominated ‘Anora’</p>

Oscars 2025

Why Anora deserves to win the Oscar for Best Picture

The awards season staple features a star-making performance from 25-year-old Mikey Madison and a tone that oscillates between slapstick, romcom and bleak drama – and it’d be a worthy winner on Oscar night, writes Annabel Nugent

<p>Eliza Scanlen: ‘A lot of the time, casting agents are looking for a “look” rather than a performance’</p>

Interview

Eliza Scanlen: ‘It’s weird l’m still getting jobs for 17-year-olds’

<p>Osgood Perkins with his films – clockwise from top right – ‘The Blackcoat’s Daughter’, ‘I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House’, ‘The Monkey’ and ‘Longlegs’</p>

Features

How the son of Psycho’s Norman Bates became horror’s hottest director

<p>Rap royalty: Krept and Konan have been forging the way for British rap since the release of their 2013 mixtape ‘Young Kingz’</p>

Interview

Krept & Konan: ‘The media will always mistake rappers for footballers’

<p>Zoe Saldaña: ‘I have an energy, a fire that is very much still alive, and I want to challenge myself’ </p>

The Saturday Interview

Zoe Saldaña: ‘The Oscars tend to overlook actors using CGI technology’

<p>Amer is back with a second season of ‘Mo’ on Netflix </p>

Interview

Mo Amer on Palestine, Trump and the return of his hit Netflix comedy

<p>JADE: ‘I don’t mind piping up and clapping back’</p>

The Saturday Interview

JADE: ‘No one I know came off X Factor without a mental health issue’

Reviews

Severance season two is strange, stylish and totally engrossing

<p>Hanks but no hanks: the A-list actor’s latest film ‘Here’ did not perform nearly as well as expected </p>

State of the Arts

Tom Hanks has hit a low – where does he go from Here?

<p>Brooke Shields reflects on aging as a woman in the spotlight for her new book </p>

The Reading List

Brooke Shields’s book about ageing fails to realise one crucial thing

<p>Cinema of solace: these films will leave you feeling uplifted and optimistic</p>

Features

The 20 best feelgood films of all time, ranked

<p>Kim Deal: ‘I look back at that and think, maybe they should’ve let me flounder – could that be better for addicts?’ </p>

Interview

Kim Deal: ‘It’s nice I lasted long enough to contemplate the past’

Reviews

Squid Game season 2 is not as shocking – but isn’t that the point?

<p>Sophie Thatcher: ‘I’m sick of looking at myself on screen looking scared’ </p>

Rising Stars

Sophie Thatcher on Hugh Grant: ‘There is no sugar-coating with him’

Interview

David Oyelowo: ‘Like a lot of immigrants, my dad was all about work’

<p>Robin Campbell: ‘They always talk about Oasis and how big they are, but they can’t catch a cold outside of England, really’ </p>

Interview

UB40: We should be as big as Oasis – we’ve sold twice as many records

<p>‘Anger can make you self-immolate, but energy drives creativity’ </p>

The Saturday Interview

Bernardine Evaristo: ‘A Black woman hasn’t won the Booker since me’

<p>‘There’s a limit in our imagination of what women are capable of exploring in art’</p>

The Saturday Interview

Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon on His Three Daughters

Interview

UB40: We should be as big as Oasis – we’ve sold twice as many records

The Saturday Interview

Bernardine Evaristo: ‘A Black woman hasn’t won the Booker since me’

The Saturday Interview

Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon on His Three Daughters

<p>Jeremy O Harris’s much talked-about play arrives from Broadway to London’s Noël Coward theatre this week</p>

Features

Is London ready for Slave Play, the most divisive show of the summer?

<p>“I was definitely a “Perks of Being a Wallflower”-style individual’ </p>

Interview

The Dare: ‘People want to return to a dirtier, less fashionable era’

<p>Annabel Scholey: ‘You lose a skin when you become a mum, which I’ve found very useful because I can access anything quickly’</p>

Interview

Annabel Scholey: ‘I thought I’d be doing less sexy roles these days’

<p>Corinne Bailey Rae: ‘I’m used to making records about my internal world: my experiences, relationships, stories I had or had heard. But this felt quite obscure'</p>

Interview

Corinne Bailey Rae: ‘Lily Allen started a campaign against me’

Interview

Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer: ‘Sweden is not safe for queer people’

<p>Fronted by Dave Bayley, Oxford outfit Glass Animals broke chart records with their 2020 hit ‘Heat Waves’ </p>

The Saturday Interview

Glass Animals: ‘I had hoped Rihanna would sing Heat Waves’

Interview

Corinne Bailey Rae: ‘Lily Allen started a campaign against me’

Interview

Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer: ‘Sweden is not safe for queer people’

The Saturday Interview

Glass Animals: ‘I had hoped Rihanna would sing Heat Waves’

<p>Tom Glynn-Carney has been praised both for his stage and screen work </p>

Interview

House of the Dragon’s Tom Glynn-Carney: ‘GoT oversexalised women’

Annabel Nugent sits down with Aegon II Targaryen to talk about the return of the blockbuster prequel, spilling the beans to Alfie Allen, and why he is exempt from the show’s top secret, digital-only scripts rule

<p>In my sights: Donald Glover and Maya Erskine as married spies in ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ </p>

Interview

How Donald Glover and Maya Erskine put on the hottest affair on TV

In their version of ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’, Maya Erskine and Donald Glover are an ordinary couple juggling espionage and marital troubles. Together, they chat with Annabel Nugent about marriage, deciding on the right risqué jokes – and why they would hate for anyone to watch their show just because of ‘representation’

<p>Survivors of the Uruguayan plane crash in the Andes in the fuselage of the wrecked aircraft shortly after rescuers reached them</p>

Features

The horrifying true story of the Andes disaster in Society of the Snow

Rising Star

Sophie Wilde on Talk To Me: ‘I don’t mind being a scream queen’

<p>J Balvin: ‘Latinos can be whatever we want, we don’t just work in construction’ </p>

The Saturday Interview

J Balvin: ‘In the super macho man reggaeton world, I looked weak’

<p>Lulu Wang is behind Prime Video’s adaptation of Janice YK Lee’s novel ‘The Expatriates’ </p>

Interview

Lulu Wang on Expats: ‘I’ve realised that I can’t represent everyone’

<p>‘The goth girl lives on – she just changed her lipstick’ </p>

Features

Christina Hendricks: ‘People always think I’m going to be such a lady’

The beloved star of ‘Mad Men’ and ‘Good Girls’ is swapping Sixties girdles for Victorian hosiery in Apple TV+'s charming Edith Wharton adaptation. On break from filming her new Irish comedy with Chris O’Dowd, the actor speaks to Annabel Nugent about feminism, staying true to her goth roots, and whether Joan could get her very own spin-off

<p>‘I never want to make someone upset with something I’ve written but also at the same time, you can’t just be nicey-nicey at the cost of writing arresting, honest music’ </p>

Interview

Marika Hackman: ‘Even before I came out, my lyrics were all super gay’

<p>Turner stars as Olympic rower Joe Rantz in George Clooney’s feel-good sports film ‘The Boys in the Boat’</p>

Interview

Callum Turner: ‘People had a hang-up over my former modelling career’

<p>Simon Pegg: ‘It’s a great honour that any time anything bad happens, there’s a meme of me raising a pint’ </p>

The Saturday Interview

Simon Pegg: ‘People always ask when I’m going on Strictly – never’

<p>Paloma Faith releases ‘Glorification of Sadness’ in February 2024 </p>

The Saturday Interview

Paloma Faith: ‘It was worth losing our relationship for our children’

In her first in-depth interview since splitting from her partner of 10 years, the singer tells Annabel Nugent how her relationship split left her ‘broken’ but ‘whole’ and talks about her new album, dating and why co-parenting can equal ‘men not pulling their weight’

Annabel Nugent

Thank you for registering