Tag: Richard

Shots fired ‘mistakenly at Yemeni Coast Guard’ from yacht once owned by Richard Burton

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Armed guards aboard a yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton have fired on approaching ships in the Gulf of Aden, prompting an intense gunfight. Yemeni authorities said the guards mistakenly opened fire on a Coast Guard vessel but the ship’s manager insisted they had clashed with pirates.
The shooting reportedly killed one Yemeni Coast Guard member and wounded another person in a hail of gunfire – the guards are said to have shot as many as 200 rounds of ammunition. The incident shows the danger faced by both shippers and security forces in the waters off the Arab world’s poorest country, even as it remains crucial for global commerce.
Details of what happened to the Kalizma remain unclear and contested, hours after the incident. The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations initially reported it as an attack with gunfire off Nishtun, in Yemen’s far east near the border with Oman.
But later, the British military operation providing support to ships across the Mideast described the attack in the Gulf of Aden as being “confirmed by authorities as government agency activity”, without elaborating.
Ambrey, a maritime intelligence company, said in a brief that a Yemeni Coast Guard contingent had approached a Cook Islands-flagged yacht that hadn’t responded to radio calls.
According to the Coast Guard, “an armed security team … onboard the yacht then opened fire on the approaching Yemenis and attempted to escape perceived pirates,” Ambrey said. The Coast Guard “returned fire and followed the yacht for approximately an hour until communications with the yacht could be established and the misunderstanding between the parties resolved”.
Ambrey said one Yemeni Coast Guard member was killed. A later statement from the Yemeni Coast Guard, posted online, acknowledged the death and said its forces along with Yemen’s navy tried to stop the Kalizma as it was operating in a “very suspicious way” close to the shore and did not answer radio calls.
“The yacht penetrated territorial waters and sailed in them without raising the flag of the yacht’s country, as well as refused to respond and stop in clear violation of international maritime law,” the Yemeni Coast Guard said.

Aashim Mongia, the owner of Mumbai’s West Coast Marine Yacht Services, which manages the Kalizma, told The Associated Press that one of the guards on board the vessel suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder. He insisted that “pirates” attacked the vessel first and came back in several waves to try to take the Kalizma, forcing the ship’s three guards to fire more than 200 rounds to protect the nine crew on board.
“If it was the Yemeni Coast Guard, why did they open fire?” Mongia asked.
Photos from the ship showed what appeared to be bullet holes from small arms fire scattered across the luxurious Kalizma.
Initially built in 1906, the Kalizma was bought by Burton for $220,000 in 1967. It was on board the ship where he gave actor and his twice-wife Elizabeth Taylor a 69.42-carat, pear-shaped diamond now known as the Taylor-Burton Diamond.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on Kalizma off Capo Caccia on the coast of Sardinia, August 1967. Photograph: Express/Getty Images
The ship later was bought by Indian investor Shirish Saraf, according to a profile by magazine Boat International. Requests for comment to Saraf’s investment firm Samena Capital were not answered.
Nishtun is held by forces allied to Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition. The Gulf of Aden is a crucial route for global trade and has seen attacks attributed to Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels during the country’s yearslong civil war. Somali pirate attacks that once plagued the region have mostly stopped in recent years.
However, attacks have happened there before. In December 2020, a mysterious attack targeted a cargo ship off Nishtun. In Yemen’s war, bomb-carrying drone boats, as well as sea mines, have been used.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 29, 2023
Richard Sharp was Boris Johnson’s toxic legacy – never again should politicians pick a boss for the BBC | Jonathan Freedland

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A word of advice for anyone who has worked hard to acquire a reputation they cherish: if Boris Johnson approaches, if he comes anywhere near, run a mile. Richard Sharp is the latest proof that, even out of office, Johnson continues to act as reputational napalm, laying waste to careers and turning good names bad.
Sharp joins a long list that includes Christopher Geidt, who had the poison task of serving as Johnson’s adviser on ethics; Allegra Stratton, whom the former prime minister said had “sickened” him when she joked about a party in Downing Street, even though he had attended several himself; and the one-time rising star civil servant and current cabinet secretary, Simon Case, quoted this week as having said of Johnson, “I don’t know what more I can do to stand up to a prime minister who lies”. Each entered Johnson’s circle as a respected figure; each was diminished by their contact with the reverse Midas, the man who rots everything he touches.
One question left by Sharp’s resignation as chair of the BBC is: what took him so long? He hardly needed to wait for today’s report by Adam Heppinstall KC, with its verdict that Sharp’s failure to disclose his role in brokering an £800,000 loan arrangement for Johnson represented “a breach of the governance code”, to know that he could not possibly continue in a job whose defining duty is to maintain the independence of the BBC. As the former director general John Birt said a month ago, Sharp was “unsuitable” for the role, thanks to “navigating a loan for the prime minister at exactly the same time as applying for the job at the BBC. It’s the cosiness of that arrangement that made it unsuitable, and I wish the cabinet secretary had called it out.” (The cabinet secretary being Case, serially Midased by Johnson.)
According to those inside the BBC, Sharp had been a capable chair. But the manner of his appointment meant he could never do the job properly. Witness last month’s row over Gary Lineker’s tweet, aimed at Suella Braverman’s language on migrants. That was a moment when you might expect the chair to lead from the front, publicly explaining either why impartiality is central to the BBC’s mission or why it was vital that the BBC not succumb to government pressure – or both. Instead, Sharp was mute and invisible, too hopelessly compromised as the man who had helped bail out a fiscally incontinent Tory prime minister to say a word.
It’s baffling that all of this did not occur to Sharp himself long ago – including right at the start, when he submitted his job application and was required to identify any conflicts, or perceived conflicts, of interest. The fact that he didn’t mention his role in the Johnson loan, even though he had discussed the issue with Case, suggests he knew that it looked bad – that it would give rise to the “perception that Mr Sharp would not be independent from the former prime minister, if appointed,” as Heppinstall puts it. Given he knew the importance of perceived, as well as actual, neutrality for the BBC, that silence was itself disqualifying.
‘Many have been diminished by their contact with Boris Johnson the reverse Midas, the man who rots everything he touches.’ Photograph: Charles McQuillan/PA
His grudging resignation statement suggests the penny has still not dropped. Dominic Raab may have started a fashion for passive-aggressive Friday departures, because Sharp was insistent that his breach of the rules was “inadvertent and not material”. Still, he invited our admiration for his decision “to prioritise the interests of the BBC” since “this matter may well be a distraction from the corporation’s good work were I to remain in post”. Er, yes, just a bit. Again, if preventing a distraction was Sharp’s concern, he should have gone the moment this story broke. As it is, he’s left multiple questions still to answer – including whether Johnson should not have recused himself from the appointment process on the grounds that he had an egregious conflict of interest, given that he knew Sharp had helped him out with the loan.
What’s needed now is not just a new BBC chair, but a new way of doing things. Even if he hadn’t got involved in Johnson’s personal finances, Sharp was hardly a non-partisan figure. He is a longtime, high-value donor to the Tory party, to the tune of £400,000. True, political parties, Labour included, have been appointing allies and chums to this role since the 1960s, but that practice needs to stop. Lineker distilled the case nicely: “The BBC chairman should not be selected by the government of the day. Not now, not ever.”
This goes wider than the BBC: there’s a slew of public jobs that might appear to be independently appointed, but that are quietly filled on the nod, or whim, of Downing Street. But it’s with the BBC that independence matters acutely. To understand why, look across the Atlantic.

This week’s announcement by Joe Biden that he will seek a second term had to fight for media attention with the firing of Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson. That’s because Carlson had become second only to Donald Trump in influence over the Republican party, able to make senior elected officials and aspirant presidential candidates bend to his agenda and ideological obsessions – even when mainstreaming previously fringe, and racist, ideas like the “great replacement theory”, with its claim of a deliberate, if shadowy, plot to replace white Americans with a more diverse and pliant electorate.
Fox News itself, with its repeated amplification of the big lie of a stolen election, is partly responsible for why nearly two-thirds of Republican voters do not believe a demonstrable fact: namely, that Biden won office in a free and fair contest in 2020. Today’s America is a land of epistemic tribalism: knowledge is not shared across the society, but rather dependent on political affiliation. There are red state facts and blue state facts, and which you believe comes down to which media you consume – which social media accounts you follow, which TV networks you watch.
In Britain, there have been efforts to lead us down that gloomy path. There are partisan, polemical TV channels now, desperate to do to Britain what Fox has done to America. And Johnson was Trumpian in his contempt for the truth, determined to create a world of Brexit facts that would exist in opposition to the real one. But if those efforts have largely failed – and if Johnson was eventually undone by his lies – that is partly down to the stubborn persistence in this country of a source of information that is regarded by most people as, yes, flawed and, yes, inconsistent, but broadly reliable and fair. Trust levels in the BBC are not what they were, and that demands urgent attention, but it is striking nonetheless that, according to a Reuters Institute study, aside from local news, BBC News is the most trusted news brand in the US. It seems that in an intensely polarised landscape, people thirst for a non-partisan source.
The BBC should be defended – and that process starts with governments treating it as the publicly funded broadcaster it is, rather than the state broadcaster some wrongly imagine it to be. That means giving up the power to pick its boss – and getting politicians out of the way. The BBC is a precious thing – so precious, we might not fully appreciate it until it’s gone.

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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
Richard Sharp is out at the BBC: now can we think about how we hold other miscreants to account? | Simon Jenkins
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What have the now former chair of the BBC, the Labour veteran Diane Abbott and the ousted chancellor Nadhim Zahawi all got in common? Indeed, what do they share with Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Matt Hancock?
The answer is that they have all been accused of things that so upset people as to cause them to lose or risk losing their jobs. Failing to disclose having facilitated a loan, enjoying an unwise liaison, holding a contentious opinion: the misbehaviour in question varies, but all was deemed sufficiently significant to risk ruining their reputations or future careers – or at least for their organisations to be under pressure to see them depart to appease its critics.
I will say nothing in their defence. All seem “guilty as charged” and I am happy for them to be told so to their faces. They broke the subtle web of acceptability we now weave around those in power, potentially trapping them at every turn. Perhaps Zahawi entered his income in the wrong tax column. Perhaps the BBC’s Richard Sharp should have told some committee he was a buddy of Johnson. Certainly, in any job, however much you may like your colleagues, it is advisable not to have sex with them.
But do the punishments fit the crime? Is Abbott’s explosive letter to the Observer enough to bring a distinguished career to a shameful end? If Hancock was qualified to be health minister, was the (presumably illegal) leaking of security pictures of a private embrace sufficient to wipe that qualification?
Break the law of the land and the law stipulates you can hope for a fair trial, due punishment and hope of rehabilitation. We no longer flog or deport those convicted of stealing rabbits, or shut them in stocks and pelt them with rotten vegetables. Yet that is the equivalent of what we often do to those whose behaviour or views are deemed “unacceptable”.
The people listed above were – with exceptions – perfectly good at their jobs. Some blurted out public apologies for what they said or did, but these are swept aside by the media as admissions of guilt. Investigators are hauled in to conduct private trials in murky Whitehall attics in a desperate attempt to appease the mob.
The crime of partying during lockdown of which Johnson and Rishi Sunak were accused – and for which their officials were primarily responsible – was reported to the police, judged and punished with a fixed penalty fine and much humiliating publicity. Justice was done.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s tangential offence of misleading parliament has beaten the Congress of Vienna for longevity. It has become a two-year festival of political retribution. Johnson has already lost the top job in the land. Now he is to be threatened with the end of his political career. I can think of a host of reasons why he should never again be allowed near public office, but telling a fib about an illicit party is not one of them.

The answer, of course, is that needs must. Intolerance of minor faults in those who rule us is the price we pay for being unable to get accountability for major ones. The Tory party this week permanently expelled its MP Andrew Bridgen for idiotically comparing the use of Covid vaccines to the Holocaust, and its former deputy whip Chris Pincher declared he won’t be standing at the next election after last year’s allegations of groping.
Labour has likewise banished Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone amid accusations of antisemitism. Yet not a day passes without news of politicians and other public figures committing some gross incompetence. This week, a Commons committee heard of the effective collapse of HS2’s £4.8bn Euston terminus without batting an eyelid. No one apparently is responsible.
No one has been condemned, let alone sacked, for the continuing refusal properly to compensate the victims of the Post Office computer scandal or the contaminated blood scandal. Likewise, no one has to answer for the ongoing pollution of rivers in England or corrupt PPE contracts. Ministers always “move on” and out of range. Justice for the Grenfell Tower tragedy is delegated to a reenactment on the stage.
This failure is ultimately derived from our polarised politics, which seems unable to tolerate unconventional opinions or behaviour, even from those who apologise for them. The weekly fight between Sunak and Keir Starmer across the dispatch box has become excruciating. Two apparently decent and reasonable men are forced to strip naked and scream at each other. Intelligent democratic accountability is lost in a swirl of charge and counter-charge. Tabloid politics demands blood.
When politicians and others in public life make it hard for us to hold them to account for major failures in government, the temptation is inevitable. We will hold them to account for minor failures of their own. We should be getting angry about what matters.
- Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
April 28, 2023
Richard Sharp resigns as BBC chair after failing to declare link to Boris Johnson loan

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Richard Sharp has resigned as BBC chair after he breached the rules on public appointments by failing to declare his connection to a secret £800,000 loan made to Boris Johnson.
Sharp quit on Friday morning after concluding his continued presence at the BBC “may well be a distraction from the corporation’s good work”.
An investigation by the UK commissioner of public appointments concluded Sharp had broken the rules by failing to declare his link to Johnson’s loan, creating a “potential perceived conflict of interest”.
The investigation also found that Johnson – when he was prime minister – had personally approved Sharp’s appointment as BBC chair, while the individuals running the supposedly independent recruitment process for the job had already been informed that Sharp was the only candidate whom the government would support.
Although this breach of the rules does not necessarily invalidate an appointment, Sharp said his position was no longer tenable and he had to quit. He intends to step down at a board meeting in June, at which point an acting chair will be appointed. Rishi Sunak’s government will then start recruitment process to find a full-time successor.
Earlier this year, the Sunday Times revealed that Sharp had secretly helped an acquaintance, Sam Blyth, who wanted to offer an £800,000 personal loan guarantee for Johnson. The prime minister’s personal finances were in poor shape while he was in Downing Street with his new wife, Carrie, and baby son, and was going through an expensive divorce.
Sharp decided to introduce Blyth to Simon Case, the head of the civil service, so they could discuss a potential loan. But the BBC chair insists he took no further role and there is no evidence “to say I played any part whatsoever in the facilitation, arrangement, or financing of a loan for the former prime minister”.
He added that he did not realise he had to declare the introduction during the recruitment process for the BBC job, saying: “I have always maintained the breach was inadvertent.”

It is still not known who ultimately provided Johnson with the loan, which became public only after he left office.
Sharp’s resignation comes at a tricky time for the BBC, which has been hit by criticisms it has become too close to the Conservative government – and faces questions over whether it has been too heavily influenced by ministers.
Labour’s Lucy Powell said the incident had “caused untold damage to the reputation of the BBC and seriously undermined its independence as a result of the Conservatives’ sleaze and cronyism”.
She added: “Rishi Sunak should urgently establish a truly independent and robust process to replace Sharp to help restore the esteem of the BBC after his government has tarnished it so much.”
The investigation into Sharp’s appointment was particularly damning on the way the application process for the job was handled. Other candidates were put off from putting forward their names for the BBC job by the perception it was already lined for Sharp. Government-friendly media outlets were briefed that Sharp was the government’s preferred candidate for the job before the application window had even closed.
“Leaks and briefing to the press of ‘preferred candidates’ for public appointments (referred to as ‘pre-briefing’) should be prohibited by ministers,” the report concluded. “In this case such pre-briefing may well have discouraged people from applying for this role. It can also undermine efforts made to increase diversity.”
MPs had already criticised Sharp, a financier and Tory donor, for “significant errors of judgment” in failing to declare the potential conflict of interest.
Sharp told MPs he had been attending a private dinner at Blyth’s house in September 2020 when the Canadian businessman said he had read reports that Johnson was in “some difficulties” and that he wanted to help. Sharp said he had warned Blyth about the ethical complexities of this.
At the time, Sharp was working in Downing Street on Covid projects, and told Johnson and Sunak of his aim to be BBC chair. He told the culture, media and sport committee in February: “I communicated to the prime minister and to the chancellor that I wished to apply and submitted my application in November.”
The government will now be able to select a new BBC chair on a four-year term, depriving a potential Labour government of making its own appointment until late 2027.
The part-time position involves overseeing the BBC’s operations and managing relationships with the government.
In his resignation statement, Sharp said that “for all its complexities, successes, and occasional failings, the BBC is an incredible, dynamic, and world-beating creative force, unmatched anywhere”.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
Richard Avedon: major names celebrate the legacy of a unique photographer

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“People who you’ve read about or know about – there they are looking right at you.” Art curator Kara Vander Weg is talking with me about global art gallery Gagosian’s major new Richard Avedon retrospective, in which 150 individuals – ranging from the younger Barbara Bush to Khloé Kardashian to Spike Lee to Elton John to Renata Adler to Vander Weg herself – each selected a single Avedon photo to celebrate. She’s explaining the intimacy that she believes sets Avedon’s photos apart. “His subjects are looking right at you, and you can look right at them. You can’t help but react to the human right there in front of you.”
Avedon was monumental for the size of his photos, which tended to be printed in life-size or larger, leading to the effect that Vanger Weg described, where viewers can look right at his subjects and have an encounter that feels extremely intimate. “It’s a really interesting relationship between art and the viewer,” she told me. “Avedon must have known. He would work for months and months with models trying to find the right sizes of images. He must of known that humans in the room would relate to the images in a really special way. That’s what it is about these photographs, you’re looking in the eyes of another person. You can’t help but connect.”
In addition to being monumental for his size, Avedon was also monumental for his range – from heads of state to celebrities to art creators, fashion models, writers, musicians and even a beekeeper, his output feels almost impossibly capacious. “He spanned so many different genres,” said Derek Blasberg, another curator with Gasgosian who has been integral in putting together Avedon 100. “He shot almost every important figure of the second half of the 20th century.”
Showing from 4 May through 24 June, Avedon 100 will dominate Gagosian’s gallery space in New York’s Chelsea district. The show does feel enormous, with showstoppers from one area after another, be it politics, fashion, film, literature, street scenes, music. “What is awesome about this show is that it’s an enormous look at all of Avedon,” said Blasberg. “It spans from the earliest days of him touching a camera.” That includes what Blasberg deemed “arguably the first mirror selfie”, a side-by-side photo Avedon made with author James Baldwin. The 1946 image definitely has the aesthetics of a selfie, with Baldwin smiling into the mirror, eyes pointed toward the lens, while Avedon squints down into the viewfinder, his camera looking eerily like an iPhone.
Richard Avedon and James Baldwin, Harlem, New York, 1946 Photograph: Richard Avedon/Photograph(s) by Richard Avedon. The Richard Avedon Foundation
From the small to the large, the show also features two gigantic murals – one of Andy Warhol posing with members of The Factory (10ft high by 31ft wide) and one of poet Allen Ginsberg with members of his extended family (9ft by 20ft). “The two large murals are a tour de force,” said Vander Weg. “They were printed before any kind of digital printing, so it was a massive job to get them done correctly.” Indeed, these murals are among the largest fine art photos ever printed, and in their time they pushed the boundaries of what was possible with the photographic medium.
Vander Weg went on to explain that Gagosian “had a specific day dedicated to just installing those two murals. They were brought in rolled up, and then they were unrolled under supervision”. During Avedon’s lifetime the murals would not have been exhibited under glass, but since the photographer’s death in 2004 they have grown immeasurably more precious, and now glass is required. That’s because, according to Vander Weg, Avedon’s will contained a clause against printing any more of his photos. In addition, the Avedon Foundation, which now authenticates and licenses all of the photographer’s work, is known to go after anyone attempting to sell unauthenticated Avedon prints. “Collectors like knowing that there’s a finite body of work,” said Vander Weg. “Each one is signed and stamped on the back, making them precious objects.”
Cindy Crawford for Versace, hair by Yannick D’Is, makeup by François Nars, New York, 1994 Photograph: Photograph(s) by Richard Avedon. The Richard Avedon Foundation
Many of the individuals invited to help curate the show – particularly those from the fashion world – ended up selecting images of themselves. There’s Tom Ford looking gregarious and confident – the fashion designer said he adored the image so much that he ended up using it on the back cover of his first book. Supermodel Naomi Campbell chose a full-body, naked shot of herself encrusted with sand, a powerful, intent stare on her face. Quintessential supermodel Cindy Crawford chose a nine-exposure series that captured her flinging her hair around, looks of playful rapture beaming from her face. And Stephanie Seymour picked a shot of her in a sheer dress in a pose reminiscent of a ballet dancer, her pregnant belly clearly visible.
“Seymour said that working with Avedon was like a graduate program in modeling,” said Blasberg. “It was awesome to hear models talk what it was like to work with him. Linda Evangelista said that nobody did lighting like him.”

Although Avedon 100 certainly offers plenty of opportunities to view the powerful and the famous, Vander Weg also noted that many of the photographs involve anonymous or unknown individuals. For the image she curated, she picked one of a young boy, from an unpublished series for Life magazine done in 1949. “What’s really interesting about the whole series is that they’re not known sitters. They’re just everyday people, not posing. Yet he manages to give them all a dignity and a glamorous presentation. He knew so well how to frame, what would make them look their best. I look at that boy and think about the determination of many people who come to New York City. I really connect to it. You look at the eyes, and you think ‘this kid is going somewhere.’”
Richard Avedon. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/The Guardian
In an intimate, fun touch, each image comes with a brief text composed by the curator, where they offer often personal stories explaining why they chose what they did. Blasberg shared with me that he chose the Warhol Factory mural because, as a kid growing up in St Louis, it made him realize there was so much more to the world. “I remember the first time I saw that image, I was so struck by it. Over the years I’ve dived more and more into what was behind that photo. For a little boy from Missouri to see a glorification of male beauty – it made me think I have to get to New York. I wanted to be one of those cool kids in that shop.” Decades later and an art world insider, Blasberg finds “working on this show has been a total surreal career highlight.”
Avedon 100 feels like a one-of-a-kind event because it’s such a large-scale show, bringing together so many strands of an enormous career. It’s a fitting testament to a major American creator. In the words of Vander Weg, “People have grown up seeing these images, but to see them in a room all together is something else. One man’s incredibly interesting, varied life – it will be a very powerful experience.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 27, 2023
Sen. Richard Blumenthal injured during basketball parade

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Late Saturday, he tweeted about being injured during the parade in Hartford. “What can I say, I love a parade!” he wrote on Twitter.
“I did indeed fracture my femur after a fellow parade goer tripped & fell on me during the parade,” he said.
Because Democrats have a bare 50-49-1 Senate majority, the health and well-being of the Senate’s Democrats has attracted a lot of attention this year, with Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) among those who have missed sessions. Prominent Republicans have also been absent at times, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. All the absences have hindered the Senate’s ability to get work done.
Blumenthal was in Hartford on Saturday to celebrate the championship that the Connecticut Huskies won last Monday by defeating San Diego State in Houston, their fifth national title. “Once again, the Huskies have inspired our state,” he and other members of the state’s delegation said in a celebratory statement Friday. “Five national championships don’t happen by accident.”
Fellow Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said that nothing was going to stop Blumenthal from celebrating the team.
“FYI after he broke his femur he got back up, dusted himself off, and FINISHED THE PARADE. Most Dick Blumenthal thing ever,” Murphy tweeted late Saturday.
In his Sunday tweets, Blumenthal made it clear he had no regrets for his enthusiasm for his state’s college athletes, mentioning the Quinnipiac Bobcats squad that won the NCAA men’s hockey championship on Saturday.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 10, 2023
Richard Madden says he would be honoured to work in Bollywood movie

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Mumbai: Actor Richard Madden, who will be soon seen playing an elite spy in the upcoming streaming action-thriller series ‘Citadel’, said that he will be honoured to work in a Bollywood movie.
The actor is in Mumbai for the Asia-Pacific leg of promotions of the series which also stars global star Priyanka Chopra.
Speaking to the media at a press event in the city, Richard said: “India makes more movies than any other country in the world and has an incredible amount of talent. I would be honoured to work here.”

He also mentioned that he would like to essay a comic role if he works in a Bollywood movie as it’s something that he hasn’t tried his hands on.
Talking more about his visit to India, the actor shared that although grappling with a tight timeline, he intended to pay a visit to the city’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park, which is the only national park in the city limits globally, however a possible interaction with an unwanted friend – a leopard that often lurks in the eco-sensitive zone, deterred him from doing so.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 5, 2023