Paloma Faith: from BRITs to BAFTA? Eyeing major 'gritty' film role

She finally bagged a Brit, but Paloma Faith won’t stop there – she now has her eyes on an Oscar.

The singer, who scooped best female solo artist at last night’s ceremony, aims to step up her acting skills and thinks a role such as the battered wife played by Olivia Colemanin Paddy Considine’s film Tyrannosaur would be right up her street.

‘I’d be after something that challenges me to do something completely the opposite of what my public persona is. I would like to play a next door neighbour or something gritty,’ the Only Love Can Hurt Like This singer told Metro exclusively.

‘I am a big fan of Paddy Considine. If he does another film I would love to be in that,’ she continued, admitting she would love to be considered as an actress akin to Coleman.

‘I have started petitioning him! I direct messaged him on Twitter saying “If you do another film, please call me!” And he replied saying that in his house they were big fans of mine, him and his kids. Which was cute. I am sowing the seeds!’ she said.

However Faith – who played the girlfriend of the Devil in Terry Gilliam’s 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – is not abandoning her music career yet as she hopes to have a new album out before the end of the year.

‘It’s an ambitious thing, but I’m hoping. That’s the idea. I’ve started writing but I haven’t been recording yet. It’s still very early days and I’ve just done a few days of writing so far,’ she teased.

[Printed Metro February 2015]

George Ezra almost decapitated by train

George Ezra may have lost out on all four of his nominated Brit award categories last night but he’s still a very lucky man after revealing he narrowly escaped being decapitated by a train.

The 21-year-old singer-songwriter almost lost his head in the near-miss last year, but says he was rescued by a guardian angel.

‘I was getting the train from Paddington to Bristol a few months ago and I couldn’t be happier to be getting out to the countryside,’ he recalled exclusively to Metro.

‘The sun was setting and after you go through the industrial areas and past Slough you are in the countryside and it’s beautiful. I had my head out the window and I had my eyes closed. And then I pulled my head in, for no apparent reason, and a train sped past the other way. I would have been fully decapitated. I turned white. I was like a ghost!’

Shuddering he says he learnt a valuable lesson: ‘We don’t put our heads out train windows, do we George?’

And Ezra – who topped the charts with his debut album Wanted On Voyage – says he is often left shaken by fans who tell him they make love listening to his music.

‘People have told me that,’ he confessed, before insisting he never listens to his own material when getting down to business himself.

‘Someone asked me if I listen to my album during sex and I just looked at him and said, “Are you f***ing serious? I do not put my album on before that!”’ he laughed.

[Printed Metro February 2015]