Hasta La Gadget!

To escape your status as an on-screen heartthrob, it’s most likely best to accept a role in a historical adventure epic shot in the jungles of Colombia, where you’re secluded from all technology and screaming fans. There, apparently, you’ll also be able to drop 30-plus pounds.

That’s exactly what Robert Pattinson and Charlie Hunnam did for their new movie, “The Lost City of Z.” The “Twilight” star and the “Sons of Anarchy” actor went full-on method for their roles in the James Gray–helmed film, which tells the true-life story of British explorer Col. Percival Fawcett (Hunnam), who returns to his beloved Amazonia time and time again with his aide-de-camp, Cpl. Henry Costin (Pattinson), in an attempt to prove that a secret civilization exists there. The travels culminate in Fawcett’s disappearance, which is still a mystery today.

In order to truly portray these jungle-hungry explorers, Hunnam and Pattinson let their muscled physiques dwindle down, and both lost some 35 pounds.

“I don’t think I was too much fun to be around,” Hunnam told “Good Morning America” in a taped segment that aired Tuesday. Pattinson, who also grew a beard and wore glasses for the film, added, “The main conversation was us saying like, ‘Did you eat a second egg this morning?’”

Hunnam said that if either of them went off set for a moment, the other would be “suspicious” that he was sneaking a snack. But it was all for the craft!

The actors even made themselves disappear, in a way, by unplugging from the world for months. 

“It’s incredible,” Pattinson laughed, explaining that being disconnected from everything was a nice escape. “’I’m sorry, I have to go for six months and I am deeply in character. Don’t call me.’” 

“I didn’t use email once, I didn’t go on a computer, I didn’t make a phone call for four months. It was so liberating,” Hunnam added. 

“The Lost City of Z” hits limited theaters Friday. 

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In an effort to allude to what’s impossible to fully communicate, Holocaust survivor Lydia Vagos wrote the following poem to accompany a portrait of herself, taken by photographer Harry Borden:  

In Limbo
In the black hole of our 
Planet Earth
Auschwitz
They drove me out when it ceased to be;
Yet who will drive it out of me? 
It still exists. 
Only death will be my exorcist.

Vagos is one of almost 200 people Borden featured in his series “Survivor,” a haunting compendium of portraits that hint at an unimaginably painful past. Borden had worked as a celebrity photographer for around 25 years until, in 2008, he decided to, in his words, “use [his] skills to an intelligent end.”

As he explained in an email to The Huffington Post, Borden “hoped to make a small contribution to the documentation of a uniquely horrific event in modern history. In this era of fake news, the images are a strong rebuttal to Holocaust Deniers.”

Raised by a Jewish father who identifies as atheist, Borden was interested in how the horrific events of the Holocaust had influenced his father’s faith. As he explained to Feature Shoot, “I think it was my dad’s ambivalence towards his heritage ― and his disturbing revelation that it had once been deemed punishable by death ― that really motivated me to create this body of work.”

The series features portraits from individuals of various ages, genders and nationalities, based in Australia, Israel, the U.K. and U.S. Each portrait is shot with minimal staging and equipment in the subjects’ homes. “It would have been easier to set up a studio and photograph lots of people at the same time,” Borden said, “but I wanted the pictures to be an authentic record of our meeting on that day.”

The series’ straightforward and unflinching style was inspired by artists like Irving Penn, Diane Arbus and August Sander, whose work, Borden specified, was greatly constrained under the Nazis. To complete each portrait, the photographer invited his subjects to handwrite a message alongside the image, whether a poem, a memory or an attempt to express how it feels to survive such an atrocity. 

“The response has been universally great,” Borden wrote, “but the praise for the book from my subjects I’ve found particularly satisfying.”

See the images and read the words below. The complete photography book Survivor: A portrait of the survivors of the Holocaust is also available for purchase. 

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Last night, my friend Eugenia and I went to a restaurant and took seats at the corner of the bar. An hour later, a man obviously who had been drinking nearly bumped into me. I reacted by holding my hands up, bracing for contact. He stopped directly behind my stool, brushing against it with his torso, as he began hovering over me.

I politely asked him to step back from my chair, telling him he was too close. Rather than comply, he stood there, leaning in with a drunken stare. Standing at least 6’2” with a wide, heavy frame, he was intimidating. With more insistence, I said, “You’re in my space. If you don’t take a step back, I’m going to scream.” He moved closer, inches from face, quickly becoming aggressive and responded, “No, you’re in my space.” Eugenia intervened with a courteous tone, also asking him to step back. He didn’t.

Before last night, I would have cowered and yielded by moving to another area of the restaurant. I might have even left. But earlier in the day, I attended the Women’s March on Chicago. I left with a mind shift that finally synchronized with something I had been told once, ironically by a man: “Your mind and your body are your real estate. Don’t let anyone stake a claim on your property.” He also told me that whatever land I was standing on was mine.

So there I was, standing on “my land” in that bar, resenting the feeling that I had to make an accommodation for this jerk’s behavior. I called loudly for the bartender to intercede. The man still refused to move. Other patrons, men and women, witnessed the situation but with no motivation beyond gawking. I faced the man and didn’t move. I was committed to getting him off my land.

The bartender came and coaxed him away. I thought away would be out the door. Instead, the man was allowed to move across the bar, where he sat hunched over, glowering at me. I was not at ease, feeling at any moment he would return with more threatening intentions. I asked for the manager. When he came, I explained what had taken place, and what remained unresolved. I went on to say that this situation happens to many women, and that I found it unfair that I (we) have to move or leave to escape feeling uncomfortable, harassed and intimidated. I insisted that the man be made to leave, and that is exactly what he was made to do.

The situation was surreal. The moment I committed to standing up to him, my courage kicked in. Why? Because courage is the ability to act when confronted with fear. Interestingly enough, you have to do the very thing you’re afraid of to get it.

As I watched the man walk out the door, I realized I had finally done it. I flexed. My fiancé gifted this word to me when I was frustrated from being too slow to respond to a rude remark. He believes that to “flex” means to confirm your self-worth by defining it at all times, and defending it at a moment’s notice. And that the first step is to state your most simple truth the moment you are aware of it.

Earlier that day, I had watched more than 200,000 women flex on the streets of my city, women who had refused to yield to the push of intimidation, the shove of bias and the slam of disparagement. Like them, we must all begin to flex, to define and defend our space. And we need to actively support each other, whether we know one another or not, when antagonizing situations occur.

Time to flex.

Alicia Bassuk is a leadership coach and performance consultant with Ubica Strategy. Follow her on Twitter.

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Some of the greatest moments at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival have come from convincing groups with cult followings to perform amid the heat of Indio, California.

But apparently, the people behind the festival had no interest in pursuing one of the most elusive and enigmatic cult artists in music: Kate Bush.

In a piece for The New Yorker, reporter John Seabrook dives into how the people behind Coachella craft the festival lineup every year. Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising moment in the piece comes thanks to Marc Geiger, a top booking agent with the William Morris Endeavor talent agency.

Geiger said that he tried pitching Bush as a potential artist to Paul Tollett, the CEO of Golden Voice, which puts on the festival. But Tollett apparently had little interest in pursuing the artist, believing no one would “understand it.”

“I’ll say, ‘Kate Bush!’ And he’ll go, ‘No!,’ and we’ll talk through it,” Geiger said. “I’ll say, ‘She’s never played here, and she just did thirty shows in the U.K. for the first time since the late seventies. You gotta do it! Have to!’ ‘No! No one is going to understand it.’”

Geiger is right that the English singer-songwriter, who has a dedicated following, has never played a show in the U.S. before. In 2014, however, she performed 22 shows in London ― her first in 35 years. Tickets sold out 15 minutes after being put on the market, a sign that interest in Bush is likely much higher than Tollett thinks.

While it’s clear that the conversation between Geiger and Tollett never went very far, Bush has since put out a statement clarifying that she did not have any intention to play the festival even if she had been asked. 

“No discussions were ever had with Kate about playing any festival, including Coachella,” her spokesperson added in a statement provided The Guardian. 

That’s a shame. 

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Michelle Obama will make a highly anticipated return to public life later this month. But first, there’s paddleboarding to do in the South Pacific.

Since leaving the White House, the Obamas have appeared to be moving on just fine from their breakup with America. There was the vacation with Richard Branson, the kitesurfing challenge, the power lunch with Bono and now, an envy-inducing visit to the French Polynesian island of Mo’orea.

Barack Obama has been “holed up” since mid-March at The Brando, a luxury resort on nearby Tetiaora, a private island once owned by Marlon Brando. He’s reportedly spent that time working on his portion of the $60 million book deal the couple struck up in February. 

Michelle Obama flew into Tahiti to join her husband on Saturday, according to French Polynesian news station TNTV. On Sunday, the couple swam and paddleboarded in Mo’orea in water as blue as our hearts. 

We suspect they’ll be heading back to the U.S. soon. The former president is just about at the one-month mark of his month-long trip, and Michelle Obama is slated to appear at an architecture conference in Florida on April 27. 

As much as we’d look at photos of these two enjoying water sports all day, we’re also ready for them to come home already. The vacation envy is killing us. 

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