The Kilkenny Observer Friday 11 February 2022
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The conman gripping Netflix audiences
5
things to know about Amazon Prime’s Reacher
REACHER is out now on Amazon Prime Video (S1, Eps8)and is a show based on the incredibly successful Lee Child novels. Alan Ritchson is Jack Reacher, a role that Tom Cruise played when the character was adapted for two movies. Big shoes to fill, then, but given Ritchson is much closer in size to how the character is written in the books (he’s 6ft 2in, compared to a 6ft 5in Reacher) he already has the fans on his side. Here are five things to know about Reacher, according to Alan Ritchson...
THE hit Netflix documentary ‘The Tinder Swindler’ has shown how conman Simon Leviev lives a life of luxury ripping off his lonesome, crazy-in-love ladies. The 31- year-old was born Shimon Hayut but changed his name to Simon Leviev and styled himself The Prince of Diamond. No, the man is no prince; in fact, he is quite the antagonist who poses as the son of Russian-Israeli gem tycoon Lev Leviev. Interestingly, Lev Leviev is an accomplished businessman, philanthropist, and investor, who has earned the title ‘King of Diamonds’. The clever swindler posing as his son dubbed him ‘prince’ of diamonds! His action plan always involves swooning ladies with grand romantic gestures like dates in chauffeur-driven cars and trips on private jets. Of course, none
of the money is his, but his other romantic interest, aka victims. In his unabashed social media posts, the bogus diamond trader is forever seen posing in head-to-toe designer clothes. The man has a penchant for all things luxurious from private jets, luxury cars, and even yachts! His blind-inlove, affluent lovers became the scammer’s princesses with shining bank accounts and sent him their savings or took out huge credit card loans. His modus operandi was feigning he was in grave danger, or enemies had frozen his bank accounts. Seen clad in designer wear and perched comfortably in a private jet, Simon Leviev is said to have tricked nearly $10 million from a long line of women. One would imagine a man
of such crimes troubled, but this smoothie has spirit. Not only has he been posting since out from his jail sentence in Israel, but the man has also already found a new girlfriend. Israeli model called Polina is dating the criminal despite being wanted across Europe for a string of frauds, according to The Sun newspaper. The man posted this photograph on his Instagram account and captioned it, ‘always thinking and planning’. Clearly, he has a lot of women, lies, and even cops to manage! One victim, Cecilie Fjellhøy, said she ended up in a psychiatric ward after he conned her out of nearly $252,000 in a matter of weeks. She said she thought about crashing her car into a lorry, saying: “I felt like my life was over, and I didn’t want to go on.”
Cecilie confessed in the documentary that barely three months after their first date, she felt pressured under crippling debt that Leviev had spent on hotels, fine dining, and first-class travel. The fraudster carefully selects his targets. One victim fell for his charm shortly after a split from her fiancé. The women discovered Simon’s true colours in different ways. One found out when she was contacted by journalists investigating him. Another found through a newspaper report that her boyfriend of 14 months was scamming women all over Europe. This man is a shining example of the adage; all that glitters is not gold! It serves him right. Interpol is ready to arrest him if he ever steps foot outside his home country.
Thriller Chloe is simply terrifying IT’S not something many of us would like to linger on for too long, purely because the truth would terrify us, but ever wondered how easy it would be for someone to gain access to your life? In Chloe, BBC One and Amazon Prime Video’s sixpart psychological thriller series, the perpetrator is Becky Green. Becky is a woman living in a small flat in Bristol,
caring for her mother who has dementia. In bed, while outside having a cigarette and then during breakfast she obsessively scrolls through the pictureperfectly curated Instagram account of the titular woman, Chloe Fairbourne (pictured). What initially seems like an unhealthy online habit is quickly revealed to be something much darker. One day, stalking Chloe’s
Instagram, Becky sees wave after wave of brokenhearted tributes and she comes to the realisation that Chloe has died. And now it isn’t aimless fun; she is using her quick thinking and deviousness as part of a crystal-clear agenda and it’s to infiltrate Chloe’s life to find out what happened. Yes, it’s shudder-inducing – even more so when you realise the ease with which she is able to do so.
1. Ritchson didn’t just learn his lines for Reacher but the entire script “To get myself into the scenes and make sure that I understood, not just where Reacher was, but to be able to be one step ahead of everybody, I would memorise the entire script. “To do that I would record everybody’s lines and I would listen to them continuously every time I was in the car on the way home, if I was in the gym... I was always listening to other people’s lines. That gave me the chance while filming to stop thinking about anything except for what was happening and just listen and be present.” 2. Ritchson is a big fan of Reacher’s bluntness “Reacher is blunt and his direct quality is one of my favourite things about him. Too many of us sugarcoat everything to the point of sometimes suffering at the hands of somebody else when we want to say what needs to be said and walk away with regret of not saying it. “I don’t think Reacher has ever been convicted of that, which makes for great TV and it makes for a fun read. We love him for it, that he says what we want to say. That’s just one of the qualities he has that reso-
nates with all of us on a deeper level.” 3. Reacher is a show that blends genres. “I think it’s really easy for a distributor to go, ‘give me the bottom line, what is it that we’re making here? Is it a horror? Is it a comedy? Is it a drama?’ Genre blending is frowned upon. It’s hard to sell something to go, ‘it was mysterious, but it was also funny. So I don’t know, is it a comedy? Like who are we selling this to?’ This is the conversation that goes on behind the scenes. And it’s unfortunate because that’s not what life looks like.” “ It’s full of action, it’s savage, it’s heartwarming, romantic... it’s just all of it rolled into one.” 4. Ritchson wanted to do some of his own stunts “There was one fight where I was arguing with everybody that I needed to do the stunt. I didn’t want to cheat and have them shoot my stunt double’s back or whatever. I wanted to jump a fire escape and we shot in a way that there’s no way to rig it. “That fight stands out in my mind as one that I’m very proud of. And I think it’s it also just happens to be one of the coolest fights of the season, so I can’t wait for people to see it.” 5. Ritchson doesn’t want to be compared to Cruise “What seems unfair is that I would be mentioned in the same sentence as Mr Cruise. His legacy looms so much larger than mine that I’m the small one when we are mentioned in the same sentence. “I grew up watching everything he’s ever done and wanted to be like him and just wished for the same fire and passion that he brings to his characters in my own career. He’s a legend.” so I don’t think I can ever compare to him.”
