ALISON BOSHOFF: Renee Zellweger’s boyfriend and a v. v. bad run for a string of his businesses

Renee Zellweger is riding high with the forthcoming release of a fourth Bridget Jones film, Mad About The Boy.

However her continued Hollywood success is in marked contrast to the turbulent financial affairs of her British boyfriend, Ant Anstead.

Anstead, 45, has had his UK TV production company struck off — with all assets now belonging to ‘the Crown’ — and has also voluntarily closed down his car bodyworks company.

His TV production company Ant Anstead Limited was dissolved on December 3 last year by a compulsory strike-off action. 

This happens when a company fails to meet statutory obligations, like submitting annual accounts or confirmation statements.

A spokesman for Anstead said the company has not traded since 2021 and was dissolved after he moved to the US for work. 

In the last accounts filed, for the year to June 2023, Ant Anstead Limited had £7,863 in total assets.

Meanwhile Reflect Bodyworks Limited was closed by voluntary strike off on January 7. It had just £200 in assets on its books at the time. Anstead’s spokesman explained the company had never traded and so he chose to close the company.

Another company of which he is a director, Dowsetts Classic Cars, has reported net liabilities of £287,000. 

Anstead’s spokesman said the company had suffered ‘financial difficulty during the Covid-19 pandemic but recovered with financial support’ from Anstead and the other directors and went on to make a profit in 2023, which will be shown when the 2024 accounts are filed.

On the other side of the Atlantic, matters are also complex. On October 22, his car company Radford Motors, which he founded with F1 star Jenson Button, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The move came after he and his other co-founder, Daniel Bednarski, were accused of fraud and misrepresentation.

Several lawsuits by customers said that the company accepted deposits ranging from $100,000 to $750,000 from customers but never delivered the cars ordered or refunded them.

Pat Velasco, one of his business partners, is also suing and says he is owed $2 million.

Even co-owner Roger N. Behle Jr is suing, and says Anstead and chief financial officer Bednarski mismanaged company finances. Anstead and Bednarski, meanwhile, have filed a counterclaim against both Velasco and Behle. Button is not involved in the lawsuits.

Anstead said the company would continue to trade. 

He said: ‘Radford is implementing strategic organisational enhancements while maintaining full operational continuity. I remain fully committed to advancing Radford’s vision and growth.’

A British motor manufacturing company, Evanta, previously run by Anstead, went into liquidation in 2017. Creditors were owed £338,991 but were only paid 4 pence in the pound, meaning they walked away with a total of £13,761.

Anstead’s spokesman said: ‘After more than a decade of trading, Evanta suffered losses following the cancellation of a contract and was closed.’

The spokesman added Anstead ‘may well appear on television but he is not somehow cushioned from the realities of business’.

Anstead and his children Archie, 18, and Amelie, 21, (from his first marriage to Brit Louise Storey) strode the red carpet with Texan Zellweger last week and are understood to have stayed with the star in Claridge’s hotel.

A man of many layers 

Winterwatch presenter Chris Packham says that viewers write in to complain that he is wearing too much on screen.

‘Some viewers question why we have so much winter gear on. They don’t seem to think that we need it.

‘It’s true that we can sometimes run to five, even six layers, but it’s necessary! We’re standing around all day, not generating heat from our bodies, so Michaela, Iolo and I need to look like Michelin Men — or perhaps that should be Michelin-people — so that we can stave off the cold.’

British star Naomi Ackie (of the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody and chiller Blink Twice) plays PC Donna de Freitas in the Spielberg/Netflix adaptation of Richard Osman’s bestseller The Thursday Murder Club. 

Early footage suggests the film could be a real treat. 

Beleaguered star goes to ground all Emilia Perez’s continue… 

The star of Emilia Perez – the most nominated foreign language film in Oscars history – is being erased from its campaign.

Karla Sofia Gascon, a trans woman, will not be at the Critics Choice awards in LA tonight, even though she is nominated for Best Actress. Nor will she be at the Producers Guild Of America (PGA) Awards in LA tomorrow.

It’s thought that she will also stay away from the Baftas later this month — and the Oscars on March 2 — as Netflix seeks to protect the Oscar chances of Emelia Perez supporting actress Zoe Saldana, and of the film itself, which is in the running for Best Picture and Best International Feature Film.

Gascon has been quietly dropped from a number of ‘For Your Consideration’ panel discussions and screenings, too. Nobody is speaking about what has gone on, but it seems that Gascon is now only dealing with Netflix via her agent, and there are mutterings about threats of legal action on both sides.

Matters were not improved when the film’s star gave a not particularly apologetic interview to CNN en Espana earlier this week — without first telling anyone. In it, Gascon declared: ‘I have been convicted and sacrificed and crucified and stoned without a trial and without the option to defend myself.’

Things started to sour for Emilia Perez after old remarks Gascon made on social media resurfaced. Several have caused enormous offence, including one about Hitler.

Gascon wrote: ‘I do not understand so much world war against Hitler, he simply had his opinion of the Jews. The end, that’s how the world goes.’

She also wrote that George Floyd, the black man murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis five years ago, was ‘a drug addict and a hustler’.

And in a tweet about the 93rd Oscars, she likened Daniel Kaluuya’s and Yuh-Jung Youn’s respective triumphs to an ‘Afro-Korean festival’.

Gascon says some of her remarks have been misconstrued and were sarcastic or written in the third person.

Co-star Saldana has been openly horrified, commenting last week: ‘It makes me really sad, because I don’t support [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.’

And in an interview with Deadline Hollywood this week, the film’s French director, Jacques Audiard, described Gascon’s comments as ‘inexcusable’.

He said: ‘I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to. She is in a self-destructive approach… and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing.’

Meanwhile, I can reveal that there was a distance between Gascon and the rest of the cast during filming.

For whatever reason, Gascon did not socialise with them and, since she speaks no English or French, there was not much bonding going on.

Then, during the promotional tour, sources tell me Gascon was ‘not a team player’ and stayed on the sidelines while the others tried to sell the film.

In an interview a month ago, Gascon indicated the shoot in Paris was ‘lonely’. After production wrapped she shared a picture of herself with castmates and wrote: ‘Forgive me for my desperation. For how much of a beast I can be in life.’

The star’s representatives were asked for a comment, but did not respond.

Sicily is bracing itself for the great Christopher Nolan invasion, as the British director prepares to head to the island in April, with an all-star cast in tow, to make The Odyssey.

Locals say that the production is taking 400 rooms in hotels in Favignana, Lipari and Vulcano, leading to a ¤10 million boost for the local economy.

Matt Damon plays the legendary Greek hero Odysseus; and the supporting cast includes Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland.

The picture will also be shot in studios near London.

Nolan’s previous film, Oppenheimer, won a Best Picture Oscar and grossed nearly $1 billion.

He’ll always be Jack Sparrow to his fans, but actor Johnny Depp has always regarded himself as a musician, according to Ringo Starr’s son Zak.

Drummer Zak has recorded a charity single, organised by athlete Fatima Whitbread for her Kids In Care charity.

He said: ‘Johnny played the guitar on it and it is amazing. I can’t tell you what it is called, as it is not out yet. I produced it and played the drums. Samantha Morton and Fatima do voice overs.

‘Johnny played all the guitars on it so beautifully. His guitar solo can’t be played loud enough.

‘I did Rock In Rio with him. Johnny is a guitarist, man. He does not consider himself an actor really. He started as a guitarist and got spotted. It was easy money and paid for his musical career.

‘He may have bought some of Jeff Beck’s guitars that recently went up for auction.’

Kieran’s a pain, but he knows his lines 

Kieran Culkin is in line for an Oscar for his role in A Real Pain — and it sounds as if those who work with him might find him a bit of pain, too.

Culkin is getting every Sunday off in his forthcoming Broadway run in Glengarry Glen Ross, so he can have a ‘family day’ with his children, which is unheard of. There will be additional performances on a Monday instead.

Meanwhile, his co-star and director in A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg, described Culkin as ‘a very unpredictable performer’.

He explained: ‘Kieran would say, “Hey, what are we shooting today?” I wrote the lines, and it still took me weeks to memorise it — and he has ten times more lines than me.

‘So I would be like, “OK, it’s this scene… should we get cue cards ready or something?” And he would look at the script for like a minute, and he’d be like, “No, I’m OK”.

‘And he would get to set and he’d be perfect. Not only perfect with his lines, but very fast too. He has some weird metabolisation of dialogue.

‘The weird thing is he won’t know them the next day. So it’s some temporary thing.’

Did it make Eisenberg nervous? ‘Oh my God!’ he replied. Which sounds like a Yes.