Names and faces

• For Queen Elizabeth II, one throne is enough. The United Kingdom's 88-year-old monarch toured the Belfast sets of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones and met many of its stars Tuesday beside the show's sword-covered seat of power, the Iron Throne. Unlike many visitors to Belfast's Titanic Studios, the monarch declined to try out the throne created for the ruler of the mythical Seven Kingdoms and legendarily forged from 1,000 swords. Instead, she received a miniature model as a gift. Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss escorted the monarch through the show's armory, costume design and storage, and sprawling sets. The real-life head of the House of Windsor talked with actors from the show's rival royal houses, the Lannisters and the Starks. "She kept commenting on how uncomfortable the throne looked. That was funny," said Maisie Williams, the 17-year-old English actress who plays Arya Stark. "I don't think I've ever been as nervous to meet anybody," said Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister, queen regent of the Seven Kingdoms.

Gary Oldman is defending fellow actors Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin from critics of their comments on Jews and homosexuals, saying people need to take a joke. In an expletive-laced interview with Playboy, Oldman decried the "political correctness" that ensnared the two actors. Gibson made an anti-Semitic rant in 2006 while being arrested for drunken driving, and he later apologized. Baldwin last year used an anti-gay slur in a New York City street confrontation. Oldman said that Gibson "got drunk and said a few things, but we've all said those things. We're all f** hypocrites." He said he didn't blame Baldwin for using the slur because somebody bothered him. He urged the Playboy interviewer to "edit and cut half of what I've said, because it's going to make me sound like a bigot." He said he's not a bigot, "but I'm defending all the wrong people. I'm saying Mel's all right, Alec's a good guy." Douglas Urbanski, Oldman's longtime manager, said Tuesday that the actor finds any kind of bigotry unacceptable and disgraceful. Urbanski said Oldman was criticizing hypocrisy instead of defending his fellow actors, despite Oldman's comment in the article that he was indeed defending them.

A Section on 06/25/2014

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