Sky News anchor Jeremy Thompson has revealed young people recognise him more from his film cameos than his journalism.
The veteran newsreader has appeared in an array of movies as a reporter, including Shaun Of The Dead and St Trinian’s.
Jeremy said: “One of the intriguing things is that people from younger generations will stop me and say, ‘Hey, you’re that bloke that’s in Shaun Of The Dead, we love it, it’s our favourite film’.
“A lot of them will say, ‘So, do you do anything else’ … ‘Well, you know I’m actually a news reporter’. Shaun Of The Dead counts more than Sky News, about 10 times as much.
“For my grandkids, actually, it’s much cooler to be in Shaun Of The Dead or a Bourne movie than it is to read the news.”
Speaking to Sky News’ in-house magazine ahead of reporting on his sixth US election, Jeremy said he could see the parallels between the rise of Donald Trump and Brexit.
“While they’re by no means similar, I think what you can detect is a protest vote and a general dissatisfaction with the status quo and old two-party politics.
“Trump taps into a lot of people who are just sick of what they see. So that’s his appeal, the outsider, the protest against what’s been there before.
“Clearly a lot of middle America feels left out, ignored by central government, and that, I suppose, is similar to Brexit, which felt like people lashing out and saying they were not satisfied by what they have now, and they want change. So from that point of view, I’d say there are parallels.”
Jeremy revealed his most exciting election was in South Africa in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was successful.
He said: “Simply because it signalled the end of apartheid, which I thought for years I’d never see the end of in my lifetime.
“Over 90% of the country had never had a chance to vote, so going to the polls with black South Africans on voting day was one of the few moments where I had a tear in my eye at the sheer passion and excitement that people of all ages had at getting their very first chance to take part in democracy.
“To see them have a say in their own country and put Mandela into the presidency was, by far, the best story I think I’ve ever covered.
“To come to the Rugby World Cup the following year, and to see Mandela handing the winning trophy to Francois Pienaar, it rounds off a period of time in South Africa which was incredibly uplifting.”
