My 2025: Lesley Sharp - Hero of 2025? "Marina Abramovi is my hero, because she’s a woman who has spent her entire life testing the limits of endurance, honesty and presence"

My hero of 2025?
Marina Abramovi is my hero, because she’s a woman who has spent her entire life testing the limits of endurance, honesty and presence. At an age when many artists retreat, she continues to push forward – unafraid, unfiltered, uncompromising. I admire the way she uses her own body as a site of vulnerability and strength, insisting that real connection requires real risk. In a world that rewards distraction, she chooses discipline. In a culture obsessed with youth, she claims the power of age. And in a time of noise, she sits in absolute stillness and demands we meet her there.

Villain of 2025?
Alan Carr earns my ‘Villain of the Year’ award for his behaviour in The Traitors. Never has deceit been carried out with such enthusiasm, such sparkle, and such devastating comic timing. He smiled, he plotted, he hugged people while metaphorically pushing them off the parapet. It was carnage. It was delightful.

Best movie or TV show of 2025?
After The Hunt. It’s directed with extraordinary intelligence and restraint; the performances are impeccable; and the story unfolds with a complexity and nuance that refuses easy answers. It’s a film that trusts its audience, challenges its characters, and stays with you long after the credits roll.

Best record of 2025?
Grace Jones’ Slave To The Rhythm – pure icon energy. Ageless, merciless and impossible to ignore.

Book of 2025?
Midlife And The Great Unknown by David Whyte. A quiet revelation. Whyte draws on a constellation of poets – Rilke, Mary Oliver, Hafiz, Machado, Yeats – weaving their voices into his own luminous exploration of difficulty, transition and necessary surrender. He treats midlife not as a crisis, but as a threshold, using philosophy and poetry to illuminate the places where certainty dissolves and a more demanding truth begins.

Best thing you saw online?
Xing Xing and Grandma on Instagram — the codependent monkey and elderly woman I didn’t know I needed in my life. It’s part soap opera, part love story, part psychological case study. I tell myself I’m just “checking in”, but really I’m fully invested in their tiny domestic dramas. It’s the purest, oddest comfort watch: two souls, slightly unhinged, utterly devoted, sharing fruit and feelings on a loop.

Your hope for next year?
That the world remembers how to exhale — with fewer sharp corners, more generosity, and the occasional moment where strangers choose kindness over noise. And perhaps, just once, a Greek sunset so perfect it reminds me how small we are and how glorious we could be.

What tickled your funny bone?
My old dog Miggins – greedy, obtuse and absolutely convinced the universe exists to feed her. The comic timing is unerring.

 • Pillion is out now and Red Eye returns to ITV1 from New Year’s Day.

Capping off another inspiring 12 months for music, sport, film, comedy, literature and activism – both at home and around the world – we're thrilled to bring you the brand new Hot Press Annual!

Inside, the HP critics deliver their verdict on 2025, including the albums, tracks, movies, books, games, quotes, photos, events and political happenings of the year. We also sit down for insightful interviews with cover stars Kingfishr, Nell Mescal, RÓIS, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Ewan McVicar, Booker Prize winner David Szalay and many more. Plus: special end-of-year reflections from the likes of Aisling Bea, Ardal O’Hanlon and BP Fallon...