Beth Webb

Beth Webb is Empire’s News Editor and has been writing for the magazine since 2018, cementing a legacy in ink with a three-star review of blind musician thriller In Darkness. She joined the team proper in January 2022 as overseer of the magazine’s front section, kickstarting each issue with a range of breaking news, interviews, reported stories and light-hearted fun. Highlights during her time in this role include interviewing the nonagenarian legend June Squibb, inadvertently causing a fan frenzy over a story with the creator of Warrior Nun, and getting Matt Berry along to a live podcast recording of the Pilot TV Podcast, the small-screen equivalent of Empire’s weekly film podcast.

Ahead of officially joining Empire, Beth was a film and culture journalist and broadcaster. Her work often focused on women in film, interviewing leading women in Hollywood from Olivia Wilde to Céline Sciamma and Tilda Swinton. Alongside her writing she also ran the Bechdel Test Fest, a programming outfit and ongoing celebration of female-fronted cinema that hosted live screenings and events across the UK.

In 2020 Beth presented Dirty Streaming: The Internet’s Big Secret, a BBC Three documentary that explored the environmental impact of streaming services. The experience saw her travel to Washington and West Virginia to interview leading professionals in a bid to show how data companies use vast energy resources to power our daily streaming consumption. Her broadcast career has also seen her appear regularly on BBC News speaking about everything from the Academy Awards to Squid Game, and feature as a regular host on the Pilot TV Podcast.

Beth’s love for movies charts back to the age of six, when her dad — who would review films as part of a broader editor’s job at The Swindon Advertiser — managed to sneak her into the projection room at their local cinema (a favour from the staff who knew them well). The sound of the whirring projectors, which were gearing up to play The Page Master, paired with the smell of warming popcorn made a lasting impression that continues to stay with her every time she goes to the pictures.