Entertainment
Still remember all auditions I didn’t get: Actress Alyson Hannigan
By Sugandha Rawal
New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS) Alyson Hannigan stepped in front of the camera at the age of four, and got noticed with sex comedy “American Pie” — but it was as Lily Aldrin in the long-running show “How I Met Your Mother” that she etched an everlasting impression on the minds of viewers.
The American actress says she hasn’t forgotten any of her struggles as they make her appreciate her success more.
“I always wanted to be an actress… ever since I can remember. So (I)… did commercials at an age of four in Atlanta in Georgia. It was a kind of hobby… I was playing soccer and I was doing commercials. It was a recreational activity as a kid,” Hannigan told IANS over phone from Los Angeles.
Looking back at the time she shifted to Hollywood, the actress said: “Eventually, we moved to California, but again I mostly did commercials, a movie here and there, but I wasn’t ever successful as a kid… So, I have an appreciation of the success that I have as an adult because I remember all those auditions (where) I didn’t get and the job I wanted.”
After her stint as a child artiste in commercials, she went on to do occasional acting jobs from 1985. The game changed when she joined the cast of “American Pie” in 1999. She followed her act with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.
But her big ticket came with the show “How I Met Your Mother”, which ran from 2005 to 2014. The actress is married to actor Alexis Denisof, with whom she shares two daughters. The show will be back on the Indian small screen from Tuesday on Star World.
Hannigan started her tryst with showbiz as a child, and is glad that social media was not so big during her time. “It is very different now as everybody has a cellphone which has a camera. When I was growing up, it was different. People used to stop for autographs rather than a picture with you which will go on social media. I can’t imagine what it must be like for kids nowadays.
“Because the image is out there for ever. It adds a lot more pressure. I am so glad that the whole social media thing wasn’t around when I was in my twenties because God knows what kind of awful pictures would have been posted, or pictures that I would have posted thinking ‘Oh, this is funny’…
“And as a mom, I would be embarrassed thinking that one day somebody is going to show them to my kids. I still have those pictures… They are the images that you don’t want your kids to see. Everything is permanent now. It is a lot more daunting now.”
But even now there are some parts of fame that were difficult to cope with for her.
The 43-year-old said people’s curiosity to take a photograph with her was initially difficult to explain to her children, but it is getting easier with time.
“Especially when we go to a mall and people want to take a picture and stuff… What helps is that I do a show ‘Penn & Teller: Fool Us’. It is the first thing (which she did) that they can watch, so now they understand, ‘Oh okay, you are on TV and people want to take pictures with you’.
“They get it more now than earlier. When my eldest daughter (Satyana Marie Denisof) was younger, she was like ‘Why do they all take pictures with you? This is our time, why do we have to go and suffer because of that stranger?’
“But they get it now. Now she kind of likes it.”
On the work front, Hannigan says she is busy with an “interesting project” – but does not reveal details.
(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at [email protected])
–IANS
sug/rb/sac
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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