Hola Dannie back with another story from our beloved, crazy Mad Dashiell! I'm enjoying watching him evolve as a writer and seriously getting his geek on!
Hello All, Mad Dashiell here bringing home the baconian briefs.
Everybody's favorite knight of the Red Dragon, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Emma Thompson are back together again for a new BBC and Amazon Studios telemovie adaptation of KING LEAR. These two are no strangers to working with one another. In 1992 they starred in HOWARDS END, which earned Thompson the Academy Award for Best Actress. The next year the two again showed us their chemistry in REMAINS OF THE DAY, an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning Kazuo Ishiguro's novel. The British Academy Film Awards gave Sir Anthony Hopkins Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of James Stevens. Emma Thompson has regularly brought Shakespeare to life as she frequently collaborated with her then husband, actor and director Kenneth Branagh. The pair became popular in the British media and co-starred in several films together, two of which were Shakespearean. Thompson appeared as Princess Katherine in Branagh's screen adaptation of HENRY V and then as Beatrice in Branagh's next Shakespearean adaptation MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Sir Anthony Hopkins brought Titus Andronicus to the screen in Julie Taymor's vividly surreal TITUS, but Hopkins has said in the past he had an uneasy relationship with the work of William Shakespeare. He admitted over a year ago that it was the fear that he wasn't up to the material that led him to Hollywood and movie making largely full-time after playing King Lear on the British stage in 1986.
"Now, after all these years, I know how to do it," Hopkins said.
He had already returned to KING LEAR, in a way. Hopkins is in the film version of THE DRESSER, a play adaptation in which he portrays an old actor who performs the Shakespearean role in wartime England. Ian McKellen is his dresser, the backstage friend who gets him ready for each performance. THE DRESSER has already been shown on the BBC and will appear on the Starz network this summer.
Stay tuned, take care, see you at the movies or in the chat feeds, over and out,
Mad Dashiell
Mad Dashiell's Space for Rant: For any of you out there that haven't gotten into Shakespeare's KING LEAR, here's a quick, geeky breakdown of the classic:
*Spoiler Alerts
-Gloucester: Odin-son
-Edgar: Thor (the good brother who is supposed to succeed Odin-son/Gloucester when he dies; is deceived by Loki/Edmund and then gets punished)
-Edmund: Loki (the evil, illegitimate brother who is jealous of Thor/Edgar (except Loki was adopted); gets control of the throne for a while)
-Fact: King Kirby and Stan "the Man" Lee were up on their Shakespeare.
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Stay Strong, Live Good, Love Movies!
Dannie aka Pekosa Peligrosa
