Role Call: Singing Snape and TWO New Guests for Expo Patronum Announced!

It’s an exciting week for Harry Potter fans – we’ve got tons of new roles to announce including TWO new Special Guests for MuggleNet Live! 2015: Expo Patronum, a music video starring Snape (who knew he could carry a tune?), another villainous role for a previous Doctor, new clips and trailers, and a look at new art from Diagon Alley artist Michael Curry and his design team. All that and more in this week’s Role Call!

For long-time fans of Alan Rickman, you are probably already familiar with the actor’s appearance in the music video “In Demand” by Texas. The band is reuniting with Alan for a new song, “Start A Family”, which also includes Alan reciting a portion of the song as spoken-word while singing the very last line. Alan is no stranger to recitations – he’s performed them in films such as Sense and Sensibility as well as reading Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”.  You can view the Texas video below:

Rickman’s return to directing, A Little Chaos, will not be seen in theaters this March, as previously thought. No new date for the release has been announced, nor was a reason given for the cancellation of the theatrical release by Focus Features, who purchased the distribution rights after the Toronto Film Festival last year. Stay tuned!

But cheer up, fans! Alan has landed a new role in the novel-to-film adaptation of “A Taxonomy of Barnacles”. He will play a character named Barry Barnacle, “who is increasingly frustrated by the unending chaos of being surrounded by beautiful, teenage daughters and their adventures in love and life”.  The film, titled simply Taxonomy, is set to begin filming this spring in New York and will also star Katie Holmes and Evan Rachel Wood.

A new 13-episode series has been given the green light from video streaming service Netflix, with a focus on a Marvel comic, A.K.A. Jessica Jones. Starring as the series’ villain will be none other than David Tennant! David will play the character Zebidiah Kilgrave, known to the comic’s fans as The Purple Man. According to Entertainment Weekly, David’s character is known in the comic series to have the power to “produce pheromones which give him the power to control people’s minds as long as he’s physically nearby. He also can recover from severe injuries very quickly and is purple”.  This is the second Marvel title for the video service and David is set to be seen in this new role sometime later this year. Executive Producer Melissa Rosenberg is excited for David to join the series, saying

I’m so honored and excited by the prospect of David inhabiting this multifaceted character. He can deliver the most heart-wrenching moment to the driest of lines, and all points in between. He’ll make Kilgrave a truly original villain.

Last week, a trailer for Gary Oldman‘s Child 44 was released. Gary plays General Mikhail Nesterov, who teams up with Tom Hardy’s character Leo to catch a serial killer who targets young boys. You can view the trailer below and check out the film as it hits theaters on April 17, one day before MuggleNet Live! 2015: Expo Patronum in London!

U.S. distribution rights to Domhnall Gleeson‘s Brooklyn, also starring Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent, have been purchased by Fox Searchlight Pictures after a successful premiere at Sundance! While no specific date has been given, it appears that the company is looking to premiere sometime in 2015.

Sir John Hurt has appeared in a documentary on Shakespeare called Muse of Fire, where he recalls his first major Shakespearean role as Romeo.

I can remember, particularly in the fourth and fifth acts, which I found much easier because I’m not…I’m not really that kind of open romantic that is necessary for Romeo, I think, and the second half of Romeo and Juliet is, it’s much more tragic and it is much nearer to Hamlet, in a sense, I suppose. Put it that way, for want of better description. I can remember playing, to absolute, even the schools, to complete silence when you are talking about death, and realizing that the words that you are speaking were so powerful and extraordinary, that you thought to yourself, “I can understand Michael Bryant saying, “I’m gonna stay at the National Theatre”, because I only want to deal with fantastic writing.

Hurt has also begun filming with Jonathon Rhys Meyers on Damascus Cover, about a former spy who begins an undercover operation in Syria in 1989 to smuggle a chemical weapons scientist and his family out of the country. Hurt will play a character named Miki.

Another alumnus familiar with Shakespeare will be starting his own theater company! Sir Kenneth Branagh is slated to show at the West End beginning in October for a three-month run. Talks are still in the early stages, but the talented Kenneth is expected to take on the Bard once more, adding The Winter’s Tale to the roster which will also include a brand new play. Kenneth will produce and also appear in some of those plays during the limited run, according to the Daily Mail.

A new clip for Dame Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy‘s Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was released last week, which you can view below:

We may soon get to see Two Women, with Ralph Fiennes! The Russian film was picked up by Media Luna, who acquired the world sale rights. It had to have been a labor of love for Fiennes, who is no stranger to Russian literature (he has starred in many Russian-based productions like Onegin, Ivanov, and Fathers and Sons) and studied the Russian language for eight hours a day in order to bring his character Mikail Rakitin to life on screen:

[Mikhail] Rakitin is a sophisticated man, I believe, carrying many of the qualities of Turgenev himself. He is perceptive, he is sensitive, and inside he carries deep emotions. There are many writers who are important to me. Turgenev in his play ‘A Month in the Country,’ anticipates Chekhov’s naturalistic theatre. He writes with very subtle nuances and profound understanding of interior lives of his characters.

The first stills from Timothy Spall‘s true-story inspired supernatural thriller, The Enfield Haunting, have been released. You can view the pictures below. Spall plays Maurice Grosse, who comes to the home to investigate the supposed paranormal experiences of the family who live there. The three-part series is set to debut on Sky Living sometimes this spring.

David Thewlis and Miranda Richardson will soon be seen in a television adaptation of the play, An Inspector Calls for BBC One. David will play the lead role of Inspector Goole while Miranda will portray Sybil Birling. The production will focus on “an inspector’s visit to a wealthy family’s home as he interrogates them about the suicide of a local girl”. Says David of his newest role,

An Inspector Calls is a British classic, and I am thrilled to be working on this beautiful screen adaptation with Aisling Walsh.

The artist and team who brought the “Tales of Beedle the Bard” to life for visitors to Universal Orlando’s Diagon Alley was involved in this year’s Superbowl Half-Time Show starring Katy Perry. Michael Curry Design created the glittering golden lion that the pop star rode during the performance of her hit song, “Roar”. You can see pictures of the creation below, which took eight weeks to fabricate and complete for the songstress.

That’s all for this week’s Casting News…except for the fact that two new guests were just announced TODAY for MuggleNet Live! 2015: Expo Patronum! Please help us welcome Robbie Jarvis (teenage James Potter, OotP) and Nick Shirm (Zacharias Smith, OotP) to Expo Patronum! That brings our guest count to 13, plus we have a wonderful moderator for the event in Rohan Gotobed (young Sirius Black, DH:P2) and still MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS to come!

If you haven’t heard the latest on who will be spending the day with MuggleNet and Harry Potter fans this April, then you should head on over to our Special Guests page and then register for the Expo as soon as possible! Tickets are limited and you definitely don’t want to miss out on any of the magic! We hope to see you in London in April!