Castium Revelio: “Thrones”, Poems, and “Sherlock Holmes”

Tennis, anyone? We'll get started this week with a visit to the Department of Muggle Games and Sports... while pausing for a moment to reflect on how fantastic and potentially hilarious wizard tennis would be. Wimbledon, however, is serious business, and the tournament is not only an annual showcase of the sport's top talent but also a hot ticket for celebrities. And the most coveted ticket of all is the one that can't be bought: an invitation to watch a match or two from the Royal Box. Three wizarding world alumni, Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Dame Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall), and Helen McCrory (Narcissa Malfoy), were spotted enjoying a day of tennis in the Royal Box.

Disney fans were abuzz this week after the official trailer for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil was released. The film will see the return of Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge) as fairy Knotgrass and new appearances from Jenn Murray (Chastity Barebone, Fantastic Beasts) and Warwick Davis (Griphook/Filius Flitwick), whose roles are as yet undisclosed. The trailer begins with Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats) asking for Princess Aurora's (Elle Fanning) hand in marriage. Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), meanwhile, is... a bit less than pleased with the news.

 

 

 

Another anticipated trailer was also released this week for Judy, the Judy Garland biopic starring Renée Zellweger. With Sir Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore) and Jany Temime (Harry Potter costume designer) involved, we've been keeping you apprised of the movie's progress as it moves closer to its September 27 release date. Gambon portrays Bernard Delfont, the London theater impresario who regularly featured Garland at his Talk of the Town nightclub, and you can catch glimpses of him in the trailer below. We've also included the new movie poster.

 

 

It's been a little more than three months since The White Crow, the story of Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev as directed by Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort), made its debut in theaters, and Fiennes's work was largely praised by critics. He sat down this week with the Moscow Times to discuss his "love affair with the Russian people and culture" and the film, including the connection he felt to Nureyev. The movie's title was taken from the Russian idiom "white crow," which is applied to those society sees as misfits. You can read the full interview with Fiennes here.

When I was about 13 or 14, I went to school on a train. It was a 20-minute train ride, and some boys decided I was a white crow, and they started to tease me, make jokes about me being gay or being somehow not manly. At the time when I was wanting to prove myself in sports and I was interested in girls, this was very humiliating and very upsetting. I have generally felt on the outside. For instance, I have never enjoyed being in a crowd of blokes, guys, going to a pub or watching football. I have always been the boy who goes into a corner and reads a book.

Any day we can talk extensively about Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) is a good day. This, incidentally, is a good day. First on the Oldman front, Deadline Hollywood reports the actor has been cast as Herman J. Mankiewicz in Mank, which will mark director David Fincher's first Netflix project and first feature film in general since 2014. Mankiewicz cowrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane with Orson Welles, and Fincher plans to shoot Mank in black and white as a nod to the classic picture. Filming is expected to begin in November in Los Angeles, California.

MuggleNet told you way back in 2017 about Oldman's casting in the nautical horror film Mary, and Deadline has now revealed that RLJE Films has acquired the US rights to the movie. It's slated for an October 11 debut, appropriately close to All Hallow's Eve, and you can read a synopsis of Oldman's character and the plot, as well as view a film still, below.

Oldman plays Davis, a struggling blue-collar captain looking to make a better life for his family. Strangely drawn to an abandoned ship named Mary that is up for auction, he impulsively buys the boat, believing it will be his family's ticket to happiness and prosperity. After they embark on their maiden journey, however, strange and frightening events begin to terrorize David and his family, causing them to turn on one another. The ship soon drifts off course, and it becomes clear they are being lured to an even greater evil waiting for them at sea.

In less happy news, the Hollywood Reporter says The Woman in the Window, which we told you about last year and which was slated for an October 4 premiere, has been bumped back to 2020. The film, in which Oldman portrays Alistair Russell and Amy Adams stars as agoraphobic child psychologist Anna Fox, is the last from the Fox 2000 division, which Disney plans to shutter, and according to reports, it will be undergoing reshoots due to the fact that test audiences found it "confusing." We'll keep you posted on that!

Lastly, Killers Anonymous, in which Oldman plays the Man, has had its US opening but won't be hitting screens in the UK until August 28. An official UK trailer was released last week, which you can check out below.

 

 

 

Another film that's already come and gone from US theaters, Hotel Mumbai, starring Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy), will also arrive in autumn in the UK. Isaacs portrays Vasili in the picture, which is slated for a September 27 release, and a new UK trailer was also released this week.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0P3UlkYfC8

 

Jim Broadbent (Horace Slughorn) will soon be surprising some lucky audience in Whodunnit [Unrehearsed], which, as we previously let you know, features a different actor each performance in the role of the Inspector. Broadbent sat down this week with the Spectator for a chat about the play and his career in general.

Upon suggesting he "lives anonymously," the reporter suggested to Broadbent that he'd surely be mobbed by Harry Potter fans should he so much as "slacken his pace" while walking through King's Cross Station. "'But I wouldn't slacken,' he laughs. 'I've never been spotted.' Never? 'Well, not there. I do get stopped but not often. People are generally totally pleasant.'" Broadbent, ever self-deprecating, reckons "Gillian Anderson fans will want their money back once I turn up" in Whodunnit, but we card-carrying Slug Club members know that's not remotely true. You can read the entire interview here.

We can scarcely believe Dame Emma Thompson (Sybill Trelawney) could ever be confused for someone else, but as part of its Mistaken Identity series this week, the Associated Press put the question to the actress. While she acknowledged she's generally not mistaken for other celebrities, she does occasionally have people swear they know her from somewhere else. It's too funny to spoil; you can find out where in the clip below.

 

 

 

A new film featuring James Phelps (Fred Weasley) is expected to begin production soon. It was announced this week that Robert Powell (Jesus of Nazareth) has signed on to play Arch Druid Uisneach in Brigantia, the story of a modern-day archaeologist who discovers an ancient village in the UK that tells the story of a young Druid Ministre living during the "religious upheaval" at the time of Christ. Phelps will portray Koün, a fisherman, and filming is slated to commence next year in the UK.

A production of Europe, starring Nat Tena (Nymphadora Tonks), is continuing through August 10 at the Donmar Warehouse in London, and you can see Tena in her role as Katia below.

The end of the Game of Thrones saga segued directly into the hype for its upcoming prequel - featuring Miranda Richardson (Rita Skeeter), Jamie Campbell Bower (young Gellert Grindelwald), and Toby Regbo (young Albus Dumbledore) - and Entertainment Weekly had fans buzzing again this week with five facts about the project, provided by author George R.R. Martin. Here's what Martin divulged in a nutshell, and you can read the full article here.

• As if Seven Kingdoms weren't enough, Martin says there are around 100 "petty kingdoms" during the time period in which the prequel takes place, thousands of years pre-Westeros.
• House Stark fans rejoice: The ancient family will be around, as will direwolves!
• The prequel is, however, Lannister-free, at least at its start. Martin says Casterly Rock will be featured, but it's inhabited by the Casterlys themselves.
• The show is a true group effort. "We don't have leads so much as a large ensemble cast," Martin says.
• The Great Title Debate has yet to be decided. While the internet tosses The Long Night and Blood Moon about in equal measure, Martin is still partial to the former but has also heard mention the series could be titled The Longest Night, a variant he says he "wouldn't mind. That would be pretty good."

Sports fans know what it's like to bleed their team's colors, and Ralph Ineson (Amycus Carrow) is a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of Leeds United. It was only natural, therefore, for the club to ask the actor to read a poem by local writer and fellow fan Matt Abbott to coincide with the unveiling of the team's new uniforms and its centenary celebration. It's guaranteed to pump you up whether you're a football fan or not, so give it a listen below!

 

The greatest honour of my life, bar none. @LUFC commissioned me to write this poem for their centenary kit launch, with @ralphineson reading it. I hope it resonates with the fans, and I hope this kit sees us return to where we belong 💛💙 #ALAW #MOT #LUFCpic.twitter.com/lao0I1GWKg

— 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁 𝗔𝗯𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁 🌹 (@MattAbbottPoet) July 9, 2019

 

David Bradley (Argus Filch) is once again bringing a little light into the lives of others, volunteering to become a patron of a wellbeing garden sponsored by the Forest of Hearts charity, the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald says. The garden will be located at Stratford Hospital and will supply the hospital's new health and wellbeing hub, Café Lomas, with fresh food. In addition, it will serve as a workspace for disadvantaged individuals, which Bradley praised. You can find out more about Forest of Hearts here.

The Forest of Hearts is working hard to help people struggling with isolation issues in the local community. By getting them out into nature, it's improving both their wellbeing and confidence, and creating biodiversity in the process.

Tree, starring Alfred Enoch (Dean Thomas) is continuing to garner praise from critics as it moves through its run at the Young Vic in London, and you can check out a photo of Enoch in action below. Tree will be featured through August 24.

The wide release of Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans is coming up July 26 in the UK, and star Warwick Davis attended the premiere this week alongside daughter Annabelle, who joined her father in portraying a goblin in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. You can view a photo of the pair below, along with a collection of red-carpet interviews by Hey U Guys. If you'd like to skip straight to Davis's portion, you'll find it at the 17:16 mark.

 

 

 

Fans of Netflix's The Last Kingdom are gearing up for Season 4, and a bit of added excitement came Thursday with the release of first-look images from the series' new season. You can check out one featuring - albeit a bit blurred and background-y - Ian Hart (Quirinus Quirrell) as Father Beocca below, with Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon) in the foreground.

Chris Rankin (Percy Weasley) and James Payton (Frank Longbottom) were two of the stars on hand last month for ComicCon at Film New Forest, and Fantha Tracks was able to sit down for an interview with the pair about their time in the wizarding world. You can listen to the full dialogue here.

We told you last week that Bill Nighy (Rufus Scrimgeour) was enjoying his time in Broken Hill, Australia, while filming Buckley's Chance, and the actor has also been taking the time to connect with locals, the Daily Mail reports. After being stopped on the street by a nurse last week, Nighy agreed to stop by the hospital's children's ward to visit with the patients and staff.

Adrian Rawlins (James Potter) recently delighted television audiences as part of the acclaimed miniseries Chernobyl on HBO - which also starred Ralph Ineson - and now, the Express reports, he's been identified among the cast members of the recently wrapped Sanditon. The new adaptation of Jane Austen's final, unfinished novel will air this fall on ITV, and we'll let you know as soon as we see a release date!

L'Officiel reports that Alfonso Cuarón (director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) will soon have yet another honor to add to his filled-to-bursting shelves. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will recognize the director's achievements and impact on the film industry on November 2 at its 2019 Art+Film Gala.

In February, Casting News let you know that Stephen Fry (narrator of the UK Harry Potter audiobooks) was tabbed to lend his voice to an animated feature about King Khama III. The project was then titled I Am Khama but has since undergone a name change to Let My Country Be! and added John Cleese (Nearly Headless Nick) to its cast as well. Fry will portray Cecil Rhodes, former British prime minister of the Cape Colony in southern Africa, while Cleese will play Sir Henry Loch, Scottish soldier and colonial administrator. We'll keep you posted on that project!

Fry also recently participated in a video celebrating LGBT+ Pride Month, which featured numerous artists reciting a portion of a Guillermo Názara poem titled "Love Goes Never Alone." You can watch that video below.

 

 

 

Last but not least, a photo call was held this week in Los Angeles for Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, produced by David Heyman (Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts producer), and you can view a photo of Heyman at the event below.

It wasn't so very long ago that we at MuggleNet's Casting News were agonizing each week over what the heck Jude Law's Captain Marvel character's name would be, and it turns out, the film's directors were doing that on purpose. While we practice our deep-breathing exercises and try to forgive them, you can read director Ryan Fleck's explanation as to why, provided in a recent interview with Digital Spy.

He is the central villain from the comic books, Yon-Rogg. One of the things, even when we were writing and cutting the movie together, in the first act of the movie, there were a few times where Carol referred to, in the dialogue, Yon-Rogg. She calls him by name early in the film. We cut those out of the script because we wanted to keep it mysterious about who he was so that any fans in the theater who follow the comics, they wouldn't necessarily know who he was. I remember at one test screening, somebody right in front of me when they heard the name Yon-Rogg for the first time, which was well into the second act of the movie, they were whispering to their friend and super excited. That was the vibe we were trying to preserve by not announcing who Jude Law was playing.

Fleck's fellow director, Anna Boden, also revealed that the movie's end-credits scene was nearly quite different.

We toyed with different ideas of where [Captain Marvel] might send [Yon-Rogg] off to at the end, and one time, we joked that maybe she sent him off and he ended up in Sakaar, much like 'Thor: Ragnarok'. We see his ship opening up in that junkyard, and we know what's coming for him.

Captain Marvel will be released on Blu-ray in the UK July 15, and you can preorder your copy on Amazon.

In other Law news, fans of the Sherlock Holmes franchise have long been awaiting its third installment, and the Hollywood Reporter announced Thursday that Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher is in talks to direct the project. Fletcher would take over for Guy Ritchie, who directed Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. The third film is slated for a December 22, 2021, release, ten years after the first.

The Hollywood Vampires, the rock band featuring Johnny Depp (Gellert Grindelwald), Alice Cooper, and Joe Perry, recently wrapped a major tour in support of its latest album, Rise, and Cooper appeared on the Appetite for Distortion podcast to explain how the band originally came to be in 2015. You can check out the full interview here.

It was a series of events, really, that happened. I was doing 'Dark Shadows' with Johnny Depp in London, which was a vampire movie, to be coincidental, and I started telling him about the original Hollywood Vampires drinking club. And we said, 'Wouldn't it be cool to put a bar band together that just did songs celebrating our dead friends?' You know, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Keith Moon... those were the guys. And he goes, 'Yeah, that's a great idea, let's do it.' I got Johnny to play, and I mean, Johnny is a really good player. [...] We were supposed to be the world's most expensive bar band. We played the Roxy [in Los Angeles], and then the very next thing I know, we're at Rock in Rio, 200,000 people, and the problem with that is, everybody on that stage has been in front of 200,000 people before, so it didn't really shock anybody. Johnny just fell right into it; he said, 'We'd do the same show whether it's 20 people or 200,000, right?' We immediately became a touring band, a big band.

The Annecy Festival in France recently recognized the work of virtual reality (VR) developers from all over the world, and taking the festival's top prize - the Cristal for Best VR Work - was Gloomy Eyes by Atlas V, narrated by Colin Farrell (Percival Graves). Farrell walks us through the tale of Gloomy, a diminuitive zombie just trying to find his place in a world split in two by conflicts between the human and zombie populations. You can watch the animation's trailer below.

 

 

 

Last week, we gave you a new trailer for Katherine Waterston's (Tina Goldstein) upcoming film, The Current War. EFDFilms released another new clip this week in honor of Nikola Tesla's birthday, July 10, and you can watch Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) and Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) have a little chat in the video below. The Current War arrives in theaters October 4.

 

 

 

Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone), as we told you last week, is now one of the faces of Urban Decay's Pretty Different campaign, and he sat down this week with a pair of different magazines to talk about what makeup means to his self-expression.

Speaking with Allure, Miller provided a bit of insight into what he calls his "strange perspective on beauty." You can read the full interview here.

I see beauty as a hidden truth within, under, and around things. For me, beauty is the reflection of the celestial through the physical. It's the essence of the beyond as we get to perceive it in the mundane. [...] Ancient makeup practices were not about decorating a façade, but about representing what cannot be readily seen in the façade to yourself or to others.

Miller also spoke with CR Men about how his older sisters sparked his fascination with makeup and appearance, which he says was "really important to my relationship with gender expression." You can find that interview here.

I've been naturally physically androgynous my whole life. There are times that my family collectively recalls when people presumed we were three sisters. And then being exposed to [makeup] through productions that had overtly transformative beauty created constant engagement of imagination.

Since he is a well-known comic book aficionado, it should come as little surprise that Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski) will be at San Diego Comic-Con. What may be a bit more surprising is that he'll be providing some of the jams at an after-party at Fluxx nightclub. Fogler and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run-DMC will be performing at the Awesome Mixer Vol. 2 party, DMC doing a full 30-minute set and Fogler taking the stage with the Flux Capacitors. Tickets are available for purchase here. Also at SDCC will be Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, signing copies of the Megadeth: Death by Design graphic novel, for which Fogler penned a short story titled "Rattlehead."

Fogler also spoke recently on his podcast, Dan Fogler's 4D Xperience, about his hope that he makes it through the end of The Walking Dead - on which he debuted as Luke in Season 9 - alive. We hope so too, Dan! But, if not, there's probably a pretty helpful support group between former actors from both that show and Game of Thrones.

I want to stay on. See, here's the thing: I feel like I won. In the comic books, I was supposed to be one of the heads on the pike. In this parallel universe that we have on the TV show, I'm still alive. And I love that I was able to make it past that hurdle. So right now, everything is just like, 'All right, it's all gravy, what's up next?' And I hope I get to stay on all the way to the end. And I love fucking doing all the western shit, like riding horses. I love bashing zombie heads in. It's really therapeutic.

Meanwhile, you can catch Fogler and his The Walking Dead costar, Samantha Morton (Mary Lou Barebone), on the Blu-ray collection of the ninth season, which will include a featurette exploring Morton's character, Alpha, and other new villains. The season is available for preorder now, and you can purchase it on both Amazon US and Amazon UK ahead of their respective release dates of August 20 and September 30.

Morton also recently sat down with Backstage to touch on a variety of topics, from her belief in the importance of actors' unions to her least-favorite audition. You can read the full interview here and Morton's response to the question of what advice she'd give her younger self below.

I'd say be patient, and one day, it will be the norm. The way I spoke and the way I set my boundaries... it will become normal, that way of protecting yourself - your human rights as well as [your work as an] actor.

Planning on being in New York City on the morning of July 15? Want to play "There I am! No, wait... I think that's my head over there..." with your friends? Zoë Kravitz's (Leta Lestrange) upcoming Hulu series adaptation of High Fidelity is seeking background actors, ages 18 to 46, to portray concert-goers. You can apply here. Good luck, and, if you make it, let us know if you spot yourself!

Hulu held a premiere event for new series The Rook, starring Ronan Raftery (Langdon Shaw), last week in Los Angeles, and Raftery was looking sharp on the red carpet alongside costars Adrian Lester, Emma Greenwell, Olivia Munn, Jon Fletcher, and Joely Richardson. You can check out a few photos of the actor in the gallery below.

Ingvar E. Sigurðsson's (Grimmson) film A White, White Day, which we told you about in April, will be headed to a wider release after its rights in both the UK and China were purchased by New Europe Film Sales. Sigurðsson stars as Ingimundur in this "story of grief, revenge, and unconditional love." You can see the rest of the countries included in the deal here.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is going strong in Melbourne, Australia, and BroadwayWorld released a special first-look video of the production Thursday! You can check it out here.

The fourth season of J.K. Rowling's C.B. Strike series is on its way, and Deadline Hollywood reports Susan Tully (Line of Duty, Crossing Lines) will be taking over in the director's chair. Lethal White will be a four-part series on the BBC and is expected to begin filming later this year. Tom Burke once again stars as Cormoran Strike and Holliday Grainger as Robin Ellacott.

'Lethal White' starts when Billy, a troubled young man, comes to Strike's office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child. Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. Strike and Robin set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.