Castium Revelio: Ralph Fiennes Might Play WHO?
Come up with a role for which you never thought you’d hear Ralph Fiennes was in consideration, multiply that by a million, and then go ahead and click the Harry Potter toggle and read the top entry. When you’ve quite finished laughing your head off, you’ll be able to check out the rest of this week’s Casting News, which includes big news galore. We’ve got all the Emma updates, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and Ezra Miller in new fashion campaigns, Jude Law teaming up with Taika Waititi, three Wizarding World alumni in a new imagining of Macbeth, and Johnny Depp premiering Minamata at the Berlin Film Festival. And that’s barely a fraction of what lies ahead, so hurry up and get going! Castium Revelio!
We have a whole lot of Jude Law (Albus Dumbledore) coming at you this week, starting with the recent announcement by Deadline Hollywood that the actor has been confirmed among the cast of a new Showtime series from newly Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit). The Auteur is currently in development for Showtime and will be based on the graphic novel by Rick Spears, James Callahan, and Luigi Anderson. Waititi will pen the scripts with Peter Warren, and we cannot wait to see how the series uses Law!
'The Auteur' is described as a gonzo horror-comedy, a twisted romance, and a glamorous high-wire act of biting satire. In it, desperate to make a great horror movie after a massive bomb, a film producer accidentally traps his production on a backlot with a serial killer.
Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gee, I wish Jude Law would critique my photography?" Granted, that's an oddly specific wish, but if you've wished it, get ready for it to come true. BroadwayWorld reports that Theatres Trust has launched a national photography competition that will be judged by four of the Trust's ambassadors: Law, Miranda Hart, Matthew Bourne, and Samira Ahmed.
The competition is open to amateur and professional photographers alike, with entries open until March 30 in three categories: beautiful buildings, connecting communities, and entertaining evenings. Winners will be selected in each category, and one image will be selected as the overall Theatre Photograph of the Year. A Young Theatre Photographer of the Year prize is available for those 16 and under. There's one catch: Photos must be of a theater in the United Kingdom and must have been taken within 12 months of the competition's closing date. To enter, visit the Theatres Trust website.
Elsewhere, you may remember another project on which MuggleNet reported in April of last year: Francis Ford Coppola's impending epic Megalopolis. Law recently told the Telegraph that while he has indeed been involved in the film's planning stages, he doesn't consider himself a lock for the project just yet.
'Megalopolis' is proceeding at a pace unlike anything I've ever been involved in. Before I even got a phone call or an email or a script, it had been 30 years in development. [...] But there's no schedule, we don't know when it's going to be made, and if Francis goes off and makes it with someone else, I'm not gonna turn around and be like: 'F*ck you, it's my role!' For the last year I've been a part of script meetings, read-throughs, he and I have worked together on it – and, yeah, the role I'm reading is the architect. But equally, it's an evolving thing. All I'm saying is, I don't have any ownership over it. But are we in communication? Absolutely, all the time. And I want to see it happen.
Jane Austen fans are all atwitter about the latest adaptation of her classic novel Emma, starring Callum Turner (Theseus Scamander) and Bill Nighy (Rufus Scrimgeour, Harry Potter). Turner plays Frank Churchill and Nighy Mr. Woodhouse, Emma's father, in the story of coming full circle to find love. The film premiered as a limited release Friday and will hit theaters everywhere March 6; we have a slew of posters, trailers, and clips to get you in a fancy mood before then.
A recent special screening of the film was also hosted by Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour.
Nighy spoke with the Guardian recently about his character.
He's a valetudinarian. Not to be confused with a hypochondriac. Hypochondria is being selfishly concerned with your own health. Valetudinarians are obsessively concerned with other people's. And therefore he lives in terror of draughts and any kind of change in the weather. He's always thinking that everyone's going to die. Which is ridiculous until you start reading anything about 1815, and you realise he's got a point.
Nighy also admitted to Vogue that he's never read Austen and stated that his first condition upon being offered the role was "no breeches... not that I don't have the legs for them!" And for one final Emma fun fact, Anya Taylor-Joy, who stars in the titular role, tells ABC News that she learned to speak English with the help of a familiar series after being raised in Argentina then moving to London.
I was very lonely. So I learned English. I needed to make friends. So I actually learned to speak English by reading the 'Harry Potter' books.
The friendship between legendary Pogues singer the late Shane MacGowan and Johnny Depp (Gellert Grindelwald) is well known, and Deadline Hollywood says the actor will be teaming up with documentary director Julien Temple on a documentary biopic titled Shane.
The film will deep dive on the tortured Irish vocalist, best known as the lead singer and songwriter of Celtic punk band the Pogues and for his renditions of 'Fairytale of New York' and 'Dirty Old Town.' It will combine animation, unseen footage from Temple's own archives, and contributions from collaborators and his own family. The film will culminate in MacGowan's 50th birthday celebration, where singers, movie stars, and rock 'n' roll outlaws gathered for a knees-up.
Depp will coproduce through his label Infinitum Nihil, and the film is set for distribution in the UK and Ireland through Altitude Films, with a plan to broadcast it on BBC Four at a later date. "Knowing Shane for 30 years, I am honored to be producing the definitive film on both my friend and one of the most important artists and beloved poets of the 20th century," Depp stated.
Depp is also in Berlin this weekend for the world premiere of his latest picture, Minamata, which also stars Nighy, at the Berlin International Film Festival. We've been keeping you up to date on that project, which will hopefully eventually make its way to the US and UK. During a press conference in Berlin, Depp said he's always felt like his character, war photographer W. Eugene Smith, "was very isolated or locked into his own peculiar understanding of fate, I suppose."
It was almost impossible to believe [what happened to Minamata], not only in such a horrific way but it spared no one and there was absolutely nothing that they could do about it. [...] As someone who was interested, I believed it was a story that needed to be told. If you can take an idea, bring it to a page, somebody decides they are interested in putting the thing together, somebody chucks money in because they care... Films like this don't get made every day. We are very lucky to have the honor to bring this to people and maybe spark some degree of interest or care. [...] There's a beautiful symbol in the I Ching that means 'the power of the small.' So when you have these huge, monolithic opponents in front of you, screaming at it is not going to do anything, trying to take the whole building down by yourself isn't going to do anything. The power of the small is the idea that we recognize the issue, and it just starts with one; you chip away little by little, and then that problem can be toppled.
You can also read Variety's interview with Depp and view a gallery of photos from the film festival below.
Also in the BIFF are First Cow, featuring Toby Jones (voice of Dobby, Harry Potter), which tells the story of a skilled cook and a Chinese immigrant who meet after joining a group of fur trappers in Oregon and form a successful business venture together, and Siberia, starring Simon McBurney (voice of Kreacher, Harry Potter), which is billed as "an exploration into the language of dreams." Tickets to the festival can be purchased online.
Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (11-year-old Tom Riddle, Harry Potter) isn't the only Wizarding World alumnus who's been perfecting their smolder and pout for Yves Saint Laurent. Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone) has also been announced as a new face of the brand for its spring-summer 2020 menswear collection, and you can check out a few campaign clips and photos below.
Kravitz: I had a lot of opinions about what this reboot was going to be like, so I got in touch with Nick, and we hit it off. I really wanted his blessing and ended up getting a lot more than that. I ended up getting a producer and a writer who had wonderful ideas. [...] I started making this playlist during the writing process, and it grew and grew and grew, and we were very fortunate to clear a lot of the songs. Ahmir ['Questlove' Thompson] had input; we had great music supervisors. When we couldn't get a song, we would find something we loved just as much, if not more. But these are all musicians and songs that I love. I love all different kinds of music. It was easy to go from Fleetwood Mac to Frank Ocean. I love them equally.
Hornby: When Zoë and I met, I liked her a lot and thought she was really smart. Then she sent me this playlist that she'd made for the show. The breadth and depth of the playlist, I was in absolutely no doubt that the show was in the right hands. It was insane what was on there.
Kravitz: Since then, me and Nick have become playlist buddies. He sends me tons of playlists. They've become a bit of an addiction.
Irish filmmaker and screenwriter Neil Jordan has opened a new exhibition titled Best Costume Goes to... at the Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland, which features 33 costumes from 19 films, representing the relationship between actors, costumes, and the growth of the Irish film industry. Costumes on display include Colin Farrell's (Percival Graves) from In Bruges and Brendan Gleeson's (Mad-Eye Moody, Harry Potter) from Calvary. The exhibition will be on display through April 14, and you can get more information and book tickets on the Hunt Museum's website.
At this point, the sky’s the limit for Ralph Fiennes and villains, so let us know which iconic bad guy you’d love to see him play in the comments! And be sure to tune in next week for another edition of MuggleNet’s Casting News.
