Role Call: Sick As a Red Dog
Merry Christmas to all of our fabulous Role Call readers! This week’s Casting News catches up on Jason Isaacs’ two upcoming films, gives a behind-the-scenes look at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, gets festive with Warwick Davis, and so much more! So strap in! This week may be short, but it sure is merry.
Billionaire Boy, the beloved children’s book by David Walliams, is being adapted for television and will star one of our favorites, Warwick Davis (Griphook, Filius Flitwick)!
It tells the story of 12-year-old Joe Spud, who is so poor his only Christmas present is a rocket made from cardboard tubes – the one perk of his dad Len’s job at the local toilet roll factory. All that changes when Len has a light-bulb moment and invents a revolutionary new toilet roll that makes him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.
When Len buys a huge mansion, he hires a celebrity butler in Warwick Davis. It is a bit of an unusual role because Davis will be starring as his celebrity self. In the end, the story teaches the lesson that the most important things in life cannot be bought.
Warkwick Davis in “Billionaire Boy”
When first offered the role, Davis didn’t even have much of an opportunity, let alone the desire, to say no. His son, who is in love with the book, was over-the-moon excited about it!
I was offered the role while driving my son, Harrison, home from school. Before I could even utter a response, he shouted, ‘Yes, he’ll do it.’ Like the book, the script is wonderful.
For all of our UK friends, Billionaire Boy airs on UKTV on Christmas Eve! Let us know how amazing it is!
Guy Henry (Pius Thicknesse) was a part of something pretty cool in the newest Star Wars installment, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. As you may remember, Peter Cushing, who originally played Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, passed away in 1994. Given the new timeline and with Cushing unable to reprise his role, the filmmakers hired Guy Henry to play the part of Tarkin because they have similar body types. From there, the amazing VFX team took over to transform him into a CG human. Just look at the similarities between their features!
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images
Peter Cushing (top) and Guy Henry (bottom), the actor who played Tarkin on set.
If you have seen the new Star Wars movie, you know how amazing the special effects are. Because of the timeline of this new movie, there were many characters who needed to look the same as themselves in the earlier films. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go see it! Even if you are not a Star Wars fan, see if you can catch Warwick Davis’s character shooting a blaster!
David Thewlis (Remus Lupin) has joined Season 3 of Fargo in a series-regular role. Thewlis will be portraying the role of V.M. Vargas:
a mysterious loner and true capitalist who delivers Emmit, the Parking Lot King of Minnesota, the bad news that he has just become partners with his employers, whose business interests lay outside the law.
Fargo will return for Season 3 on FX sometime next year with a whole slew of new faces.
Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy) says that while filming Red Dog: True Blue in Australia, he was reminded of filming the Harry Potter series. The original Australian comedy Red Dog is based on the true story of the Red Dog, who brought a disparate community together while in search for his master. In the series, whose prequel is coming out on Boxing Day, Isaacs stars as an older version of Levi Miller.
The story might be quite different than Potter, but Isaacs found himself with a bit of a nostalgic sense while filming Red Dog: True Blue. Together with the crew, he felt the same sense of family that he felt over the years of filming with the boy wizard.
It was a crew of people who knew each other – a well-oiled machine and a happy family; they were very comfortable shoes to walk in and they were very confident in storytelling… It’s overcome with a kind of false bravado. And with ‘Red Dog’ it’s different, and it reminded me of ‘Harry Potter’. Everybody knows that people love the story and the characters and the ideas, and it’s tapped into something that is particularly Australian.
Red Dog: True Blue comes out tomorrow, December 26. If you missed the original trailer, check it out below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIzAbpxsghY
The first trailer for Jason Isaacs’ A Cure for Wellness was released in October, but the second trailer has just turned up! The film may be a bit dark and creepy, but the story sure is an interesting one!
The story involves an ambitious young executive being sent to retrieve his company’s CEO from an idyllic but mysterious ‘wellness centre’ at a remote location in the Swiss Alps. He soon suspects that the spa’s miraculous treatments are not what they seem when he begins to unravel its terrifying secrets. As he finds himself diagnosed with the same curious illness that keeps all the guests here longing for the cure, his sanity is tested…
In the film, Isaacs plays the director of the remote wellness spa in the Swiss Alps. Sounds harmless, right? Except he has sinister intentions and traps a young man in his spa as part of his dastardly plot. You can check out the film’s official website here and get ready for the release in February!
The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival will open with two familiar faces with Alone in Berlin in January. Emma Thompson (Sybill Trelawney) and Brendan Gleeson (Alastor Moody) star in the film as husband and wife who resist the Nazi regime after their son is killed in World War II. Alone in Berlin will play at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center on January 24. The full festival lineup will be announced on January 6.
Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson in “Alone in Berlin”
That’s a wrap on this week’s Role Call! It was short and sweet but full of exciting projects just in time for the holidays! Is anyone planning on seeing A Cure for Wellness? Are there any fans of the Billionaire Boy out there? Leave us a comment below, and have a great New Year!
