Random Casting Rumors and Observations
July 22nd, 2006
This week one of our Netflix selections was the DVD of bonus material for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Given our obsession with adopting Georgie Henley (no luck there yet), we most enjoyed a short documentary focusing on the children playing Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy.
Director Andrew Adamson had good taste: he said he knew, as soon as he saw Georgie’s audition tape, that she would be Lucy. Why, then, did she and the three other children (not to mention their unsuccessful competitors) have to spend a year and a half in the audition process before casting decisions were made? I mean, sure, you want to make sure that you’re not getting obnoxious little child actors, but a year and a half? That’s torture for any child. They could have spent that time getting a head start on Prince Caspian, which is due to be released an eternity from now. Georgie may be a teenager before they get to my favorite book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Speaking of casting children for adaptations of fantasy books, many of you have probably already heard that the movie of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass will star a little girl named Dakota. Not Fanning. Her full name is Dakota Blue Richards, and there are no images of her available on the Internet.
The more interesting Golden Compass news is that Nicole Kidman may be joining the cast as Mrs. Coulter (ah, but will her golden lion tamarin be as charming as a certain undead monkey?). Several sources say this rumor is “confirmed,” but IMDB still lists her connection as “rumored.” The same goes for Paul Bettany, who may or may not be playing Lord Asriel. Anyway, I thought Jillian and Dormouse would be very happy about these rumors.
I’m really enjoying the fact that I can talk about Lewis-based and Pullman-based movies in the same post. Because, as you may know, Pullman hates Lewis. His famous 1998 essay “The Dark Side of C.S. Lewis” critiques Lewis for filling The Chronicles of Narnia with Christian didacticism . . . and yet The Amber Spyglass, the third installment of Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, is one of the most didactic bits of twentieth-century fiction I’ve ever read. It just happens to be atheist (or perhaps satanic, in the technical sense, would be more accurate) didacticism. The characters kill God because he’s a Fascist. Pullman says that it’s a cheap trick for Lewis to “kill off” his characters in The Last Battle and assert that they’re all right because they’ve gone to heaven, yet Pullman kills his characters off and then asserts that they’re all right because they’ve disintegrated into happy little dust particles.
I could go on and on about how silly Pullman’s critique of Lewis is, but instead I’ll refer you to Alan Jacobs’ Lewis biography The Narnian. Jacobs is also very familiar with Pullman, and, like me, he was intrigued with The Golden Compass because of its vivid alternate-world creation. (Porpoise and I were reading the Pullman books at approximately the same time that Jacobs was, so we were able to trade reactions as our disappointment grew with The Subtle Knife and finally The Amber Spyglass.) If you don’t have time to check out The Narnian, take a look at Michael Nelson’s article from The Chronicle Review.
On a completely different note, but one still related to my original topic of casting rumors, a movie adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl (which I know nothing about, except what I’ve read on Amazon) is set to star Eric Bana as Henry VIII, Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, and (possibly) Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn. Wow—that’s a lot of pretty people in one movie. Eric Bana as Henry VIII? Kind of hard to picture. Not much rotundity there. Also, since Bana is 6’3”, Portman is 5’3”, and Johansson is 5’4”, I’m imagining that a lot of scenes featuring between either of the sisters and their love are going to have to be carefully angled to make up for a foot of height difference. Heels can only do so much. But, hey, hurrah for casting petite people!
12 Comments Add your own
1. Dormouse | July 23rd, 2006 at 2:17 pm
From what I’ve read, Henry VIII was quite the hottie/Renaissance man when he was younger. It was only when he was getting old and gouty that he got all rotund and gross.
But he was red haired. They couldn’t have found a hot redhead to play him? No matter how much I love Eric Bana (and, oh, I do…)…I have a hard time envisioning him as good ol’ Henry.
::sigh:: Poor Anne Boleyn. Probably one of my favorite of Henry’s wives, and not just b/c she was executed on my birthday.
What is your obsession with Fascism? The characters in HDM don’t kill God b/c he’s a Fascist, though that’s certainly what they set out to do. In the end, they kill him b/c he’s not God, and he’s not even running things. It was merciful in that book–it wasn’t even so much killing as “accidentally unmaking,” you know?
(I know you don’t like the books, and I won’t argue that it’s not didactic, b/c it is, but even though Pullman’s intent is atheistic and “of the Devil’s party,” it’s also profoundly spiritual in its own way.)
Of course, I’m one of like 5 people in the world who adores The Amber Spyglass and wasn’t disappointed in it. But then, I also adore Paradise Lost, and I tend to read the books through that lens, rather than exclusively through Pullman’s commentary on Lewis.
2. Dormouse | July 23rd, 2006 at 2:20 pm
PS Georgie SHOULD be a teenager by the time they get to Dawn Treader! After all, when that book ends, she and Edmund are cast out of Narnia–and if that isn’t adolescence, I don’t know what is.
3. theotter | July 23rd, 2006 at 3:00 pm
>What is your obsession with Fascism?
As you know, it’s just fun to say, like you call people “Cylons.” Plus, the word “Fascists” showed up in a Lewis quote in the Pullman essay, so it was on my mind.
I can’t stand Paradise Lost, so that doesn’t help Pullman with me. I mean, I can read the books through that lens, but it doesn’t make me like them any better. I suppose he does succeed in making “Satan” less interesting than Milton’s Satan . . . though I don’t think that’s what he was going for.
Did I tell you about when Porpoise and I went to see Philip Pullman in person? Nothing really interesting to report, other than the famous person name-dropping. I think I wore my “Hedonists of Oxford” shirt to the reading as a little private joke.
I wouldn’t say that Edmund and Lucy are “cast out” of Narnia–the separation isn’t that harsh. Now I’m not a big fan of adolescence, but I don’t think it HAS to be that abrupt a change. But, yes, Lucy is probably 13 or so at the end of Dawn Treader.
I just hope Eric Bana will grace the world with a rendition of “‘enery the Eighth I Am.”
4. Jillian | July 23rd, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Alas, I didn’t make it far into The Golden Compass before deciding it wasn’t for me and moving on to something else… probably Charles Williams at the time. I suppose I’m picky about my mythology in the same way other folks are picky about their movies.
I’m half hoping Nicole doesn’t sign onto the film, because it’d be her first movie I haven’t watched… yes, I saw, and, no, I didn’t exactly like Birth… I suppose, in the least, we’d have new screencaps of Nicole.
5. theotter | July 24th, 2006 at 4:28 am
Yes, and some of the screencaps would probably feature her with a golden lion tamarin on her shoulder!
I can understand not connecting to The Golden Compass . . . I was initially intrigued by a universe that had a “Pope John Calvin” in its history, but mostly it was the curiosity of “Where is this going?” that got me into it. And then, alas, the series went the least interesting of all possible directions.
I can’t remember–are you a fan of Paul Bettany, too, or is that just Dormouse?
6. Jillian | July 24th, 2006 at 7:30 am
I liked him in the movies I saw him in–chiefly Dogville. But I don’t chase him around the way I do Nicole Kidman.
7. K | July 24th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
oooh, i’m excited about the nicole kidman rumor…
although as far as casting goes, i think i will have to give up my long-time aspiration to be aravis in whatever film version of “the horse and his boy” is eventually produced. it wasn’t sooo far-fetched when the BBC was working on them (and they stopped right after “silver chair”), because aravis def. is a teen-ager. but i’m not =)
i took in pullman’s first two books with books on tape, and they were well read (in the performative sense). somewhere midstream in “subtle knife” i lost interest in seeing how the whole thing resolved. maybe because the plot crisis (crisis of faith? is that fair?) seemed falsely constructed to me. it’s been a while, so hard to pinpoint my response exactly. i have visions of churchmen in crumbling towers in a pseudo-italian landscape… remember literature that has been transmitted orally is a rather abstract experience, like remembering the dialogue of a foreign-language film.
all that to say, i like particularity. just not the ‘dust’ type.
8. rmink | July 31st, 2006 at 4:47 pm
I am following Paul Bettany, mainly after his adorable turn in Da Vinci Code! Hahaha – Just kidding. In Master and Commander. I’m a ship fiend now – Pirates is just the beginning.
9. theotter | July 31st, 2006 at 7:04 pm
You know what, Minky-poo? I just remembered that Paul Bettany was in that silly movie A Knight’s Tale that we saw together–as Chaucer! I just forgot about him ’cause he wasn’t Rufus Sewell.
10. rmink | August 1st, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Fact is, Chaucer was not actually scrawny and mangy like adorable Paul Bettany in that wretched Knight’s Tale movie. Turns out (I find from recent research (I *love* my job)) that he was quite rotund. He even makes fun of himself for it. P.S. Could you check that typo in the Stage Beauty post? It says Nell Gynn instead of Gwyn. Awk.
11. Jillian | August 1st, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Mink! Dugard writes about ships. I saw Master and Commander right after reading his book Farther than Any Man… and it felt like the movie took a romantic twist on some of Cook’s early voyages. Although, I like the Dugard book on Columbus’s Fourth Voyage much better. Good stuff.
12. theotter | August 2nd, 2006 at 8:33 am
Thanks for pointing out the typo, Mink. It’s amazing how often you can look at something and fail to notice that the letters are awry.
Oh, there’s a fairly new novel that is kind of like Master and Commander, only it has dragons, too. Can’t remember the title, though–help me out, Dormouse?
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