By Baz Bamigboye
Last updated at 11:06 AM on 1st April 2011
Difficult though it may be, try to imagine Robert Downey Jr and Sean Penn practising their scales as they warm up their voices to sing for roles in the movie version of Les Miserables.
They’re just two of the names being studied by film executives involved in pre-production for the movie version of mega-musical Les Miserables.
Tom Hooper, who won a best director Oscar for The King’s Speech, is in the final throes of sorting his deal with Working Title and Cameron Mackintosh to direct the picture. He’ll sign in a few weeks, then go into a huddle with writer Bill Nicholson to complete the screenplay.
Singing voices? Sean Penn, left and Robert Downey Jnr, right, have been mooted as possible leads for a new film version of Les Miserables
A casting director will then be appointed, followed by other key production staff.
But there will be no motion picture if the right actors can’t be found to play the main leads of Jean Valjean, the heroic ex-prisoner, and Inspector Javert, his relentless pursuer.
Mackintosh championed the opera tenor Alfie Boe to me months ago, and he wants the singer to screen-test for Valjean. When Boe played Valjean at the 25th-anniversary Les Miserables concert it was one of those rare moments of alchemy when the emotion of a singer’s voice matched the character he was playing. That’s the level of quality needed for the film.
But if Boe were cast as Valjean, the producers would have to compensate by casting major names to play the other characters such as Javert; the thieving Thenardiers; Marius; Cosette; and Fantine.
That could mean someone like Hugh Jackman being cast as Javert. ‘There are a number of well known actors who can sing, and we have to evaluate them,’ an executive working on the film told me.
‘The question is: Who are the potential tenors to play Valjean? And who are the potential baritones to play Javert?
‘For instance, what do we know about the vocal range of someone like Robert Downey Jr? We know he can sing, but what’s his voice like? Is he a tenor or a baritone?
‘Same with Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn, Michael Sheen, Benedict Cumberbatch and Keanu Reeves.’
By all accounts Michael Fassbender, an actor of enormous range and power, has a striking baritone, so his name would join the column marked Javert. So too could Vincent Cassel, who played the choreographer in Black Swan.
Actors who can sing: Hugh Jackman, left, could be cast as Javert, but so too could Vincent Cassell, right, who has a good baritone
Cassel has told me how he watched his father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, play the director Zach in A Chorus Line at Drury Lane, and musicals have long been a part of his life.
They are just people being discussed — no one has been approached or spoken to yet.
In any case, Hooper will come in with his own casting ideas, including the likes of Colin Firth in the Javert list; Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Linney as Madame Thenardier possibilities; and Timothy Spall as a candidate to play her husband.
Anne Hathaway sang a spoof version of On My Own at the Oscars, and at the Vanity Fair Oscar party one studio executive wondered whether the actress was, in fact, auditioning in front of studio chiefs — and a global audience — for the role of Eponine.
Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for her Edith Piaf and she’s already on a wish list of actresses to play Fantine.
Once Hooper has his Valjean, filming could start next year. Meanwhile, he might want to go to see Alfie Boe, Matt Lucas (as Thenardier) and newcomers Lisa-Anne Wood as Cosette, Alexia Khadime as Eponine, and Mountview graduate Craig Mather as Marius when they take over those roles at the Queen’s Theatre from June 23.
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Nat is all a-quiver
Medieval stoner movie maiden: Natalie Portman is like a shot of adrenaline in new movie Your Highness
Natalie Portman told me the jokes the crew told her when she was filming the comedy Your Highness in Belfast were beyond blue.
‘Their dirty jokes made me laugh so much. I wasn’t outraged, although they were scandalous!’ the Oscar-winning actress told me as she recalled making what could politely be termed a medieval stoner movie with Danny McBride, James Franco, Toby Jones, Damian Lewis and Zooey Deschanel on locations in County Antrim and County Down.
Natalie smiled and continued: ‘However, there’s a time and a place for jokes and sometimes things are inappropriate — like first thing in the morning, like 5am — but I’m not too precious about that kind of thing.’
It’s clear she’s not at all precious about being in Your Highness. In fact, she gets right into the high spirits of the film.
Her character, Isabel, doesn’t appear for half an hour or more, and she’s like a shot of adrenaline.
Isabel’s six brothers have been killed, and she’s on a quest for revenge. She’s an ace archer, daring with a dagger, and she can kick ass. In fact, as I was watching the picture, Isabel made me think of a grown-up Hit Girl, the character played by Chloe Moretz in Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass.
At the Oscars, where Natalie won for Darren Aranofsky’s Black Swan, I remember someone asking why the actress would do movies like Your Highness and No Strings Attached because ‘they weren’t serious’. But Natalie had already addressed that point with me.
‘The big thing I’ve been wanting to do is not be snobby and just do prestige movies, because that’s really limiting — and it’s joyless to do those kind of movies all the time. I don’t want to fit into some mould of respectability.
‘Meryl Streep doesn’t do the so-called “right” kind of film all the time. Sometimes it’s just about having fun. I think it’s important to be irreverent and make a point of not meeting other people’s expectations.’
Your Highness, which is full of reefer madness, is quite ridiculous and you’re likely to find it a hoot if you’re all zooted up on Red Bull.
And if the sight of Danny McBride’s randy pot-head prince chasing a flock of sheep around a field is your idea of a good time, then this is your movie!
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Alex Kingston plays a sexual animal, with an appetite to match
Alex Kingston is returning to the London stage as a ‘very sexual animal’.
The actress, who is famous for her performances in ER and Doctor Who, will join the Donmar Warehouse Theatre’s production of Schiller’s Luise Miller, which stars Felicity Jones in the title role.
Alex plays Lady Milford, a British beauty at the German court of a Chancellor who is played by Ben Daniels. ‘She’s a sensual British aristocrat — a very sexual animal, with an appetite to match,’ said Michael Grandage, who will direct the play which begins performances on June 8.
Lady Milford has her eye on young Ferdinand, to be played by Max Bennett, who was in Grandage’s production of Dante’s Death at the National last year.
Alex and Felicity have been keen to work together again ever since they made the film Like Crazy, which was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival. The two actresses played mother and daughter.
However, in Luise Miller, Finty Williams will take the part of Felicity’s mother.
Others cast in what sounds like a pretty cool company include David Dawson — yet another alumnus of the Royal Court’s play Posh, Lloyd Everitt, John Light and Alexander Prichett.
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The Royal Opera House already plays host to the Baftas and I’m hearing the venue could do the same for next year’s MasterCard Olivier Awards. It’s great that the Society of London Theatres is building on what it achieved this year. However, BBC TV must get its act together, too, and provide a better show for viewers — not the kind of patronising slop they served up this time.
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Mamet coup for West End
David Mamet is to premier his new play The Anarchist in the West End
American playwright David Mamet has decided to premiere his new play in London’s West End.
The drama, called The Anarchist, was described by producer Matthew Byam Shaw as a ‘fascinating sword-fight of a play’ about two women — the governor of a prison and a lifer trying to convince her that, after years behind bars, she’s ready for parole.
However, gradually, we’re made aware that the prisoner has been involved in a violent political organisation ‘loosely based on a Baader-Meinhof or Weather Underground-type anarchist group’, Byam Shaw said — although he stressed that the play was not based on any particular real-life revolutionary.
The award-winning Rupert Goold will direct it in the West End in the autumn. ‘We now want two of our leading actresses to fence with each other,’ Byam Shaw said.
The actresses would be star names and they would need to be approved by Mamet. The roles call for thespians in their 50s.
Goold directed Mamet’s Speed The Plow in the West End 11 years ago.
It’s a smart move for the playwright to have a world premiere in London because there’s a sense that, sometimes, we understand his work better here.
Certainly, his last play Race, which I caught in New York two seasons ago, was a bit flabby on Broadway (a New York friend joked acidly that ‘no one was at the races’), and it could have benefited from a more rigorous production process at, say, the Donmar, Almeida or Royal Court.
Anyway, if The Anarchist gets off to the right start in London then it will certainly transfer to Broadway.
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Watch out for
Kate Winslet (pictured) who gives one of the great performances of the year so far as James M. Cain’s heroine Mildred Pierce in director Todd Haynes’s five-part HBO drama of the same name.
Haynes sticks strictly to Cain’s novel, taking huge chunks of dialogue direct from the book so it doesn’t go off in a murderous tangent like the movie (which won Joan Crawford an Oscar).
I much prefer watching Kate’s sublime study of a woman who, in the midst of the Depression, finds herself raising two daughters alone after she suggests her husband go play rummy full-time with his mistress.
Mildred tries to make it on her own terms, running a business at a time when women were supposed to stay at home. But her life is made a misery by her cold-eyed daughter Veda.
Evan Rachel Wood, Guy Pearce, Melissa Leo and Brian F. O’Byrne also star in this major-league TV drama that will air on Sky Atlantic in June.
Nigel Lindsay, who will play the title role in the musical Shrek at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on May 6.
Amanda Holden, Richard Blackwood and Nigel Harman are his co-leads, but it’s Lindsay who will have to set the pace. I think because he is a proper actor who also happens to sing he will fare better than the folks I saw playing the part in America.
They weren’t able to project beyond all the green make-up and latex.
Lindsay’s last musical was Guys And Dolls and before that he was ‘Nauseuous Nigel’ in a punk band he performed with when he was growing up in Rickmansworth, Hertforshire.
‘Singing in Shrek isn’t going to be a problem,’ the actor told me. ‘It’s the six-inch heels Shrek wears that bother me.’
He’s approaching the show simply as being about a guy and his girl. ‘It’s a universal love story about somebody who can’t possibly be loved because of the way he looks.’
The creative team have changed the show from top to bottom and it’s now a sharper musical comedy.
Liza Minnelli, who has been to see the new musical Betty Blue Eyes, in previews at the Novello Theatre. Ms Minnelli was very taken by Sarah Lancashire’s big, Act 1, razzamataz number Nobody. So much so that she’s asked for permission to use the song in her act.
I think she will put the tune over very well in cabaret but I sincerely hope she’s not thinking of taking Ms Lancashire’s role — a post-war wife struggling with rationing — if Betty Blue Eyes heads to Broadway!
Ms Lancashire has made Joyce Chilvers her own. The box-office has picked up because of good word of mouth — which is, sadly, more than I’m hearing about The Wizard Of Oz at the Palladium.
Jon Snow, the C4 news anchor, who made a tremendous job of auctioning a beautiful cape given to him by Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
The garment fetched £1,800 at the Tricycle Theatre’s 30th birthday bash. The theatre, which produced the acclaimed Great Game epic drama about Afghanistan, also raised £16,000 from an Antony Gormley drawing.
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Trevor Nunn’s stirring production of Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path, featuring tip-top performances from Sheridan Smith, Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Harry Hadden-Paton, will extend its run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket till June 11. The possibility of it going to New York is being explored for later this year, or early next.
Explore more:
- People:
- Robert Downey Jr,
- Sarah Lancashire,
- Sean Penn,
- Terence Rattigan,
- Michael Sheen,
- Sheridan Smith,
- James Franco,
- Colin Firth,
- Joan Crawford,
- David Mamet,
- Amanda Holden,
- Helena Bonham Carter,
- Kevin Spacey,
- Kate Winslet,
- Sienna Miller,
- Meryl Streep,
- Liza Minnelli,
- Alex Kingston,
- Damian Lewis,
- Matt Lucas,
- Rupert Goold,
- Hugh Jackman,
- Guy Pearce,
- Jon Snow,
- Trevor Nunn,
- Marion Cotillard,
- Keanu Reeves,
- Anne Hathaway,
- Natalie Portman
- Places:
- New York,
- London,
- Belfast,
- Afghanistan,
- America
- Organisations:
- Royal Opera House
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