DreamWorks' 'BFG' lands its lead and a July 2016 Release

 Margaret here as your resident Roald Dahl enthusiast, reporting on the upcoming big-screen adaptation of The BFG from Steven Spielberg. 

The fantastical 1982 novel follows a precocious little girl named Sophie and the titular BFG (Big Friendly Giant) who whisks her away into his world of catching and distributing dreams. The story's elements of darkness and absurdity (horrifying man-eating giants and a surprising amount of flatulence) are typical of Dahl, though perhaps less prominent than in some of his other well-known works. 

DreamWorks has announced that revered British stage actor Mark Rylance will be taking the title role. The the winner of three Tonys, two Oliviers, and a BAFTA, Rylance is nonetheless relatively unknown in the film world. This left-field choice for the lead is heartening; to choose an actor whose bankability is so entirely off the map shows great confidence in his ability, and bodes well for an interest in serving the material.

Certainly Steven Spielberg, who will direct and produce, knows his way around a heartwarming family film. Yet for the work of an author as misanthropic and wicked as Dahl, my heart wants a filmmaker who's proven they can do fanciful children's stories with more of an edge-- someone more like Cuarón or del Toro than the man who brought us E.T. (Not incidentally, the team who brought us that Best Picture nominee are reuniting for The BFG: Melissa Mathison and Kathleen Kennedy are respectively set to write and exec-produce.)

Production will begin in a few months, and it will open in the United States on July 1, 2016. Let's hope that, as the BFG might say, they don't gobblefunk around with this children's classic.

Other Dahl fans among us: how does this look to you? Any theater-goers here willing to attest to Rylance's abilities? And the most important question of all: will the Queen make a giant-slaying cameo as herself?

"Alone in Berlin" and Back on Marquees

Few things gave greater pleasure last year than the reemergence of Emma Thompson on the film scene, shoe chucking, Annie-scripting, Mary Poppins writing, and all. I'm not sure who or what convinced Emma that it was time to reclaim her place in the cinema but I thank them profusely and ever so much.

While she didn't receive the expected Oscar nomination for Saving Mr Banks, despite carrying it on her very capable film-elevating shoulders, her next project looks super promising so we hope it picks up interest in the Cannes market.

If all goes according to plan she'll play one half of a married couple who defy Nazis in Alone in Berlin. The true story is based on the book "Alone in Berlin" by Hans Fallada. The plot premise goes like so...

Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet existence, they begin a silent campaign of defiance, and a deadly game of cat and mouse develops between the Quangels and the ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich...

With Emma leading a drama we're in good hands but the rest of the cast makes it doubly enticing. Actor turned director Vincent Perez (Queen Margot) has also enlisted Mark Rylance, in many ways the reigning god of the stage, as Emma's husband.

Rylance in the sexually explicit Intimacy (2001) his last bigscreen leading man gig, and in "Jerusalem" for which he won all theater awards ever created a few years ago

He's rarely onscreen though if you've seen Intimacy (2001) or Angels and Insects (1995) you'll remember him. Hollywood's favorite youngish German Daniel Brühl (Rush, Inglourious Basterds) is also on board and we assume he is the key baddie Escherich.

Sounds promising, yes?

Emma with Terry Gilliam at a film premiere last monthEmma Thompson just turned 55 and though the fiftysomething years tend to be the leanest for actresses (too old, under Hollywood logic, to lead movies and too young for the juicy "old lady" roles) but maybe Emma's people realized that Dench (79), Redgrave (77), Mirren (68), and Smith (79) aren't getting any younger. Thompson is their natural successor for that whole swath of character types and Thompson doesn't seem to have much competition in the realm of aging British divas that virtually everyone loves. Tilda Swinton (53, after all, is her own special case and weirdly ageless, never young even when she actually was or old now unless the makeup artists are having Budapest prosthetic fun with her). Thompson's main competition for these future roles was surely Kristin Scott Thomas (54) but she's planning that vanishing act now. American actresses not named Streep have it much much rougher than their British counterparts once they hit their fifties so it would be wise for that generation of stars (Bening, Moore, Linney, Clarkson, Hunter, Tomei) or any that have already all but vanished who'd like to return (Allen, Pfeiffer, Davis, McDormand) to start honing their plummiest British accents. 

Love Letters Pt. 2: Kathy Najimy, Rosemarie DeWitt, Xander Berkeley

Melanie Lynskey Guest Blogging!

I made a little dream list of people I respect and admire beyond all reason and sent them a little e-mail saying:

I've seen you do work that has made me want to write you a love letter because it's moved me so deeply. Who or what would you like to write a love letter to? What piece of art or artist or feeling has moved you in this way?"

Here are a few amazing responses I got. [PART ONE featured Zachary Quinto, Ahna O'Reilly and More...]

PART TWO

To the beautiful, soul-baring goddess Rosemarie DeWitt "my love letter to you is mostly me obsessing about: Rachel Getting Married OF COURSE BECAUSE I'M IN LOVE WITH IT"

Rosemarie's love letter:

Seeing Mark Rylance in "Jerusalem" is momentarily eclipsing every other performance I've seen or fallen in love with. He made me rethink what was possible as an actor and at the end of that play my body was literally quivering in anticipation of the gods coming. I felt as if I had witnessed some sacred ritual and was blown away by the transformative power of that kind of whole bodied- soul stirring-storytelling. I had long admired him but now my love for his work makes me feel like a 14 year old girl who would hang a poster of him on my bedroom wall. And in fact I have the Playbill cover hanging over my desk. :)
-ROSEMARIE DEWITT 

Sonya Walger and Adam Scott in "Tell Me You Love Me"To the glorious, strong, sexy, and really fucking brave actress Sonya Walger "my love letter to you is mostly me obsessing about: Tell Me You Love Me..."

Sonya's love letter:

I have a strange moment I think of often when I work and it was when I first became aware of this fragile line between life and art and how the best work leaves you not knowing which one you just witnessed. my grandmother was on the board of governers for a school near her house and she would diligently attend all the school plays and fetes and events even though none of her grandchildren/family attended. she took me with her to see the school play of "BUGSY MALONE". I must have been 8 or 9, and the kids peforming must have been maybe 14-15? I couldn't believe what I saw. I was blown away. I'd never seen anything so glamorous, so alive, where everyone was having so much fun. I'd been to plays in London and musicals, but nothing, nothing like this. It was completely transporting and unlike anything I'd ever seen. And at the very end, they all sang the finale, and Bugsy pulled Blousey into his lap and they were all breathless, panting as we stood and applauded, rained applause on them, and he beamed at her and pulled her in and kissed her. quickly, on the mouth, on stage. and I remember feeling so alive in that moment, so completely full of wonder, was that real? was that supposed to happen? is he allowed to kiss her? was that in the script? (although I doubt I knew the word script at that age). I think about it still.

I wonder if those kids remember that production, those kids now in their 40's with wives and children and jobs and mortgages. I wonder if it sparked anything in any of them the way it did in me. i think about it often, strangely, that one tiny moment in a school play. and I still don't know exactly why or what it means, except, that, as I said, it made me feel so alive, so engaged, so curious, so full of wonder for what they had done, pulled off, been swept up in. and more than anything, it made me long, body and soul, to be up there with them too. to be kissed on Bugsy's lap."
-SONYA WALGER 

Gillian Jacobs, Xander Berkeley, Kathy Najimy, and Matt Ross after the jump

Click to read more ...

Stage Door: Oscar Flashback = Tony Prophecy?

I promised you a stage|screen colum each Tuesday. With the Tony Award nominations out this morning (see previous post), we already have so much to discuss but how is this for a twist on the flashback.

Remember this moment from the March 1995 Oscars? Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner won Best Costume Design for the epic outback drag comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Sharon Stone with Oscar winning costume designers in 1995

Lizzy's credit card dress was all anybody could talk about the next week in fashion reviews, outside of nominee Uma Thurman's lavender Prada that is.

Several Tony winners have gone on to repeat their wins at the Oscars when the stage plays or musicals transferred to the bigscreen (think Yul Brynner, Shirley Booth, etcetera) but it doesn't usually happen the other way around. Trivia Expert Question: would this be the first time that someone won a Tony for reprising an Oscar triumph?

OTHER SILVER SCREEN CONNECTIONS!
Let Them Double as Rental Suggestions If You Don't Have Access To the Stage Plays

Screen-To-Stage
Best Musical Nominees Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act and Best Musical no-shows that were nominated in other categories like Priscilla and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown are all stage adaptations of hit movies.

Stage-To-Screen and Back Again
Both Musical Revival nominees How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Anything Goes have made trips to the big screen in 1967 and 1956 respectively. How To Succeed is a typical adaptation but the Anything Goes film bears extremely little resemblance to the stage musical apart from some of the same songs. Driving Miss Daisy wasn't a big success in these Tony nominations but Vanessa Redgrave was nominated for reprising the Jessica Tandy role, a role that started on the stage.

Compare and Contrast
War Horse, one of the big tickets in town, is based on the book. The book is also the source of the upcoming Oscar Bait film War Horse from Steven Spielberg. It's not an adaptation of the stage play but they're both adaptations of the book. Got it?

If you can't see the plays, read the books or see related films

I've Seen That Face Somewhere Before
Mark Rylance, nominated for Jerusalem is a superb and acclaimed stage actor but unfortunately he doesn't work in movies very often. But some of you may remember him from his brief stint as  leading man of controversially explicit films like the beautiful period piece Angels & Insects (1996) or the stinging drama Intimacy (2001). Lily Rabe, nominated for her Shakespearean work in The Merchant of Venice, is the daughter of Jill Clayburgh and you may have seen her in the movies No Reservations, Mona Lisa Smile or as Ryan Gosling's loyal friend in All Good Things.

Ellen Barkin in "The Normal Heart" which has strangely never been made into a movieAnd though it pains me to admit it this, I've discovered recently that many younger readers are quite unfamiliar with Ellen Barkin. She's playing the stressed doctor in The Normal Heart, another revival of Larry Kramer's devastating AIDS drama (I saw the last revival which was great but people have been completely insane for this one so apparently it's unmissable.) Barkin's  screen heyday was in the late 80s (notably The Big Easy with Dennis Quaid and Sea of Love with Al Pacino). Her last high profile studio movie gig was Oceans 13 (2007). She's also Julianne Moore's bestie though that's neither here nor there, just a fun factoid.

Mother Gothel!
Donna Murphy, who hopefully won an army of new fans with her great work in Tangled, is Tony nominated again for Best Actress in a Musical for playing a woman from youth to old age in the tearjerker The People in the Picture. Murphy is  a two-time winner already.

Oscar Winners On Stage
Frances McDormand, Vanessa Redgrave and Al Pacino are all nominated for lead roles.

Will Any of The New Plays and Musicals Be Made Into Movies?
Your guess is as good as mine. Hairspray is a recent example of a movie that became a stage musical and then became a movie again based on its stage musical. Back and forth it goes. It's hard to know. Kander & Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys in particular might make an interesting transfer and we all know what happened with Cabaret and Chicago. Good People from David Lindsey Abaire has already had one of his acclaimed plays transferred (Rabbit Hole) and he's also a working screenwriter (his current gig being Oz: The Great and Powerful.) so maybe that show about a poor southie in Boston could make some sort of move.