Cinematical

Colin Firth and Ben Barnes alone do not an Oscar Wilde adaptation make -- and with filming on Dorian Gray having already started (more on that in a moment), it's a good thing they filled out the rest of the cast! Variety reports that just about every British actor not working on Harry Potter or The Tudors has signed on.

Rebecca Hall is probably the most notable addition -- IMDB claims she's playing Emily Wooten, a character which doesn't seem to exist in the original book. But she's no stranger to gloomy Victorian stories, as she's probably best known to American audiences as Christian Bale's tormented wife in The Prestige. The key female role appears to have gone to Rachel Hurd-Wood, who will be playing Sibyl Vane, the actress Gray falls in love with. Emilia Fox is playing Lady Victoria Wooten, wife of Firth's character.

Completing the cast are: Ben Chaplin, Fiona Shaw, Maryam D'Abo, Pip Torrens, Douglas Henshall, Caroline Goodall, Michael Culkin, Johnny Harris and newcomer Max Irons, son of Jeremy Irons. This is going to be a real film of young up and comers, isn't it? Barnes, Hall, Hurd-Wood, Irons ... it should be quite interesting to see who might take off from this.

And I wasn't wrong when I said a photo of Firth and Barnes in cravats would be forthcoming. Variety has one accompanying their article -- and it's a nice official still, not a grainy one from the British paparazzi as I was expecting. You can already sense the debauchery, can't you?