I guess it goes to show how little I've been paying attention, but I could have sworn Narcissa Malfoy already showed up in the Harry Potter movies. Of course, it could also mean I'm easily mixing up the books and the adaptations, because I must be thinking of the character's first appearance in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -- the novel not the film. But Narcissa, who is mother to Draco (Tom Felton), wife to Lucius (Jason Isaacs) and cousin to Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) features prominently in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince -- the novel -- and so she will be making her cinematic introduction in the movie version. And now we've got word on who will be playing the role. According to BBC, Helen McCrory will play Narcissa, who in Half-Blood Prince is dealing with her husband being a prisoner of Azkaban and her son being a teenage brat.

Audiences are likely most familiar with McCrory through her role as British first lady Cherie Blair in The Queen. She also appeared recently in Becoming Jane, as Mrs. Radcliffe (somewhat a Potter-riffic name, right?), and Casanova, in which she played mother to Heath Ledger's title character. The interesting thing now is that McCrory is actually playing the sister of the character she was originally all set to play. If you remember back to the original casting announcements of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, McCrory was first attached to play Bellatrix Lestrange, a part that went to Helena Bonham Carter when McCrory became pregnant and had to bow out. And you may recall that earlier this year, the part of Narcissa was linked to Naomi Watts, whose reps quickly denied her involvement. As much as I loved the idea of Watts playing the role, I'm intrigued to see McCrory take it on. I wonder, though, will she have to dye her hair, or am I once again revealing my lack of attention to the books? Half-Blood Prince, which is currently in production at the helm of Order of the Phoenix director David Yates, is set to hit theaters in little over a year from now (21 Nov. 2008)

When films based on real people are released, questions always arise about the fact and truth behind the drama on the screen. Becoming Jane is no exception. The movie, which was released this week, is giving us a twist on Jane Austen. Instead of being treated to the millionth adaptation, we're getting a look into an imagined version of what might have happened in her own life. Skimming reviews, it seems that the film is a run-of-the-mill romance that you might enjoy or find predictable. But what of the movie's accuracy?

Deirdre Lynch, who leads courses on Austen, has written a piece for Slate diving into that question, although she poses it as: "Why are we so obsessed with Jane Austen's love life?" The film has expanded from one chapter in Jon Spence's biography of the writer called Becoming Jane Austen. As Lynch describes, the biographer did claim that Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) was the love of Austen's (Anne Hathaway) life, but never alludes to a canceled marriage or life-long presence in his and his future family's life. Spence drew his claim from only a few letters and some hints in family records, and other scholars aren't so sure that this means the two were a couple.

The article outlines how Austen's work has, more than once, become fodder for her personal life. But that seems pretty sad and reductive. Whether you're a fan of period romances or not, it's hard to refute her success, so why can't she have the ability to create rich, fictional worlds without having a specific boyfriend or almost-husband? As Lynch says: "We can't bear to think that her wisdom was not based on experience."

For those still unacquainted, Becoming Jane is the upcoming film -- it's already been released in the U.K., where the reviews were middling -- that takes the brief, documented dalliance between novelist Jane Austen and an Irishman named Thomas Lefroy and blows it up into the romance to end all romances. The only thing history really knows about their relationship is that Lefroy is mentioned in a couple of Austen's letters and their two families were known to each other. The best guess is that they had a brief flirtation, which was quickly squashed when no prospect of a real marriage proposal was in the offing. Austen died at age 41, but Lefroy lived until 94, and is said to have confessed to having a "boyish love" for the by-then-famous authoress shortly before he died.

The movie stars Anne Hathaway as Austen -- word is that she had a lot of trouble with the British accent -- and James "I don't want to play Scotty in Star Trek XI" McAvoy as Lefroy. James Cromwell and Maggie Smith also have roles in the film, but apart the casting, I don't know a hell of a lot about it. Here's hoping the film is somewhat restrained in using Austen's life as a jumping off point for a bodice-ripping romance that certainly never happened. After all, we're talking about a family-supervised, above-board acquaintanceship that happened between two society young people in the late 18th century. How much heat could you possible get out of that? Becoming Jane is set for release on August 10. Click on the pic above to see the full-sized image of the new poster.

Cinematical readers in Britain can ignore all of this, since the movie has already been released there, but we in the States have now received a trailer for Becoming Jane, the new Anne Hathaway-starring romance that takes a brief, documented flirtation between novelist Jane Austen and an Irish gentleman (James McAvoy) and blows it up into the romance to end all romances. The problems that have already been noted by others -- that Hathaway couldn't quite crack the English accent, that the film straddles a convenient line of 'fiction based on truth,' and so on -- are all evident in this trailer. It seems like we're going to be looking at an 18th century version of The Princess Diaries, as opposed to any attempt to actually capture what made the biographical Jane Austen tick.

Surely the makers of this film don't actually have an image of Austen as full of unbridled passions and gusto, do they? The biggest complaint about her work for two centuries -- even noted by contemporaries like Charlotte Bronte, who famously accused Austen of "Chinese fidelity" -- is that her work is all about proper form and codes of conduct, not about crashing through those things. But any criticism of a 'fictional bio' won't stick, obviously. Just look at the recent Diane Arbus fantasy, Fur, which would have been unrecognizable as having anything to do with Arbus if not for the use of the famous name. Anyway -- you'll be able to judge for yourself when Becoming Jane hits theaters in this country on August 3.

I did a double-take when, while reading a Sunday Telegraph story on Becoming Jane, the writer noted that the film was "opening next month." A quick check with IMDB confirms this -- the film opens in Britain in March and the U.S. in August -- the Brits are actually getting a six-month jump on a major film! (The writer has seen the film, and almost gives it a full review) For those Yankees who don't yet have this film on radar, it concerns a little-known period in Jane Austen's youth when she supposedly fell in love with an Irish lawyer named Tom Lefroy. Prada's Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy are the stars. In her interview with the paper, Hathaway talks about taking on the role of the iconic novelist: "The fact that she had an affair that ended badly was really very surprising," she says. "I was in love with her work, and from the moment I read the script I was really passionate about it."

Sounds like standard press junket talk, right? Luckily, Hathaway goes on to open up a little more about aggravations on what seems like a tough set. On doing an English accent: "This was my first big accent undertaking," she says. "There were certain days when it was so cold, and you're trying not to freeze to death and of course, me, I'm trying to do the accent and when it's cold it makes you very tight which can make your voice sound higher, and I started to sound a bit too much like myself and not at all like Jane. And after all that -- pardon my French -- f**cking accent work, about 80 percent of the dialogue in the film was unusable."

On the pressure: "The pressure of playing someone so beloved and of whom people are so fiercely protective was nerve-wracking. I've never been so exhausted as when I finished the movie. It took me about two months to regain my strength." On the weather again: The interviewer descrbes Hathaway arriving on set thusly: "'Can't you pay for good weather?' Hathaway yells as she emerges to shoot the country-fair scene in a period dress and Hunter wellies, an assistant trotting after her with a striped brolly." They better include this stuff on the DVD.