BenWhishaw Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I'm torn. Part of me is baffled by this casting announcement, while the other part wants to cry out: "Sweet!"

Variety reports that Jesse Eisenberg, the indie cutie from films like Roger Dodger and The Education of Charlie Banks, has been tapped to play poet Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings. This is that project that Christine Vachon is producing (written by Austin Bunn and director John Krokidas), which follows the story of Lucien Carr, and how he murdered William Burrough's childhood friend David Kammerer after a supposed unwanted sexual advance and physical attack.

Along with Eisenberg, it seems that Chris Evans, believe it or not, is set to play Jack Kerouac, and Ben Whishaw will take care of Carr. But Eisenberg ... he's become such the indie boy over these last handful of years that it'll be hard to imagine him donning the glasses and becoming a Beat icon. But hey, if Cate Blanchett can play Bob Dylan...

To help you figure out your take on the casting, I've given you a comparison above. The black and white shot of Carr, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs was taken in 1944, the year this all went down. With three set, are you happy with the choices? And who would you pick for Mr. Burroughs? I'm getting Stephen Dorff, Corin Nemec flashes, but that only would've worked in the '90s.

News like this is what I wait for when writing about movie news -- announcements that merge so many good things that you can't help but get the tingle of excitement. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Julie Taymor is taking on William Shakespeare yet again, and with one starry-eyed and stellar cast. Strike that ... THE stellar cast.

This time around, we get The Tempest, but with a spin -- there's a bit of gender bending. Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan who became a sorcerer, is getting a sex change so that Helen Mirren can play the part. The lovely Mirren will be joined by Jeremy Irons, who will play Prospera's brother Alonso, Djimon Hounsou, who will tackle Caliban, Russell Brand as the jester Trinculo, Alfred Molina, who will be the drunken Stephano, Ben Wishaw as the spirit Ariel, and Felicity Jones as Prospera's daughter, Miranda. Oh, but that's not all -- Geoffrey Rush is in negotiations to play Prospera's ol' ally and adviser, Gonzalo. Since things are being changed up a bit, here's how THR describes it: "Shakespeare's play mixes romance with fraternal politics and the supernatural. As revised for the screen, it will center around Prospera, her daughter Miranda (Jones) and a shipwrecked crew full of Prospera's enemies."

After seeing Taymor's Titus, I never dreamed another Shakespeare adaptation could compare, until now. I say this having seen every single one of Will's plays performed at least once, and thinking that Patrick Stewart's Prospero was practically untouchable. But now, with this cast? I'm in love.

But still, Taymor is changing things up, so sound off below: Taymor, gender-bending, and The Tempest -- yay or nay?

I loved Tom Tykwer's Perfurme: The Story of a Murderer, starring Ben Whishaw as a sociopathic serial killer. Whishaw's performance in that film -- in which he had very little dialog and had to convey almost everything through facial expression and body language -- was just outstanding. In poking around IMDb a bit while writing some Sundance reviews, I found out that Whishaw (most recently seen in Todd Hayne's I'm Not There) has three new projects lined up, and I'm excited about all of them.

First up is The Restraint of Beasts (currently in post-prod), an adaptation of Magnus Mills's first novel. The film is being directed by Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, whose film My Summer of Love back in 2004 first brought Emily Blunt to notice.The darkly comedic story is about an unnamed supervisor (presumably Whishaw) working with two Scottish high-tensile fence builders in the countryside and "accidentally" killing people along the way by day and hitting the local pub at night. I have the book on reserve to read before the film comes out -- I like Mills's work but I've not read this one yet. If this film does well, perhaps it will be the beginning of a series of adaptations of Mills's books.

You probably aren't familiar with him just yet, but Ben Whishaw is an actor worth taking note of. He was nominated recently for the BAFTA Rising Star award (Eva Green won it), mostly for his starring role in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which was one of my favorite films of last year. He's also been racking up roles in which he plays famous people (one day he could even catch up to Val Kilmer and Gary Oldman). Last year he was Keith Richards in Stoned, this year he can be seen as one of many Bob Dylans in I'm Not There and now he's in negotiations to portray the poet John Keats in Jane Campion's Bright Star.

The period romance takes place in the early 19th century, focusing on Keats' romance with Fanny Brawne, who has already been cast with Australian actress Abbie Cornish (who is rumored to also be in talks for the next Bond film.) The couple's romance only lasted a couple years before Keats' health deteriorated due to his suffering from tuberculosis. He died a year after they separated, at the age of 25. As much as we could do without another tragic, tear-jerking romance film, with Campion behind the camera this could be one of the better ones. And in addition to further boosting the careers of both Whishaw and Cornish, it could, as many Campion films are good for, garner some acting nominations for the pair as well. Next up for Whishaw is a new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.

Casting bites for this past weekend:

• Earlier this month, Erik brought news of Lindsay Lohan backing out of her role in the upcoming Oscar Wilde adaptation, A Woman of No Importance. Now, according to a slew of sources, Lohan has been replaced with none other than Jessica Biel. A few years ago this might have seen like a strange replacement, when La Lindsay wasn't boozing it up, and Biel was more known for screams and underwear dancing. However, after a surprising stint in The Illusionist, this could very well be a blessing for Importance. At the very least, it should have much less production drama and gossip.
• I'm sorry fans of the original miniseries, but Brideshead Revisited is getting definitely getting made, and the film has found its leading men. As I previously reported, Julian Jarrold was looking to bring the Evelyn Waugh novel to the big screen. Now The Hollywood Reporter has shared the stars of the film -- Matthew Goode (Heck from Imagine Me & You) and Ben Whishaw (Stoned, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer). Goode will be Charles Ryder (previously played by Jeremy Irons), and Whishaw will be Sebastian Flyte (previously played by Anthony Andrews).
• A whole slew of names and roles have been added to the international film, Adam Resurrected. In December, we brought you news of the upcoming film, which had already signed Jeff Goldblum in the lead, and Willem Dafoe as a co-star (his role has since been released -- that of a concentration camp commandant). German actress Veronica Ferres, who has been added to the cast, says of the film: "There have been many movies about the Holocaust, but this is the first one where Americans, Israelis and Germans have worked together." And she's right -- the rest of the international cast include: Hana Laszlo, Evgenia Dudina, Joachim Król, Juliane Köhler, Ayelet Zurer and Moritz Bliebtreu from Run Lola Run.
  

According to Screen Daily, Todd Haynes is finally finished casting I'm Not There, his weird-ass Bob Dylan biopic. The movie, which is actually going into production on this very day in the rather pedestrian location of Montreal (it was originally reported that the shoot would take place in Romania), has gained attention because a rotating cast will be playing Dylan, and names from Oprah Winfrey to Michelle Williams have been bandied about as possible Bobs. Disappointingly, it turns out that only a handful of the slew of names already connected to the film will actually play Dylan (a different actor will represent each "different period or artistic phase of his life"): Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett and Ben Whishaw will be joined by young African-American actor Marcus Carl Franklin in the role -- and that's it. While David Cross, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood, Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams ARE in the film, they're sadly not going to get to play Dylan. Which, honestly, totally sucks. I'd give anything to see David Cross singing Lay Lady Lay.

We haven't heard much about Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer since the cast was announced last March. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, and Ben Whishaw, the film is an adaptation of a German novel of the same name that has been "hailed as one of the most influential works of German literature in the past two decades." The novel tells the unendingly bizarre story of an 18th century man (Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, played by Whishaw) who has remarkably sensitive sense of smell but lacks any discernible personal scent. His career as a perfume artist "take a dark turn" when he becomes obsessed with bottling the scent of "a young virgin." I don't want to spoil anything here, but what with the title and everything, I'm a little worried about the virgin's lifespan.

Out of nowhere, a German teaser for the film has emerged, and it's creepy as hell. Something about the way she pauses before screaming makes it much, much scarier than the normal shrieking any woman would do when she finds she's being sniffed by a random guy she didn't even know was there. Yikes.

The movie opens in Germany in September and in other European territories in the late fall and early winter. There is currently no US distributor.

[via AICN]