Christian McKay Tagged Articles at Cinematical

At any large film festival, it's easy to get caught up in the buzz and the biz of it - most of the time, the press screenings are really press and industry screenings, which means that the person sitting next to you is not some fellow ink-stained wretch who will watch the film and have to write a review but, rather, an acquisitions person who will watch the film and, perhaps, write a check. This doesn't just lead to seat-hopping and movie-jumping as the acquisitions people shrug No, not for us and leave so they can continue their quest; it also leads to getting caught up in an atmosphere where questions of commerce can come more readily to mind than questions of art.

So it was with the Toronto screening of Me and Orson Welles, where my feeling warmed and charmed by Richard Linklater's recreation of 1930's literary New York came on the heels of a much more pointed question -- namely, who the hell is going to see it? Starring Zac Efron as a young would-be actor who's recruited for a bit part in Orson Welles' 1937 Mercury Theater production of Julius Caesar, the film skews young in energy and execution, but unless teens are lured into caring about old-timey theater by Efron's name, it's unlikely they'll go; older audience members, who have the advantage of actually knowing, and caring, who Orson Welles is might be put off by the presence of Mr. Efron, who they know solely from their childrens' repeated viewing of High School Musical.

It was a pretty big surprise when news broke that Zac Efron was going to star in Richard Linklater's new film, Me and Orson Welles. The High School Musical star just didn't seem like the Linklater sort. But the dancing shoes have been put away and Efron has gone back in time. Four pictures from the film have been released over at Twitch, and you can check out one of them above -- that is Efron as the young aspiring actor Richard, and Christian McKay as the one and only Welles.

Based on Robert Kaplow's coming-of-age novel, the film focuses on a 17-year-old aspiring actor who is discovered by Orson Welles while walking past the Mercury Theater. He scores a bit part in Julius Caesar, and is thrust into that world we call show. Now if only we could get a glimpse of Ben Chaplin's George Coulouris and Claire Danes' Sonja Jones...