chris noonan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Do you like being second best? I don't, but when it comes to lead in a Chris Noonan film, I'd say fine -- so be it. Renee Zellweger definitely didn't have a problem with it -- as far as we know -- since she took the lead in the well-received Miss Potter. Apparently, Zellweger was not at all Noonan's first choice for the lead; instead, it was the brilliant Cate Blanchett whom Noonan adores. Noonan even considers Blanchett to be equivalent to one of Hollywood's greatest actresses, Katherine Hepburn, whom Blanchett portrayed in The Aviator.

What was the reason for Blanchett's departure from the film? She had the role originally but was forced to give it up for an unreported reason -- but she was as reluctant to give up the role as Noonan was for letting her go. Apparently, Blanchett begged for him to postpone production, but Noonan put it perfectly when he said: "the machine won't stand still."

Even though Zellweger was runner-up for the part of Beatrix Potter, director Noonan was not disappointed in her performance or the end result of the film. Perhaps it was a happy accident for Noonan as he discovered Zellweger to be a joy to work with. The West Australian quotes Noonan describing Zellweger as humble: "She is not a star and doesn't play a star. So you lose the Renee Zellweger when she is playing Beatrix Potter and I think that is remarkable." We all know the saying: as one door closes another one opens -- and as one great actress must decline an incredible project, another remarkable actress must step in.

Time has a way of making certain movies disappear, while others remain classics forever. Does anyone today remember Gordy, the other talking pig movie that came out just a few months before Babe in 1995? Director Chris Noonan, who received a Best Director Oscar nomination for Babe, does.

"I knew the director of that film," says Noonan during a recent visit to San Francisco, where he sat down for a chat with Cinematical. "I didn't know he was planning a talking pig movie. He told me that he was very interested in what I was doing, and he'd love to see a script. So I sent him a script of Babe, just as a sort of colleague-friendly gesture, well before we shot it. And then Gordy came out soon after. And I haven't actually spoken to him since then."

One of the great tragedies in the current onslaught of biopics is that they seem to have adopted a movie formula, as if any old person's life could be crammed into the same three-act structure. (Aren't human beings supposed to be as different as snowflakes?) The most brutally obvious recent examples were Ray (2004) and Walk the Line (2005), which, as we speak, are probably inadvertently merging the legends of Ray Charles and Johnny Cash into interchangeable tidbits.

Chris Noonan's Miss Potter doesn't rectify this situation, but it does move in a different direction, into a more fanciful realm. It's more interested in capturing the essence of its subject -- children's author Beatrix Potter -- than in providing a checklist of the things she accomplished. Like a smoother Finding Neverland (2004), it moves away from reality and into movieland, which at least is more honest than falsely representing reality. Miss Potter starts badly and ends badly, but a good, solid hour in the middle is as charming as anything you'll see this holiday season. It's actually a perfect movie to see on Christmas Day between presents and dinner.

I'm not exactly sure what led anyone to believe that there would be an audience for a movie about Beatrix Potter - the creator of Peter Rabbit - and her "struggle for independence in Victorian England," but there's one on the way, so hopes must be high. The movie, which will combine live action with animation (Perhaps she was secretly insane, and Peter Rabbit was actually a good friend?), is to be called Miss Potter, and will be directed by Chris Noonan, an Aussie who wrote and directed Babe so, if nothing else, he'll be able to handle the live/animated mix without difficulty.

Starring in the film are Renée Zellweger, who will play the author, and Ewan McGregor as publisher Norman Warne, whose death from leukemia a month after his secret engagement to Potter was a turning point in her life. Additionally, Emily Watson has recently joined the cast in an undermined role.

Slated for a 2007 release, the movie begins filming in early March.