For personal historical reasons I am afraid that Thomas Cromwell and Leo McKern will forever be the same person - or at least very hard to untangle in my mind - whenever I read about the former. I careered through Hilary Mantel's two recent novels never too far from waiting for Master Cromwell to refer to his wife Liz as "She Who Must Be Obeyed" or, in a moment of musical criticism cry out "Who was it that said that Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds?" (one of my favourite Rumpolisms ever).

The reason for my confusion/concatenation is jointly due to Herr Holbein's portrait and also to some inspired casting direction when assembling the troupe for the 1968 film "A Man For All Seasons", the play and movie that for a whole generation obscured and indeed protected a sadistic religious bigot from accurate historical analysis, though I must say that it still rates as one of the best written dramas I have ever experienced.




But that's simply my own prejudice, of course. And I admit freely that it impinges terribly on any likelihood that I will take to Mr Rylance (he who has been chosen for the role in HBO's version of "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up The Bodies") who is someone, I have it on good authority, that is not only a well respected Shakesperean thespian of some repute but also an all round good egg and presumably not only one of the best but maybe the best person currently still performing the mortal coil shuffle who could tackle the role.



Am I alone in this bias? Or, to widen the scope of the inquiry (as all good TV police detectives say), has there been anyone who - for whatever prejudicial reason you may harbour - has been soooooooooooo the opposite to what one had always presumed in terms of appearance when playing an historical role on TV or at the flicks?

An obvious example which springs to mind is the beautiful Greta Garbo:



being miscast as Queen Christina of Sweden:

Quote :

...a sadistic religious bigot...

As Aunt Entity said: "But how the world turns. One day, cock of the walk. Next, a feather duster." That's certainly true of Thomas More - in life and in death.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4256506/A-man-more-profane-than-sacred.html

Lovely bit of emotive writing.

Not quite Mantel's Cromwell, but much more fun than James Frain...

Not as far back in history as the Tudors, but I've never forgiven the director of Captain Corelli's Mandolin for using Nicholas Cage as the captain when in the book he was a rotund jolly sort of man, not an superstar of Italian descent.  I always thought if they must have such a person Danny de Vito would have been better.  But why not an actual European actor?  I never understand why stars have to be used - Vivien Leigh wasn't a star when she was chosen for Gone with the Wind.

Alec Guinness as Charles I in "Cromwell" was exactly as I had imagined that king. Guinness captured the stubborn weakness of the man perfectly - all my sympathies were with Cromwell, although having him played by the impossibly handsome Richard Harris probably helped.

PS Have just deleted a rant about More being described as a "sadistic religious bigot", and about the language of the Telegraph article (Kevin Myers's language, not More's). Probably safer to stick with film images. Will look for George III now.

Clint Eastwood in "The Bridges of Madison County" elicits a similar spit-on-the-floor response from certain female acquaintances of mine too, Caro.

Though I suppose that's hardly an historical character, so I suppose I'd better come up with another example myself. Here's one for example; Alexander the Great can conjure up a myriad of golden-haired idols in my head - yet even I wasn't prepared for this version:



Beam me up, Cleitus!

Here's Cromwell instead - not exactly as we all think of him, but who cares?

I don't doubt I have mentioned this before, but I thought the casting in Troy could have done with a rethink.  I see my Leonard Maltin movie guide talks of well-defined characters and a gallery of strong performances, but everyone seemed too young for their parts in my opinion.  Paris was Orlando Bloom, Achilles was Brad Pitt and Eric Bana was Hector.  (I did like Eric Bana in it.)  Diane Kruger was Helen and I think she is usually considered a very competent actress but she wouldn't have launched a baby's rubber duckie in this portrayal.  Insipid, pale, not beautiful, uninspiring, lacking any sensuality, boring.  Where was Liz Taylor when you needed her?

I did surprisingly quite enjoy Troy all the same.

The whole production of Troy could have done with a rethink, not only the casting. In this part of the world that movie is held up alongside Braveheart as possibly the most stupid (and most inaccurate) movie of all time. Brad the Pitts is amongst those group of 'actors' who are only ever capable of playing themselves in any role, so his being cast in the lead should have been some indication of what was to come, I suppose.

Only Hollywood could take a classic story and pound it into something beyond recognintion.

Caro wrote:

I never understand why stars have to be used - Vivien Leigh wasn't a star when she was chosen for Gone with the Wind.

Colin Firth as George VI in The King’s Speech was similarly miscast. Despite his superb performance, one always knew that for all Bertie’s mumbling and stammering, Mr Darcy was going to shine thru in the end. Neither did he look much like him. I’m sure that there were plenty of lesser known or unknown actors who looked much more like the Duke of York who could have fitted the bill.

Staying with kings and princes – the dreadful 2019 film The King saw the ridiculously wimpy Timothée Chalamet playing Prince Hal while the only slightly less wimpy Tom Glynn-Carney played Harry Hotspur. Allowing for dramatic licence, whereby the Battle of Shrewsbury was reduced to an act of single combat between the 2 Harrys (indeed Shakespeare did much the same in Henry IV, Part I), it nevertheless made for a distinctly unengaging and underwhelming spectacle. To be fair, the 16-year-old Hal may well have had as slight a physique as the 23-year-old Chalamet, but the historic Prince Henry played no great part in the Battle of Shrewsbury other than managing to nearly get himself killed by an arrow. Henry Percy of the other hand was 39 years of age at Shrewsbury and would have been an almost grizzled campaigner and certainly unlike the sensitive-looking 24-year-old Glynn-Carney. I suppose the film-makers can’t be criticised too harshly though as it’s a classic case of I-know-Fifteenth-Century-English-royal-history-because-I’ve-seen-the-Shakespeare-plays.

I watched about fifteen minutes of The King and then - in near suicidal despair - switched it off. How I long for the return of Mark Rylance as Cromwell - although I'm not sure if the BBC thinks the excellent, but very difficult, The Mirror and the Light would excite the same interest as Wolf Hall.  Shame Anne Boleyn's dead - the story isn't the same now she's been written out of the script by Henry VIII. The Pilgrimage of Grace and the destruction of the monasteries won't stir up as much interest somehow in the viewing public  - too much religion, boring talking and not enough sex and really horrid gory bits (although execution of Aske is quite gory). And Cromwell, for all Mantel's brilliant writing, just doesn't cut it as a tragic hero (in Aristotelian sense) - bit like trying to make  us feel sorry for Dominic Cummings. Mind you Cummings never begged for "Mercy, mercy, mercy!" - not even to Laura Kuenssberg. Cromwell was a bully boy and a wimp in (and at) the end, as all bullies are. Not like Thomas More who went out in style, witty to the last, even on the scaffold. Good old Paul Scofield (and Robert Bolt).

Ben Miles is playing the role for the RSC:




RSC The Mirror and the Light

I'm thinking of seeing if I can get to watch the 1994 and/or 2019 versions of Little Women. I might see if I can read the book (again) on archive.org. I've only seen clips from the films so far.  T Chalomet played Laurie in the latter and from what I can tell he seemed competent to play that role. Of the four actresses playing the (2019) March sisters only Saoirse Ronan (and she has dual Irish citizenship) as Jo was American.  Meg and Amy were played by Britons and Beth was Australian.

I suppose one's approval of castings is always going to be subjective. I didn't like Julie Christie as Bathsheba in the 1967 Far From The Madding Crowd though I've liked her in other things.  I've never watched the whole of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven and have no inclination to do so but Sybilla of Jerusalem has been depicted as blonde in pictures I've seen of her but in the film she is played by French actress (Eva Green) who is a natural blonde but habitually darkens her hair.  I haven't seen enough of that actress's work to judge her competence.  For those who are fans of Game of Thrones there were some people who didn't like the choice of Lena Headey as Cersei because the actress is naturally dark-haired and wore a wig. I had a chortle when somebody said the showrunners should have chosen someone like Charlize Theron - Ms Theron is attractive and blonde hair suits her but hers comes out of a bottle.  I haven't seen The Tudors but apparently some of the people running the show were annoyed when Natalie Dormer (also plays Margaery in GoT) had her natural light coloured hair darkened after she was cast as Anne Boleyn.  Hair colour may be a fairly lightweight consideration when casting a person - acting chops and presence are more important.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

  For those who are fans of Game of Thrones there were some people who didn't like the choice of Lena Headey as Cersei because the actress is naturally dark-haired and wore a wig. 

The religious sisters cut Lena's hair really short in the final episode of season 5:

I’m not sure what the natural hair colour of the Flemish actress Veerle Baetens is, but she went auburn when playing Margaret of Anjou in The White Queen series. I was doubly surprised by this because for some reason I had previously got it into my head that Margaret of Anjou was a petite, dark-eyed, brunette only to be later disabused of this when it was pointed out that the historical record suggests that she was tall and blonde. I suppose the series makers went for auburn because they didn’t want too many blonde female characters in the cast competing with the eponymous heroine.