Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Spot the thespian

I watched the library's latest acquisition - The King's Speech - last night and loved it (from talking to friends and family, I realize everyone else on the planet has seen it already). In addition to being a funny, entrancing movie, The King's Speech also gave me the opportunity to play my favorite British film game: spot the thespian. Many of the fine actors in this movie can be found in other films on the library shelves.

Colin Firth (King George VI) - wearing a lamé jumpsuit and dancing & singing to ABBA songs in Mamma Mia!
Helena Bohman Carter (Queen Elizabeth) - the darling of Merchant & Ivory, catch her in the adaptation of Henry James' The Wings of the Dove.
Geoffrey Rush (Lionel Logue) - he may be an Oscar-winning actor, but he is truly fun in Pirates of the Caribbean: curse of the Black Pearl.
Jennifer Ehle (Mrs. Logue) - played Elizabeth Bennett to Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy in the best version ever of Pride and Prejudice
Michael Gambon (King George V) - was an completely unpleasant character in the wonderful mystery with the upstairs/downstairs twist, Gosford Park
Claire Bloom (Queen Mary) - was in the 1965 John le Carré film The Spy Who Came in From the Cold with Richard Burton
Guy Pearce (King Edward VIII) - was so good in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, that I thought he was a professional drag queen
Derek Jacobi (Archbishop of Canterbury) - played the original stuttering ruler in the Masterpiece Theater series I, Claudius
Anthony Andrews (Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin) - was dreamy and dissipated in the classic PBS series Brideshead Revisited
Timothy Spall (Winston Churchill) - played the cringing toady Wormtail in the Harry Potter series.  (Bonus points if you can spot the other 2 Harry Potter alums in The King's Speech)
 
Happy actor-spotting!!

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