Seth, drain the well. There's a neighbor missing

[sovay]

It is a good thing Ian McKellen followed up his turn in Cold Comfort Farm (1995) with roles as monumentally pop-cultural as Gandalf or Magneto, because otherwise I suspect people would still be accosting him in the street and shouting, "THERE'LL BE NO BUTTER IN HELL!"

. . . Actually, I really hope they still do.

Comments

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Was that before he did the movie Richard III (he was in the play a few years before the movie - I saw a traveling show in Minnesota and even though he was great, the rest of the actors were not that great.)

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Right? Why were Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr. even there? Worse, why were they so awful?

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

IIRC Edward IV's wife was something of an outsider at court (she was from their former enemies the Lancasters), and she created some resentment by getting her relatives into high positions - this is emphasised in the movie by casting them all as Americans.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I figured that was the casting choice. I just wish they had brought their acting chops with them to the set and not ... whatever other thing that was.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

They were much better than the stage actors.

[sovay]

Was that before he did the movie Richard III

The films came out in the same year; IMDb tells me Cold Comfort Farm was released first, but that tells me nothing about the shooting schedule.

Was there any overlap between stage and film cast besides McKellen?