When the recent announcement came that Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore had been cast as Bill and Hillary Clinton, respectively, in The Special Relationship, Peter Morgan’s third film involving the Premiership of Tony Blair (played once again by Michael Sheen, who previously portrayed the former British Prime Minister in the Morgan-scripted films The Deal and The Queen), many of us began wondering if Monica Lewinsky would appear as a character, and if so, who would play her. Anne Thompson even provided an hilariously implicit visual aid for why Anne Hathaway would be great for the part.
Unfortunately, it’s been revealed that Lewinsky will only be included in the made-for-HBO film via archival footage. But that isn’t going to stop us from imagining who should have been cast in Morgan’s film had he decided to focus more directly on the Lewinsky scandal. Because we’d all much rather see that film, right? And although a low-budget depiction of the affair, titled The Blue Dress, is already in the works, it certainly won’t be as much fun as a high-profile picture featuring big stars as the infamous figures involved with the scandal.
So, we’ve cast the second-term Clinton movie we’d prefer be made. And as always we welcome you to suggest your own casting ideas — whether to substitute for those we’ve selected or to play characters we’ve forgotten — in the comments.
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When Milk wins the Oscar for Original Screenplay on February 22, it will be the first biopic to take the award in 26 years. Back then Gandhi faced some stiff competition, including two fellow Best Picture nominees, Tootsie and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, as well as An Officer and a Gentleman and Diner. And three of these opposing titles were 1982’s three top grossing films. Gandhi’s main obstacle, though, was not one of the other nominees. It was the difficulty of winning a category that’s typically associated with originality. Plenty of movies based on true stories have been nominated for Original Screenplay, but that “based on” factor can be a drawback, and the Academy tends to favor scripts born completely out of the imagination here.
Unfortunately for Milk, that Academy disfavor has been strong for the past three decades, passing over such ‘nonfiction’ films as The Queen, Shine, Nixon, Braveheart, Bugsy, Hotel Rwanda, Erin Brockovich, The Aviator and Good Night, and Good Luck for more “creative” efforts like Little Miss Sunshine. But this year, the ‘fiction’ films nominated for Original Screenplay are not strong candidates, whether for critical, commercial or political reasons. So fortunately for Milk, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black will partly win the Oscar by default. Not all voters will be choosing Milk in a process of elimination, though. Some will actually see that Black has penned a great “original” biopic and that it is indeed the most deserving of the nominated screenplays.
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It’s more difficult to be convincing as a real person when acting on film than on the stage. The camera can get closer and your image ends up projected many times larger than life size. So, despite giving a Tony Award-winning performance as Richard Nixon in the theater version of Frost/Nixon, Frank Langella was not initially thought of as worthy to reprise the role in Ron Howard’s movie adaptation of the play. Part of it was that he’s not a big name, but another reason was that he looks nothing like Tricky Dick.
Ultimately, Langella did get the part, and while he doesn’t resemble the former president, he apparently does a bang up job in the role. But the transition could easily have been as awkward as Ralph Bellamy’s reprisal of his Tony-winning portrayal of Franklin Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello. In the film version of that play, Bellamy’s vocal impersonation comes off more like a Scottish brogue (he sounds exactly like Sean Connery, in fact) than FDR’s signature “Locust Valley lockjaw.” Instead, Langella is on track for an Oscar nomination, and is sure to join the following actors who also gave convincing performances as world leaders.
As a handicap, SpoutBlog has limited the selections to modern era leaders whose real persona exists on film/tape and are therefore more easily comparable to actors’ representations.
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It happened last year for Cate Blanchett. The actress starred in a biopic that critics ripped to shreds, a film that basically bombed at the (American) box office, and yet she managed to score a Best Actress nomination for her reprised performance as the titular monarch of Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Additionally, Blanchett earned another nomination for Best Supporting Actress the same year, for her portrayal of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. Now Josh Brolin could achieve a similar feat this year, not just by earning separate nominations for playing the titular president of W. and portraying politician-turned-assassin Dan White in Milk, but also by overcoming the difficulty of earning recognition in a lead category for a film that otherwise is not very well regarded. Are Brolin’s hurdles higher than Blanchett’s, though? With all the praise he’s received for W., he’s still far from being considered a sure thing candidate, regardless of his worthiness or the Academy’s history of oftentimes ignoring the critics and the grosses when nominating dependable, standout actors.
And boy, does Brolin stand out. …Read more
Discussing “The Best & The Worst.” Paul reviews The Queen with Helen Mirren, best picture and best actress nominee for the Oscars 2007. Kevin reviews A Sound of Thunder. George Lucas betrays The Empire Strikes Back. Risselada calls in unhappy about our coverage of Sundance.
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