Casting Heyer

[girlyswot]

callmemadam wonders why Georgette Heyer novels have not made it to the silver screen here. In point of strict fact, I feel obliged to note that The Reluctant Widow was apparently filmed in 1950 but sank without trace (Has anyone seen it? Is it as awful as it is made out to be? The IMDB entry suggests it bore little resemblance to the book.) Still, the field appears to be wide open and since TV and film producers aren't getting round to it, I feel that it is time for my trusty flist to spring into action.

Which Heyers would you most like to see filmed? And what would be your ideal cast?

Comments

[aella_irene]

Yes. (At least, she is in after_waterloo). It works, if you take An Infamous Army and work backwards instead of trying to make These Old Shades and Devil's Cub tally with everything else.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Not that I can remember. I think the Duchess might have had a temper, but that might be personal canon, or I might be mixing her up with Léonie's aunt who Avon wanted to marry.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Also, I want Claudia Black for Deb in Faro's Daughter, even if she does have to wear a red wig. She would be brilliant at the comic bits, and Anne Reid could play her aunt, though I don't know who we'd get in as Ravenscar. Mark Strong, maybe?

Can you think of anyone who could play the Grand Sophy? I can't.

[aella_irene]

Winona Ryder might have the look, and she can certainly do controlling brunettes, (see Abby in The Crucible.)

Romola Garai for Bab.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Winona Ryder is twenty years too old. (As is everyone else I think of.)

Romola Garai as Bab would be fantastic. I would like Jeremy Northam as Colonel Audley, please.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I thought it was the rule that all French characters in Heyer novels must have a temper?

[tdu000.livejournal.com]

Jeremy Northam could play any number of Heyer heroes. Not quite all of them but a significant number.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Actually, there are quite a lot of actors who could. Hugh Jackman, for example, if he could pull of the accent.

Daniel Craig, if he's tall enough.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Yes. But unfortunately she's too old now.

Anna Chancellor would have made a fab Sophy twenty - or even ten - years ago. She's tall, she's lean, but with a good build, she's attractive but not pretty, and even her hair's right.

She would have been perfect.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

The only dodgy bit on DNA would have been two blonde parents producing a brunette child. Although, apparently even that can happen now.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Naw, I want Hugh Jackman as Hugo. I've had him as my mental image of Hugo for the past decade. That comforting solidity, the ability to look thick as pigshit but not actually be stupid...

To be honest, based on my other comments, I think Hugh Jackman epitomises my ideal big Heyer hero.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Heyer hated the film of The Reluctant Widow, and her son (who only died recently) did so too, so there have been no licensings subsequent to that.

Which is a shame, since a lot of Heyer novels would work nicely in the two-part two-hour episode formats that ITV do so well (so basically a four-hour adaptation).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am willing to let anyone play the Grand Sophy just as long as it isn't Emilia Fox. This is not because I don't care about Sophy, but because I can't stand Fox.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I assume that the simple reason that Heyer hasn't been filmed is that she is off the radar of a lot of the types of people who commission dramas, and that even when she comes on to it, she is dismissed as "Oh, only middle-aged women would watch that." Remember, TV exectutives were completely taken aback at the success of the first series of "Lark Rise to Candleford" - they didn't see that there was a large audience for a well-written, well-acted, well-produced, relatively gentle but not soporiric Sunday evening drama...

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I can't really see him as any of them - it's probably something to do with that dire movie he made with Meg Ryan in which he played a time-travelling duke.

[(Anonymous)]

Hugh Jackman as Sir Anthony Fanshawe? Hmm, not sure I can see that. He's not quite placid enough for me. Nor Daniel Craig. You need someone who can do the lazy eyebrow look.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I agree.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Yes to Anna Chancellor. If only someone had thought of it in time.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

The first time I saw Hugh Jackman was in Oklahoma at the National Theatre and so I do have difficulty imagining him as anything much other than a cowboy. Not that that is a bad thing, but it's not really a Heyer hero.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

Kate and Leopold! One of those films which could have been improved 100 times over by the simple removal of Meg Ryan from the cast.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I think Emilia Fox could probably play Julia Oversley and give us all another reason to loathe her.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the one - thank you! Perhaps I'm being unfair on Hugh Jackman; it can't have been easy having to put up with Meg Ryan doing her cute-as-a-button act at close range. (I don't mind her at all when she's playing an alcoholic or whatever, but when what she's basically doing is playing a human version of the Cathy cartoon I can't face it)

Also, probably his accent's got less wobbly since then.

[girlyswot.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what accent he was even supposed to be doing in that film.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I don't loathe her, though I do think she would be able to play Julia Oversley. Or maybe Miss Wraxton in the Grand Sophy.

There does seem to be a problem in that Heyer wrote a lot of very young heroines and there just aren't that many very-early-twenties actressess whose names people have heard of. Even Jemima Rooper must be twenty-seven or so by now.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I think I classified it as 'Not Australian'.