Me + Richard Armitage
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Me + Richard Armitage 
End of 2018, eh? I sure could go for a trip to London at Christmas.
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tbh, it would fit better with my current schedule as well. Even if December is the most expensive time to be in London and Jan / Feb would have been much cheaper. And if he’s doing Macbeth? I probably prefer that to Oedipus.
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ohmylord!! i have palpitations!!! like, literally!! i couldn’t open your post fast enough and the browser was sluggish (work PC and all that which is the only one i have at the moment). OMG don’t give me such teasers, please don’t because if it doesn’t go to plan and i get all excited about it i don’t now what i’ll do!!
Ok, it’s with her so that made me calm back down. Seems a bit unlikely to me if i’m honest. Not that he would want to do Shakespeare! I always thought he would eventually – or might – given he has done some in the past and all that. But i couldn’t see her ever being interested in one given the stuff she tends to gravitate towards (and S is not one i’d like her to try and re-write – if i am being honest – either). I’d also very much like him to be exposed to other directors too…
But anyway, just because i need the hope, i’ll put my skepticism away for a while and just enjoy the absolutely divine idea of Richard and Shakespeare on stage. Gosh i personally would love Hamlet because it is by far one of the richest and most demanding and complex parts but doubtful with the overflow of them currently on our stages, so i dare not hope. But i’d be equally chuffed with Macbeth or frankly nearly any Shakespeare. At this stage of things i think i’ll be grateful for any crumbs…
I”ve always pushed away this idea because i simply dare not hope. But the fact that he puts it in his sentence is nice enough for me; the fact that he is even thinking about it is honey to my ears. But Richard, please please please don’t give me false hope on this…
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Part of me doesn’t believe it, because honestly, who shares this kind of news with a very obscure, not very well written, milennial movie website?
However, I would love to see him do any Shakespeare in London. I can’t imagine that Macbeth would interest Farber, either. But he’s consistently hinted he wants to do that one.
Richard III?
or: feminist Taming of the Shrew? I wonder if he’s got Petruchio in him? I don’t like that play much but I wouldn’t mind seeing her rewrite that one.
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I am going back and forth between not really believing it but wanting to at the same time. Well, she could beef up and make the most of Lady Macbeth.. the play only works if there is a strong one tbh in my live experience of it. Who knows. and yes, i wouldn’t mind a dabble with the Taming. I don’t hate it, the Globe had a great cast and it worked but i don’t particularly like it and it is one of the few which is harder to translate these days.
Uff, he could do nearly any tbh, plenty of great stuff in any of the historical plays too. But since there won’t be chances for many (i realistically chastise myself) maybe Macbeth or even Richard III which well done is quite spectacular. Though i much prefer Macbeth. It makes me sad to think Hamlet is not a possibility but maybe we could hope for Macbeth? 🙂
And i totally think he would have Petruchio in him LOL But since we’re unlikely to get much Shakespeare from him on stage i’d be a tiny tiny bit disappointed if it was just that.. I just want him to tackle something very challenging because we know he can i just adore it when he rises to the challenge and sets the bar really really high for himself 🙂
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and i’ll stop now! see, this i why i won’t allow myself to go there :-).. i could never stop mentally drooling about the idea, i can hardly stop myself from writing pages about it 🙂 If he does do it though i’ll be at his feet eternally!
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Maybe he just wanted to see if we were paying attention. He should know by now there is always someone paying attention, no matter how obscure the source of the interview is.
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yeah, I’m sure he’s figured that out. I wish he’d actually answer some of the questions tweeted at him today. I can’t believe I’m saying that. But I don’t enjoy the gaming.
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neither do i… sigh, people travel for this kind of stuff so it would really help to have info …
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That’s my thought – a feminist leaning adaptation of something or other. Merchant of Venice?
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There’s a thought. Although I don’t see him as Shylock.
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Why?
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I was going to write a long post about this once after Pesky and I had a long discussion about Shylock and then didn’t. Pesky was sort of fixated on comparing performances of the role by Patrick Stewart (I think …) and David Suchet. It’s complex but has to do with the question of whether that play is anti-Semitic and if so, how actors should play the role if they are non-Jews. I’m not convinced that either he or Farber (who is Jewish, natch) would think about all the levels of that.
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I directed Merchant in 2010 and did my level best to keep the anti-Semitism as part of the narrative (the Christians’ treatment of Shylock and his subsequent response) as opposed to structural (the PLAY’S assumptions and implications of Shylock) to a minimum. My husband was playing the role and his father was Jewish, so there was a lot of thought put into it.
Still didn’t keep audiences from responding to him and to the character in some of the worst ways I’ve seen audiences behave. Whether that was a failure on my part, on theirs, or on both I’m still trying to work out.
That play is TOUGH.
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Good on you for giving it a shot. It has some really great moments (has not a Jew eyes?) but it’s a wormhole. And Farber isn’t really noted for her subtlety. Although I’m sure she’s at least familiar with the debates about the play.
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I’ve had many discussions about it over the years ( last time when Al Pacino played Shylock in Shakespeare in the Park). Interesting to think that the actor, rather than the director, could make a difference. Personally, I think it shows antisemitism, but doesn’t necessarily endorse it and has to be taken in context with its historical background. But, we can go on forever. I can see Armitage in the role, though.
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I guess I’d be concerned b/c physicality is such an important part of Armitage’s toolbox. And thinking about politics such a weak one.I don’t know how he could be safely interviewed about it.
I don’t know that there’s a good consensus among scholars and I feel like what we say about it has a lot to do with when we’re talking and how we’re framing the term anti-Semitism. When I was in grad school there was a strong boundary between anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism and the question was always, which is it? The most infuential voices in scholarship right now don’t accept that distinction.
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Too good to be true? I hope not. I can’t imagine Ms. Farber’s take on a Shakespeare production. It would probably be very different. No proper clothes for London in winter, but what the hell, it would be great to be there, shivering in the cold and in anticipation of a wintery stage door. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
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Instead of marrying Petruchio, Kate kills him? 🙂
The clothes are not hard to get — you can thrift for them.
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There are very few options for thrifty warm winter clothes around here. I once found a beaver coat which I gave to a friend that lived in Chicago. Aside from random stuff like that, most of it is ski clothes. But I certainly have time to find something. I can always add a layer to the clothes I wore to LLL. I’ll rock the puffy, Michelin man look.
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I’ll save you something from our next “coats for kids” drive 🙂
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Kate killing Petruchio, I like it!
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I just saw the Burton / Taylor film a few months ago and that was the feeling I was left with — why didn’t she kill him?
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I am seeing King Lear at the Globe on Saturday, I doubt it would be that one ( Kevin McNally is a better fit age wise) what about Othello?
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OMG. THAT WOULD BE FANTASTIC.
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i hope we will have Lear, one day 🙂 Othello would be fab of course.. but who could be Othello…. not that we are lacking in choices..
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If this is to be true, then a year of saving money should do it 😀 (and I love he loves Dunkirk. And as much as I do love Hobbit, I agree on movie of the decade so far) ❤
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I saw it tonight. i wasn’t going to but I needed to find something to distract dad (fourth anniversary of mom’s death), so we did a triple feature. I agree with him about the sound design.
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I hope you managed to do so and that he liked it, too. I must have it as soon as it comes out on dvd.
p.s. And since I was not reading your blog at those time, i will say now that I am so sorry for your loss.
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Thank you for your good wishes
I had to explain a lot of it to him; he didn’t understand the perspective shifts and the accents were hard for him to comprehend. But I think he liked the scenes in the air. It was the second of three we saw. I think he liked Logan Lucky better, and he slept all the way through Ingrid Goes West, which I really liked.
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I’ll have to try to catch “Ingrid Goes West”. I hadn’t heard about it but I really like Elizabeth Olsen. She was really good in “Marcy Martha May Marlene”. And also opposite Tom Hiddleston in the Hank Williams movie “I Saw the Light”. My sister just saw “Wind River” last night that Olsen is also in and she really liked it.
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One of the things I liked about it was that I didn’t recognize any of the actors. Then I got out and looked them all up, and was like, huh. I knew she’d been said to be dating Hiddleston but I didn’t realize she also acts. I still have her in my mind as a child celebrity, I’m afraid, but she was definitely good in this.
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Oh it’s her older sisters (Mary-Kate and Ashley) that were child celebrities. She’s an actor. And she claims not to have obtained any roles by trading on their celebrity.
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oh, wow. Well. So I really didn’t know her.
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They played the toddler twins in Full House in the 80s, didn’t they? Isn’t one of them engaged or married to Nicolas Sarkozy’s brother?
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yeah, that’s the twins, I guess. This is their sister, apparently?
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It is good, but if i think about it sound design is not what comes to my mind as the first thing that is exceptional about it… though that too. But actors who want to direct i guess have a more dissecting view of films..
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I thought the script was excellent from a structural viewpoint — making all the plot strands converge in that particular way was masterful and it’s not easy to do that. That was the thing I found best about it. But the list of things I didn’t like about it about is longer than the list I did like — but I have seen way too many WWII films in my lifetime and the need to see them all in order to answer questions from students gave me a bit of an allergy, I think.
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that coming together of stories is what i liked too.. it’s hard to like war movies especially those close our times.. i still remember my grandpas stories of it although he mostly didn’t want to talk about it at all; I found it moving and bit less traumatic than i expected it to be (was afraid of gore ) Can’t imagine how it must be to have watched loads of them as so many have been made..
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” it’s hard to like war movies especially those close our times.” I agree.
I do like old war movies, especially British (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger RAF movies), Scandinavian ( into the white ,Flammen & Citronen), Czech (Dark Blue World). They were more elegant, with real air planes shootings.
French movies (L’Armée des Ombres, Le Silence de la mer, Le Dernier métro. Le vieux fusil )
I am not a fan of Dunkirk . I prefer “Expiation” Atonement” with James McAvoy. Where we can see a wonderful 5 minutes’ straight or sequence-shot which required nearly 2,000 figures illustrating the conditions of waiting for evacuation of British soldiers on the beach.
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” Pilgrimage it is rooted in a history that cannot be changed, unless you live in America where they change history a lot (laughs). It’s set in stone according to what the biographers wrote”.
Wishful thinking and quote learned by heart to become convinced to prove that what he is saying is the truth.The errors appear through everywhere, all the time. Biographers or historians who might be closest to the truth? History can changed through the mind of movie directors and poster decorator, so….
And what about fans?
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I found that an interesting comment too! Not just because I’m American 🙂 but because I believe history is ALWAYS to some extent rewritten by power! Perhaps more noticeable with Americans because we’re a relatively young country….? But not unique to us either, lol
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yes — one of the first lessons in historiography (the intro class for becoming a historian).
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Yeah, that was a ridiculous thing to say, particularly considering his familiarity with the Richard III narrative. And the tangential relationship of Pilgrimage to history.
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maybe the less he says about Pilgrimage the better 😉 the thing speaks for itself quite eloquently i think and all the talk around it only tries to make it into what it is not… imho.
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res ipsa loquitor … I am going to start saying that more often.
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ah great, i never knew the latin of the saying 🙂 must remember it
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It had a brief renaissance here a bit over a decade ago when it showed up in one of the Legally Blonde movies. Students started saying it to me out of the blue.
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Funny story – the law school example ( or mine) of res ipsa loquitur has to do with negligence. When the elevator door opens, you walk in – oops – no elevator – splatt!
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Ouch!
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I’m also thrilled by the new timetable because it’s at least “somewhat” more possible for me to even consider…. by then I should be finished with my degree, unless something unusual happens. I would still have to make a “bargain basement’ trip (& win my husband over to the idea as well), but I’m at least potentially more flexible then….
And I’d be happy to see him do anything Shakespeare! Ms. Farber enabled him to create a great performance, and I’m sure he’ll do it again! If he could make Kenneth memorable, Shakespeare is a no-brainer ❤
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It will make it a lot easier for me to swing financially anyway.
I think the thing about Shakespeare is that she won’t have any opportunity to rewrite. She can cut and reinstate scenes that are not often played (e.g., as in Hamlet, where there are often huge cuts and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the complete Hamlet), but she’s not going to be writing blank verse.
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the current one with Scott is nearly the complete one, runs at 3h 45mins and is only about 15 mins at most short of the Branagh filmed one which is supposed to be the complete on at 3h 58 mins (Ken’s timings ;-)) And it is a shame it gets cut the as fuller version makes so much more sense and flows so much better.. i will be very very curious to see how Ken will cut it in his latest directing
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I would assume she’ll take major liberties with the setting, etc. since she wouldn’t with the text. Which is why I think it’s feasible he could do Lear even at 46, since she’s directing.
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Good argument 🙂 My only fear with that, and i guess it’s been my ever increasing fear with time passing, is that it would then close the window on a number of other S roles which would then definitely never come. I’m finding it so hard to let go of that ever diminishing hope…
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he’s never mentioned Lear as an interest.
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Honestly? Mixed feelings here once again. Happy and excited for him and for those who can see him on stage, but, even though another stage role has always been on the cards, I’m not looking forward to another period of months tied up with something unavailable to the wider fandom (although there is compensation in publicity and stage door) ……sorry, sounding like a broken record!! 😉
If it had to be Shakespeare, I would love to see him in a modern version of one of the lighter pieces, like David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing, but maybe for an actor, there’s not the same challenge as getting one’s teeth into a Macbeth or Lear role, and clearly a challenge is what he loves.
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What intrigues me about this news is — IF he’s not doing Oedipus to Antigone this spring, what is he doing instead? Are they going to film Berlin Station 3 in January? Or will something else be on the books that we don’t know about yet?
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There ia an financial times interview she gave in April,which I can’t seem to link to, where she mention tackling King Lear and setting it in the Middle East
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I remember that — but I think he’s too young for Lear.
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A mention of Edmund was made somewhere, is he the bad guy?
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yeah, he’s the main villain.
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I find it interesting that he appears to be her (British) muse! Has anybody asked him or her about that?
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Not to my knowledge. In any case they have certainly wanted to do something together ever since The Crucible. I wonder if it’s a combination of things — he maybe likes her directorial or rehearsal style, he knows she coached a great performance out of him, he’s very directable and easy to work with, he has a built in audience of women?
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I really hope the latter is less of an ingredient, although i realise that might be the case, i’m not sure actually she targets her subjects and directorial style at female audiences, i’d think more likely the opposite or aiming for wider audience. Having seen a lot more of her work i am leaning strongly towards wanting him to work with other directors to stretch him out of his comfort zone. I think he enjoys and feels comfortable with the physical challenge, the visceral approach she has so i would like him to try something different. Or i would like her to try something without rumbling noises, sands, ashes, smells and impulse driven physicality, if that makes sense. Not sure she is willing to step outside of her comfort zone in terms of directorial tools. I absolutely loved her Les Blancs but i am not at all sure she is comfortable with 4h of dense text , with people speaking their thoughts rather than primarily showing them through physicality. Shakespeare i think would certainly be a much bigger challenge for her i think than Richard.
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Physicality is probably in both of their comfort zones. Since seeing the Crucible, I’ve thought he was stronger physically than verbally. Macbeth could be interesting since I am sure he must know the entire play by heart after touring with it so long.
I share your wish that I’d like to see something that isn’t noisy and smoky.
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I agree with you on the physicality… but maybe because on stage we also haven’t see him do something of a different nature. What he have made me say the same as you did, but then i thought.. hang on! All those audiobooks which in some respects are even stronger and more diverse , he can do that! So he can be incredibly strong and subtle with text too, maybe just needs a good director to bring his two excellent skills together. Maybe i am hoping for a performance on stage with the text which would equal the brilliance of his audiobooks. I certainly believe deep down he has it in him, just needs a director to pull it out. And i don’t think it’s her in terms of text but i want him to try because it could make him truly exceptional on stage. And i think he is maybe the kind of actor who needs to be challenged and made to take risks and explore. (and please feel free to tell me to stop if i am going on and on about it too much 🙂 honestly! because internally it’s something that i think of endlessly, every time i go to the theater and come out buzzing i keep fantasizing about him on stage 🙂 )
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I don’t find the (recent) audiobooks as interesting, but maybe I’m not giving him much of a chance. One of the problems of the Love Poems for me was that I felt he was often speaking too quickly.
I have all kinds of fantasies about him — at least theater fantasies are relatively realistic. Like I doubt he’s going fishing w/my dad any time soon 🙂
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Oh, see i had forgotten about those.. mea culpa.. or not. I never really warmed to them. Some poems i didn’t know, what with English not being my first language and all. I found the whole collection a bit iffy. I guess why i never ended up writing anything about it is because i did feel disappointed. I expected the whole thing to be more passionate, involved and it was just well read but not at all interpreted i felt. Maybe he just didn’t put anything of himself into it or didn’t want to get personal or too close or too involved, no idea, but they certainly didn’t really work. Several of his characters were more passionate about love than that. Proctor certainly was 🙂
Romeo and Juliet wasn’t sadly nearly as good as Hamlet. Ophelia was much more credible and easy to warm to than this Juliet and the whole story was not credible. However well read he just couldn’t make the material into what it wasn’t. I know most people don’t like Dickens and neither did i… don’t feel like listening to the Chimes ever again. But DC i felt was very well done, i cried buckets and it really carried me with it in ways i did not expect. I was really sorry when my daily walks with him in my ears ended. So i think there is something there based on that, i would have never read that book without him 😉
But yes the material lately has not really been at the level Hamlet was…
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I feel like given some of the energy that he lent to poems earlier in this career (even if I didn’t always like the poems) we might have expected more given the material was much better. (well, except for Corinthians — they picked a modern translation because it has the word love in it but it kills the rest of the chapter).
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fishing sounds so nice 🙂 mine are sort of work related, i see him in nearly everything that comes my way either on screen on live on production shoots.. sigh! &more 😉
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I wouldn’t really think that since she’s directed at least 3 more pieces since in London where she is rather popular and none of the actors bar 1 i think have repeated. I think she is much more inspired by subjects than actors. Historical pieces about her home country, strong feminist subjects. Though she does manage to bring out the best in the people she works with.
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Yes, I second that. Have seen all her recent London plays. I agree is likely more the subject matter than a particular actor, but I guess being ‘comfortable’ in your work environment is important too, including working with people you know can deliver. Not sure about Shakespeare though. I wonder if he has seen any of her other plays here in London (Salome or Knives inHens), Berlin is not that far away after all.
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i wonder as well.. probably not Knives in hens as so recent but hoping he saw Les Blancs… But who knows, i am trying hard to stay open minded or rather ready to change my mind upon viewing 😉 It’s nice to have fresh take on Shakespeare and there is always more to be said about the plays or different things to be said in fresh new ways. I don’t like to see the plays chopped and altered though (i mean massive changes to the text, not the setting or time periods – don’t mind the latter). I think the Icke/Scott Hamlet is a brilliant example of that 🙂
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Indeed.
I’ll see Hiddlestone in Hamlet (directed by K Branagh) at RADA next week. Really looking forward to it.
I think I’ll miss Emma Rice’s fresher take on S at the Globe going forward, however, I don’t know much about the incoming Artistic Director – again something to keep an open mind on. Although I will become more traditional – as the board desired.
Maybe she’ll just take inspiration from a Shakespeare play and write her thing – just like she did with Wilde’s Salome? I think she mentioned at the NT that Wilde’s play gave her the idea to explore about Salome and what her ‘true’ story was.
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*it will become more traditional again…. not I 🤦♀️ I just love the autocorrect on my iPad 🙄
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That, I kind of hope she doesn’t do. The reviews of Salomé whether positive or negative all indicated that it was ponderous. She seems like more of an adapter than a writer.
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Agreed. Wouldn’t be my favourite approach either.
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nor mine…
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Me too, very curious to see how Kenn’s thoughts on Hamlet have evolved. Should be good i think and i am still very much in Hamlet mood. Will be curious to see what you think. Mine will be in week3.
I think Emma is interesting in her concepts and worth seeing but i think the Globe was not the space for her; the whole point of it was to give people an experience of olden times with unamplified productions etc. Because you can’t get that anywhere else quite like that. The new director i have seen on stage but it will be interesting to see 🙂 Did you know Jamie Parker was also in the running the year they appointed Rice? 🙂 He seems to have stayed very close to the Globe – and i hope will be back on its stage sometime soon.
Yes, that sounds more probably i think with Y and Shakespeare.. but then again he said S and i don’t think he would say that in this case. Sounded to when he spoke about Shakespeare in the past that he meant to do the actual thing.. but who knows, ideas evolve.
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The timing to see Les Blancs would have been right. There was never any indication that he saw it. But he could be in England now and seeing Knives.
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There was a “feared and loved your Africa” Les Blancs tweet to Farber, if I remember correctly. I think he saw it.
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You’re right — I’d forgotten. Apr 28 2016.
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ohh i must have missed that completely…. all those deletions 😦 strange he mentioned fear… i was more appealed and shocked to reality than anything else at the lack of understanding and fear of consequences… Wish he’d have expanded . I would so dearly wish he talked more about plays he has seen and what he thinks of them…
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… and feeling himself thrown back into the Crucible 😉
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Pretty sure he saw Salome in Washington in 2015 (remember the Halloween fang photo with Yael?). I saw it there earlier that fall. Lots to like about the concept and staging but the text itself was indeed painfully ponderous. Same with Nirbhaya.
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good point. I wonder how much the play changed. DC loved it, London was unconvinced.
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Personally, I think (and hope) Macbeth is the most likely bet, followed by Richard III. Both are very intense, dark roles that he is used to playing. He is also, as I have said many times to my friends, the best actor at playing madness I have seen (he absolutely KILLED it in “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” pun intended). That’s why, ultimately, I really want him to get Macbeth. It’s the role he was born to play, and I’ve thought that so many times since watching “The Hobbit.” What he did with Thorin, keeping him sympathetic while being cruel, is essential for a proper incarnation of Macbeth. Again, I think if it’s not Macbeth, it’ll probably be Richard III, but I’d be a little disappointed if he didn’t take on (in my opinion) Shakespeare’s greatest tragic hero. Regarding other plays: I think Othello would be a long shot, as would Hamlet and Lear (the former being a for a younger, man, the latter for an older one), I don’t see Julius Caesar happening and, personally, I don’t think there’s any shot this’ll be a Comedy (I heard he was great in “Love, Love, Love” but I still think that, as an actor, he motivates more toward the meatier, darker parts than the lighter ones). Anyway, those are my thoughts. He said “Shakespearean Thriller” in the one interview, which kind of throws me for one, but I’m still of the mindset that it’ll be one of the first two I mentioned. Anyone, let me know what you think, guess it’ll be below.
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I agree, Macbeth does seem most likely (especially as a “thriller”-?!?), and he has also expressed interest before in doing it. The wild card that makes me think something outside the box might happen is Yael Farber’s involvement – she could very well reinvent elements of the setting and/or characters, as she’s known for. Also, he broke the mold w/Thorin already, since he was so much younger than the character as Tolkien described him. He does have it in him to be the definitive Macbeth, though – and I hope he gets the chance too! (And the Olivier for it!)
Also interesting you mention how he does madness so well – his Dolarhyde was pretty amazing in Hannibal too, & if Bridget Cleary gets off the ground, he will get another run at it playing Michael Cleary (& also producing/directing?)
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Thanks for the comment, and welcome!
I don’t have any special insights, just opinions. I don’t think it’s going to be R3, in part because it’s really hard for me to see what “angle” Yael Farber could take on that. I’d love Macbeth, of course. Given the reception that Julius Caesar got in NYC this summer it’s suddenly considered very contemporary, but in the wake of that production, unless Farber has some very unusual ideas, I imagine people will give it a rest.
re: comedy — he was really funny in LLL, but it was also a very absurdist kind of humor. (And his Ocean’s 8 role is supposed to be comedic as well.) I could see him doing a kind of mistaken identity play like Twelfth Night very easily. Oh, and he’s said that Much Ado About Nothing was a play that made him want to be an actor.
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