Famous Faces, Look-Alike Stars: The Biopic Dilemma
source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114036730
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Everyone knows what Lawrence of Arabia looks like. He looks like Peter O'Toole. Just as Cleopatra looks like Elizabeth Taylor, and the King of Siam looks like Yul Brynner.
Any actual resemblance there, of course, is strictly irrelevant. So when the producers of Amelia boast that their star looks so much like Amelia Earhart that they were able to use 1930s newsreel footage at one point rather than shooting a new scene, you think, "Well, cool, but ... so?" It's lucky casting, certainly. But since when are filmmakers sticklers for authenticity?
On TV's The Tudors, for instance, even this season's aging Henry VIII — we're well beyond the Anne Boleyn years now — isn't the fat, goitered, thin-lipped king we know from his mature portraits. He's the pouty, still-athletic Jonathan Rhys Meyers with a crew cut — easier on the eyes, presumably, as he's bedding those six wives.
Or consider Julia Child. In this summer's Julie and Julia, the hair was right, and 5-foot-6 star Meryl Streep was wearing platform heels to approximate the physical presence of the 6-foot-2 chef. But Streep didn't opt for fleshy prosthetics on cheek and chin. Instead, she nailed the bubbly, plummy voice.
Streep had an advantage: Director Nora Ephron didn't make her compete visually with a shot of the real Julia Child. But films about other famous figures have lately taken to actively bragging about how true to life they are. Audiences sat transfixed through the end credits of the movie Milk last year, as photos of the real people who had worked with gay activist Harvey Milk were matched with the actors who played them. It was as though the filmmakers had found virtual twins, some 30 years after the tragic events portrayed in the film.
A similar impulse seems to have driven the makers of a new soccer-rivalry movie, The Damned United. In this country, we don't know feuding coaches Brian Clough and Don Revie, but in Britain, they're downright legendary. And again, they've nearly been twinned.
Any actual resemblance there, of course, is strictly irrelevant. So when the producers of Amelia boast that their star looks so much like Amelia Earhart that they were able to use 1930s newsreel footage at one point rather than shooting a new scene, you think, "Well, cool, but ... so?" It's lucky casting, certainly. But since when are filmmakers sticklers for authenticity?
On TV's The Tudors, for instance, even this season's aging Henry VIII — we're well beyond the Anne Boleyn years now — isn't the fat, goitered, thin-lipped king we know from his mature portraits. He's the pouty, still-athletic Jonathan Rhys Meyers with a crew cut — easier on the eyes, presumably, as he's bedding those six wives.
Or consider Julia Child. In this summer's Julie and Julia, the hair was right, and 5-foot-6 star Meryl Streep was wearing platform heels to approximate the physical presence of the 6-foot-2 chef. But Streep didn't opt for fleshy prosthetics on cheek and chin. Instead, she nailed the bubbly, plummy voice.
Streep had an advantage: Director Nora Ephron didn't make her compete visually with a shot of the real Julia Child. But films about other famous figures have lately taken to actively bragging about how true to life they are. Audiences sat transfixed through the end credits of the movie Milk last year, as photos of the real people who had worked with gay activist Harvey Milk were matched with the actors who played them. It was as though the filmmakers had found virtual twins, some 30 years after the tragic events portrayed in the film.
A similar impulse seems to have driven the makers of a new soccer-rivalry movie, The Damned United. In this country, we don't know feuding coaches Brian Clough and Don Revie, but in Britain, they're downright legendary. And again, they've nearly been twinned.
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DanPersons
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Hear director Mira Nair discuss AMELIA on MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST on HuffPost.
- 2 years ago
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DanPersons
