As always some of your favorite British stars are heavily in-demand. We have all the latest rumors that are circling, and can tell you who has signed on for what movie with our latest casting catch up.
In this busy week we feature Idris Elba, Sam Riley, Danny Mays, Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Felicity Jones, Jared Harris, Rufus Sewell, Sacha Baron Cohen and David Oyelowo. See what they are all up to below.
If the rumors are true, in-demand actor and
Luther star
Idris Elba could be a living legend with his next role. According to
flickering myth and their reliable sources Elba is about to sign up to play the former South African President Nelson Mandela in an official biopic about his life that will start filming sometime next year. If true Elba will be following in the footsteps of greats like Morgan Freeman (
Invictus), Sydney Poitier (
Mandela and De Klerk), Terrence Howard (
Winnie) who have all taken on the role before him.
Clive Owen looks set to continue with the action roles, after recently starring in Killer Elite the British actor has now signed up to star in
Recall directed by Harold Becker (
Mercury Rising). According to
Empire it will see Owen taking the role as NSA agent who has lost his memory and is attempting to figure out what happened during a failed plan to rescue some prisoners. As his memory of the events slowly begins to return, he discovers there’s no one he can trust. You can next see Owen in
Intruders out in the US April 2012.
Zen star
Rufus Sewell has joined Bradley Cooper in
Paradise Lost, an action-heavy take on the epic poem centered on the war in heaven between archangels Michael and Lucifer. Directed by Alex Proyas
(Knowing) Sewell will play Samael, Lucifer’s agent who tells him to begin the rebellion in heaven. As well as Cooper, Sewell will star alongside Benjamin Walker, Casey Affleck and Djimon Hounsou in the movie due out late next year.
Hot off the press is the latest rumor about
Helen Mirren.
THR is reporting that the ageless British actress will be joining fellow Brit Anthony Hopkins in
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, a project based on the non-fiction book by Stephen Rebello that tracks how Hitchcock, at the height of his game as a director, decided to make a “lowly” horror movie. Filming is expected to start sometime next year.
Felicty Jones has not been short of work this year, (
Chalet Girl, Like Crazy, Hysteria) and now she is taking even more on. According to the
Daily Mail, the upcoming British actress has been chosen by Ralph Fiennes to portray Charles Dickens’s mistress, Nelly Ternan, in a film about their secret affair. The Dickens movie is called The Invisible Woman and is based on Claire Tomalin’s detailed examination of the relationship between the author and Nelly, which lasted 13 years until the day of his death.
Two bits of casting news in one here! As Neil Jordan’s vampire fantasy thriller
Byzantium, that has just started filming in Ireland, has added both
Sam Riley (
Brighton Rock) and
Daniel Mays (
Dcotor Who) to its cast.
Cinema Blend reports that Riley will play Darvell, a man allegedly caught in the middle of a deadly pact formed between a mother-daughter vampire pair,
Gemma Arterton and
Saoirse Ronan.
Another movie that keeps adding Brits to its cast is Steven Spielberg’s
Lincoln, a biopic about the former US president that will feature
Daniel Day-Lewis. In recent weeks the film has added former
Spooks star
David Oyelowo as a cavalryman and
Jared Harris (
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) will play Ulysses S. Grant, a Union general in the Civil War who later became the 18th President of the United States. Lincoln will be in theaters in 2012.
According to
reports Sacha Baron Cohen is in talks and very close to land a role in King’s Speech director
Tom Hooper’s latest film “Les Miserables”. The actor best known for his comedy roles in
Borat and
Bruno looks set to tackle the role of the main villain in the big screen adaptation of the famous play. Baron Cohen is expected to star as Monsieur Thenardier, who is described as the father of Eponine and Azelma. Along with his wife, he spoils and pampers them as children, before they leave them on the streets.
BRITSCENE
