First image of Hopkins in ‘King Lear’
THE BBC has distributed a first photograph of British actor Anthony Hopkins as King Lear, tragic hero of the Shakespearean play in a television movie due to debut this spring. Hopkins appears as a tormented King Lear facing a young Florence Pugh (who gave an award-winning performance in 2016 film adaptation “Lady Macbeth”), who plays his youngest daughter, Cordelia. Taking the famous Shakespeare play and setting it in a fictional present day, the iconic King Lear will be portrayed as the leader of a military dictatorship. In Shakespeare’s original play, itself inspired by the legend of Celtic king Leir (and an earlier comedy based on that story), the King sinks slowly into madness after splitting his kingdom between his three daughters, with the divisions based on how much they loved him — or, as it turns out, how well they had deceived him with flattery.
Among those co-starring in the BBC Two film will be Emma Thompson (“Beauty and the Beast”), Emily Watson (“Genius”), Jim Broadbent (“Paddington 2”), Andrew Scott (“Sherlock”), Tobias Menzies (“Outlander”) and Christopher Eccleston (“Doctor Who”).
It is directed by Richard Eyre of Judi Dench films “Iris” and “Notes on a Scandal,” as well as 2015 Hopkins and Emily Watson project “The Dresser” and 2017’s Emma Thompson drama “The Children Act.”
Amazon is co-producing and acting as distributor in the US and elsewhere. — Relaxnews