Lily lined up to play the ultimate schemer
ILY JAMES will play evious diva- in- themaking Eve Harrington, who executes a series of Machiavellian moves to surp a larger- than- life roadway actress played by illian Anderson in a stage daptation of the Bette Davis lassic All About Eve. I can reveal that Lily — who tarred in Kenneth Branagh’s creen extravaganza Cinderella, ppeared opposite Gary Oldman in arkest Hour and has the central art in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again — won the part of Eve (Anne Baxer in the 1950 film) after meeting with he director, Belgian theatre artist Ivo van Hove, earlier this month. The show, based on Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s corching satire of Broadway, will go nto rehearsal in early January and begin erformances at the Noel Coward Theatre n February. Gillian Anderson, who won the London Evening tandard’s best actress trophy for her turn as lanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, will et to utter one of the most quoted lines of movie dialogue: ‘Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going o be a bumpy night.’ Initially, Margo Channing, a stage goddess, is naware of Eve’s cunning. After meeting her oung admirer, Margo tells Birdie, her bluntpoken dresser, that Eve is ‘a lamb loose in our ig stone jungle’. But, Birdie is wise to her ways. ‘What a story!’ he says, scornfully, after hearing Eve’s tragic istory. ‘Everything but the bloodhounds nappin’ at her rear end.’ And as much as the story appears to be about ve, it’s really all about Margo. Writing about the lm in the New York Times, Mel Gussow observed hat the movie’s ‘a salute to the indomitability of ctresses like Bette Davis’. Director van Hove and producers at Sonia riedman Productions and Fox Theatricals are meeting with actors for another important role: uthless theatre columnist Addison DeWitt, layed by George Sanders on screen.