A little bit of the past coming up, with a screening of THE LION IN WINTER at The Magic Lantern Cinema in Ketchum, Idaho…next door to Sun Valley! This will be on September 18th for the start of the Film Festival, being held there that week. They have kindly invited me to come along and chat a bit about the film, the making of it and take a few questions afterwards. I am happy…I love talking about the film, the most important in my career and one of the happiest of experiences. Of course, being an actor I am always happy to talk about myself…we actors all like to show off. This is a lovely treat to look forward to. Next year is the 50th anniversary of the making of the film and rumour has it, more is planned. Sadly a few of us have gone now…but Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, John Castle and I still stagger on, so maybe the odd reunion will be on the cards!
And talking of reunions, brings me nicely to the now and indeed – I hope – the future. I have optioned a play REUNION, from the award winning writer John Caine, which started life as a stage play in London a couple of years ago. It is a wonderful script, a “right to die” story, a love story, a story about love and loss, something we are all familiar with. I hope, plan to make a movie of it as soon as possible and to that end and as a start, I will do a reading of the play at the nexStage Theatre, also in Ketchum, a wonderful theatre, which stages plays and readings among other things. This is on September 7th, if you happen to be around! There is a strong cultural community in Sun Valley and Ketchum and I hope that this reading for an audience will generate interest and talk about the play, all helpful when trying to get a movie funded.
I have developed and made a few independent films now and it is always hard work and the bigger the project the harder it is. Bigger budgets mean more involvement with all the great and the good, who are those people you never see, the agents, the managers, the studios, the distributors etc. I have dipped my toe into Hollywood and it is very hard going. REUNION will be a relatively small film, but there is an extraordinary part for the leading man (I plan to play the woman….why else would I do all this?) Names don’t come cheap and we also need a first rate experienced Director…so I did think long and hard before committing myself to trying to make another feature. So…here I go…on that road again…wish me well friends…we will need all the luck we can get. The reading is a first step:
Comment from that great man of our industry Quincy Jones :
“when fame and money enter the room, God walks out the door”
That says it all about our business…..
