All-star King Lear avenges the Scots for Braveheart humiliation

Published on Saturday 9 August 2008 19:56

IT IS revenge of the most spectacular kind. After years of losing out to Ireland as a movie location, Scotland is on the brink of stealing a star-packed, major Hollywood movie from under the noses of the Irish.

Keira Knightley, Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow have been cast as King Lear's feuding daughters in a $35m adaptation of one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies which is set to be filmed in Scotland.

And to complete the stellar cast, Sir Anthony Hopkins will play the ill-fated old king whose attempts to divide his realm between his children end in bloodshed and mayhem.

The director and producers of the movie, which is due to start filming in the spring, arrive in Scotland tomorrow to examine potential locations. Faye Ward, one of the London-based producers, told Scotland on Sunday: "It's definitely more than a possibility."

If Scotland is confirmed as the main location, it will be a particularly sweet victory for the nation's film industry, because the movie had been widely expected to shoot primarily in Ireland.

The story is set in England in pre-Christian times and the film is being described by its director as "extremely raw and very bloody".

It will include epic battle scenes reminiscent of Mel Gibson's Braveheart – mostly shot in Ireland – and requires dramatic and ancient locations.

"What they are fighting over in King Lear is the land, so the land has got to have a quality to it, which we feel Scotland has," said Ward. "What Scotland gives us is its epicness and its beauty. It's just amazing."

The film's director, Joshua Michael Stern, is due to fly in from the US this week. He will visit potential locations in Skye, the West Highlands, Perthshire and possibly the east of Scotland.

The crew will also be considering numerous castles. "We are going to have a look at all of them," said Ward ambitiously.

She said they were looking for locations that were "unusual", although this would not discount locations used in previous films from consideration.

The picturesque Eilean Donan Castle, which has been a popular choice with filmmakers over the years, and Blackness, which was used in the Mel Gibson version of Hamlet, are both possibilities.

Ward stressed that the crew were also looking at landscapes, such as Glen Coe, that were "very epic and very dramatic… extremely untouched".

The project was initially announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Alongside Hopkins' Lear, Knightley will play his loyal youngest daughter Cordelia, and Paltrow her treacherous sister Regan.

Hopkins won a best actor Oscar as the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs, but he built his reputation with Shakespeare and other period dramas. He played Lear at the National Theatre in London in the mid-1980s.

Knightley has shown a passion for films set in the recent and more distant past, including Atonement, Pride And Prejudice, Pirates Of The Caribbean and King Arthur, in which she played Guinevere.

Paltrow has particular reason to think fondly of Shakespeare, having won a best actress Oscar for Shakespeare In Love.

They have since been joined on the film by Watts, who will play the eldest daughter Goneril. "I guess Mom must've been quite a looker," noted one commentator. But they are not just pretty faces. All four principals are either Oscar winners or nominees.

Stern, whose political satire Swing Vote stars Kevin Costner and opens in the UK next month, said: "The one thing that I'm staying away from is stunt casting. So there won't be the American comedian, but there will be some really great actors playing smaller roles."

Scotland's landscapes and ancient castles have been attracting filmmakers from as far afield as Hollywood and Bollywood ever since David Niven attempted to rally the clans at Glenfinnan in Bonnie Prince Charlie back in the 1940s.

Other notable historical films and their locations include Braveheart (Glen Nevis), Highlander (Eilean Donan, Glen Coe and numerous other places) and Monty Python And The Holy Grail (Glen Coe, Doune Castle and Castle Stalker), all of which remain enormously popular with fans.

A big international production such as King Lear could mean a huge boost for the local economy, as well as a long-term tourist spin-off if the film is a hit.

Ireland famously managed to 'poach' much of the location work for Gibson's Braveheart 14 years ago. The two countries have been in competition for films ever since, with the long-gestating Mary Queen Of Scots project yo-yoing between the two.

Bard in brief

All you need to know about the Tragedy of King Lear

King Lear divides his kingdom between his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. The latter refuses to flatter him and is exiled.

With their father off the throne, Goneril and Regan are less loving, and throw Lear out on to the heath. They have a bust-up over Edmund, bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester.

Lear has a night of madness in a storm, turns up in Dover and is reunited with Cordelia, whose new husband, the King of France, tries to invade Britain, but loses.

Lear and Cordelia are arrested, and evil Edmund orders their execution, but his dad fights and fatally wounds him. Goneril then kills herself, having poisoned her sister.

Lear brings on the dead Cordelia, having killed the servant who hanged her, and then dies.