“Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke will play poet Elizabeth Barrett in “Let Me Count the Ways,” with Bjorn Runge directing the love story from a Paula Milne script. Based on a true story, the film will follow the love affair between poet Barrett and playwright Robert Browning.
Damian Jones of DJ Films (“Goodbye Christopher Robin”) and Bankside Films are producing. It is their second collaboration following Amma Asante’s “Belle.” Bankside developed the film as part of its growing production slate. It holds the international sales rights and will introduce the film to buyers for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival.
Clarke is hot property after “Game of Thrones,” and Runge is coming off the success of “The Wife.” BAFTA-winning Milne is one of the U.K.’s leading screenwriters.
Set in the mid-19th century, the film follows Elizabeth as she is living in the family home with her siblings in an affluent part of London. She has gained fame and recognition for her poetry but, weakened by a mysterious illness, lives as a virtual recluse, reliant on laudanum. The youthful, impulsive Robert Browning comes into her life, awakening a passion she had previously only ever written about. But the closer she and Browning get, the more her father fights to keep control over her.
“We are thrilled to be able to bring this most compelling of love stories to the world, and to be able to do so with such a talented team of people both in front and behind the camera is a privilege,” said Bankside’s Stephen Kelliher.
Jones added: “This film is a classic love story which delivers something entirely unexpected and relevant in today’s world, and I am excited to be embarking on this journey with an outstanding team of people.” [Source]
Universal has dated its Paul Feig-directed romantic comedy Last Christmas starring Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding and Emma Thompson for November 8, 2019. That’s ahead a week from its originally announced November 15 date. Deadline broke the news about the project back in June.
Last Christmas is inspired by the hit holiday ballad by the late George Michael and will feature unreleased music by the former Wham co-founder who has sold north of 115 million albums and recorded 10 No. 1 singles throughout his career. Pic was written by Oscar winner Thompson and playwright Bryony Kimmings.
In the movie, Kate (Clarke) harumphs around London, a bundle of bad decisions accompanied by the jangle of bells on her shoes, another irritating consequence from her job as an elf in a year-round Christmas shop. Tom (Golding) seems too good to be true when he walks into her life and starts to see through so many of Kate’s barriers. As London transforms into the most wonderful time of the year, nothing should work for these two.
Last Christmas is produced by Feig and Jessie Henderson for his Feigco Entertainment, by BAFTA winner David Livingstone for Calamity Films, and Thompson.
On November 8, the film now joins releases for Warner Bros’ Doctor Sleep, Lionsgate’s WWII pic Midway and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog.
Don’t underestimate British-centered holiday romantic comedies. Working Title/Universal’s ensemble Love Actually is still a holiday perennial, made for $40M back in 2003, amassing a then global cume of $246.9M. Thompson also starred in that movie. [Source]
Emilia Clarke has conquered her health issues. Now will Daenerys conquer the Seven Kingdoms?
Women all over the world are riding the tiger.
Except Emilia Clarke.
She’s riding the dragon.
The fire-and-ice fantasy world of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” may be set in feudal times, but the heady whoosh of women leaders rising on the show, as it reaches its bloody conclusion, parallels the heady whoosh of women leaders rising around the globe in the last couple of years.
All eyes are now on the fierce four: Daenerys, Cersei, Sansa and Arya. Going into its eighth and final season, the show has offered a primer in how a female leader must act differently than a male leader in a world run predominantly by men — the double standards, the way an action can be perceived in very different ways depending on whether it’s a man or a woman undertaking it.
“The whole show is just a discussion on power,” Clarke tells me in an interview at the Mandarin Oriental before the premiere at Radio City Music Hall. “Because the Iron Throne is representative of complete and consuming power and what that does to someone. It’s fascinating, what I’ve found about the sacrifices that you make and what you get out of it as a result. Ultimately, if you get on the throne, what are you really getting?”
She cites her beautiful and icy Lannister rival, Queen Cersei (played by Lena Headey), who has lost her three children to murder and suicide and driven off Jaime, her brother/lover, who grew disgusted by her rapaciousness.
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In the midst of Game of Thrones, the star behind Daenerys suffered two life-threatening aneurysms: “If I am truly being honest, every minute of every day I thought I was going to die.”
There’s a growing trend among some of the most powerful women in entertainment. Rather than following the traditional celebrity-interview path, stars like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are increasingly deciding to tell their stories on their own terms and in their own words. So it seems fitting that Emilia Clarke—the star of one of the world’s biggest TV shows—should do the same in the weeks leading up to the final season of Game of Thrones.
In a personal essay for The New Yorker, the notoriously private Clarke—who has kept mum about her relationships, and largely spends her time out of the limelight with her non-famous childhood friends—took the occasion of this ending to open up about a dire medical emergency that nearly killed her, just as the biggest opportunity of her life was getting started.
In her essay, Clarke sets the stage for the subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH)—“a life-threatening type of stroke” that caused her to collapse between Seasons 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones—by talking about the stress and strain she felt vaulting from being an unknown to having the spotlight put on her: “I was terrified. Terrified of the attention, terrified of a business I barely understood, terrified of trying to make good on the faith that the creators of Thrones had put in me.” The nudity required of Clarke in the first few seasons of the show left her feeling especially vulnerable: “In the very first episode, I appeared naked, and, from that first press junket onward, I always got the same question: some variation of ‘You play such a strong woman, and yet you take off your clothes. Why?’ In my head, I’d respond, ‘How many men do I need to kill to prove myself?’” she writes.
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Listen: David Remnick interviews Emilia Clarke on The New Yorker Radio Hour
