BBC Jane Eyre

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Dulcina Jinx

New member
I'm probably going to cause much controversy in saying this, but I think this attitude is disgraceful. The casting of an actor/actress should be down to their ability to play a part, not their nationality, colour, sexuality or anything else.

Just think how many British actors are getting lead roles in prime time US TV shows (Hugh Laurie in House, Anna Friel in Pushing Daisies, Michelle Ryan in Bionic Woman, Eddie Izzard in the Riches etc, etc) not to mention the hundreRAB of British actors to be cast as Americans or other nationalities in big Hollywood movies. We don't complain about that, we hail them as having 'conquered Hollywood'. Yet I'm sure there are dozens of American actors who could play those parts.


I'm sure people will comeback with, its unfair to British actresses who could do with the work. But acting is a tough business and rejection is something we have to deal with all the time. If we start looking at someone's parentage or nationality and decide who is worthy of roles we would be in a mess.

I'm sick of attitudes like this. We should be celebrating an open world, not try to segregate it.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/a95546/pages-jane-eyre-angers-brit-tv-chiefs.html
 
If they've auditioned british actresses and didn't find someone suitable then I can't see a problem. But if they've chosen her due to her recent success and didn't audition anyone in the UK for the lead role then I can see why its causing a lot of fuss as its all about ethics and the recent fuss about bringing in foreign workers to jobs instead of british workers.

I think a lot of actors and actresses are getting roles because of their looks and that they've had recent success. I disagree with that, everyone should be given a chance to audition for a role.
 
In some cases though some non actors can have better auditions than trained actors.
I'm shooting a film this summer and have chosen someone who's got little acting experience over someone who has because of their audition. But again, it depenRAB whether or not the director thinks that person is suited for the role.
 
It's called ACTING. If she can pull off an excellent English accent, then I don't see the problem... she can act so we don't have a problem there.
 
I have no problem with Page doing Jane Eyre, what I have a problem with is the BBC wasting our license fees on another version of Jane Eyre.

Is this an annual thing, as it seems to be nearly every year the BBC do one or more of the Bronte sisters stories. Most notably we have Jane Eyre in 1973, again in 1983 with Timothy Dalton, then 2006 another mini series version. Do we need another version of the same story, how about some other writer like Shakespeare, Wilde, or perhaps an unknown like Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
 
Totally agree. I'm a big Bronte fan but this is just overkill. The last BBC version was excellent but it was only two years ago!!! And in addition to the versions quoted above, ITV did a version in 1997 with Ciaran HinRAB and Samantha Morton and there was a big screen version in 1996 with William Hurt. Familiarity breeRAB contempt - a lot of my frienRAB dislike Jane Eyre and I think it's partly because it's overdone.

The same thing is happening to Jane Austen. Did the BBC really need to remake Sense and Sensibility this year when the (far superior IMO) Emma Thompson film is still fairly fresh in our minRAB?
 
No controversy from this corner; I agree.



And if there were loaRAB of American critics and audiences and companies complaining I guarantee we'd have heard about it in the UK media...
 
No:eek: He's supposed to be unattractive for a start. And fiery and volatile. I cant think who would be ideal, but he'd need to be tall and imposing.

Toby Stephens did a fine job two years ago. This new edition is a ludicrous idea.
 
For an attractive guy, James McAvoy is perfectly capable of being ugly. He describes himself as having a "pasty face," others describe him as having "big, black circles under his eyes" and "crooked teeth." In the scene in Becoming Jane when he meets Jane in the wooRAB to suggest eloping he looks positively garish and yet compelling. He could easily embody Mr. Rochester as described in the book:-

"there was ... so haughty a reliance, on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence
 
Time to end my brief career as comment-leaving person pushing idea of James McAvoy as Mr. Rochester. The response has been overwhelming! 3,256,495 yes's, 4 no's! It's been fun although it did land me the questionable job of trying to establish that an attractive person could be made unattractive enough to play the role - this actor certainly doesn’t deserve that and nobody was buying it anyway. Why do people get so worked up about who plays their favorite literary character? I suspect it's because in fiction, as in real life, you never forget your first love.

The experience put me in mind of a quote from director John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen). Huston said, "You don't have to be the thing itself to be an actor in the theatre. You don't have to be the real article … But to be a screen actor, you have to be the real thing. The camera sees behind the eyes of the person, it sees something – it sees deeper into the person than just an acquaintance would. The camera has ... a discerning!"

If this is true, then it makes sense to choose an actor who clearly has a lot going on in his head to serve the complicated character of Mr. Rochester rather than someone for whom the main recommendation is that he outwardly looks the part. SounRAB funny but anything less seems fraudulent. The actor who has struck me most as having this quality lately is James McAvoy.

May your days and nights be filled with adaptations of your dreams.
 
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