Nicole Kidman will play Mrs. Coulter in His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass. Early this morning we received an e-mail from our top New Line source, giving us the green light to confirm the numerous reports today, including ones in the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, that Kidman has officially accepted the role of Mrs. Coulter in Chris Weitz's upcoming movie based on the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.
The news comes after months of advance reporting by The Daily Mail that Kidman was in negotiations for the role, but that disagreements over her fees had held up the process. Reports started appearing on Friday that Kidman and her new husband, Keith Urban, had moved to London so that she could shoot The Golden Compass. New Line was silent on the reports until today. Official confirmation of this story now gives added weight to the rumors that Paul Bettany, also mentioned in the Daily Mail's articles, will play Lord Asriel. Read More.
Addendum: Philip Pullman told the Oxford Mail, “I always hoped she [Nicole] would play Mrs Coulter because of all the wonderful qualities she has as an actress.” Continue reading →
New Line gave us confirmation today that Adam Godley, who has been listed on the Internet Movie Database for the past few days, will indeed voice Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon, in the upcoming movies. Wikipedia informs us that he is a “British actor with an American accent.” Godley's most prominent recent roles have been as Mr Teavee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and as Mr Trench in Love Actually. You can listen to two clips of him as the latter character here and here
Artsmagic finally release in the UK their much delayed Inside His Dark Materials DVD tomorrow, 31st July. The DVD, billed as “a celebratory tribute to Pullman and his books” is an audio-visual documentary about His Dark Materials: its plot, influences and themes. The DVD is roughly broken down into twenty chapters. Each lasts around six minutes, with the documentary clocking in at 120 minutes long. You can read a full review here for now ahead of its release. Continue reading →
A follow-up on the story the Daily Mail reported a while ago, we can reveal that Claire Higgins will take the role of Ma Costa in The Golden Compass movie. Higgins is an accomplished stage actress, having won the prestigious Olivier Award three times in the decade between 1995 and 2005. On screen, she has performed in a few films, mostly playing television roles and appearing in many British staples such as Midsomer Murders, Heartbeat and Silent Witness.
Note: We're less and less sure about this news. See here for the complications, though they were originally voiced below too.
The veteran British character actor, Ian McShane, best known for his part in the Western series “Deadwood” and as Lovejoy, will voice Iorek in the upcoming The Golden Compass movie. McShane's involvement was mentioned in the Washington Post and the article's author revealed to us that the actor will be voicing the King of the Bears. Note: there's a possibility that this means Iofur but Iorek would seem the more obvious role to fill this early on; we're following this up to try to clarify it
You can view a commercial for “Deadwood” which features Ian McShane here: at about 0:36 he says “No one gets out alive.”
