Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins admits he has a weakness when it comes to acting: William Shakespeare.
During his long and acclaimed career, Hopkins has appeared in productions of Othello, Antony and Cleopatra and King Lear, yet he’s always had what he calls “an uneasy relationship” with the Bard.
Hopkins had to face his qualms again for the production of The Dresser for Starz. He plays a legendary stage actor in a World War II-era performance of King Lear in a small English regional theater that must endure bombs, sirens and a missing star. His dresser, Norman (Ian McKellen�), must scramble to keep the production alive until the actor returns.
The movie is based on Ronald Harwood’s classic play that hasn’t been adapted for TV in more than 30 years. Emily Watson, Sarah Lancashire and Edward Fox round out the cast.
Although it is being presented in the same format as a made-for-TV movie, executive producer Colin Callender says it is more like the classic days of television when programs like GE Theater and Playhouse 90, where they were made to present a play in as close a manner to a stage production as possible.
“I think that when we went to Ronald Harwood and said we wanted to do this, we said, ‘We don’t want to adapt it for the screen. We actually want to do your play and make it for television.’ And that is indeed a very rare thing to do these days,” Callender says. “It’s just a way of bringing extraordinary writing to the screen, because it gives actors of the stature of Ian and Tony to play roles that frankly aren’t available in the movies anymore.”
The viewer gets to watch as the action, from the backstage chaos to the stage presentation of Shakespeare’s play.