Andrew Scott's Elsinore biopic premieres at Telluride — SkimNews
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- Ian Charleson was 40 and terminally ill with AIDS when he replaced Daniel Day-Lewis in Richard Eyre's 1989 National Theatre Hamlet; cast and audience were told his swollen face was from a sinus operation while he was actually suffering septicaemia and enduring acupuncture and chemotherapy.
- The production ran six weeks and is widely regarded as one of the finest Hamlets ever staged; the night after Charleson's final show, Ian McKellen refused the Evening Standard best actor award and gave his statuette to Charleson instead.
- Charleson died on 6 January 1990, eight weeks after closing night, having requested AIDS be recorded as the cause — a notably public act given the era's stigma around the disease.
- Elsinore, directed by Simon Stone with Andrew Scott as Charleson, premieres at Telluride this weekend before opening the London Film Festival in October; critics and insiders are heavily tipping Scott for a best actor Oscar nomination.
- Scott, who played Hamlet 150 times in London in 2017, said Charleson performing while dying was "completely mind-blowing" and stressed the film shows him "trying to live — it's not about fetishising his death."
- Charleson had played Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire (four Oscars including best picture) and appeared in the following year's best picture Gandhi, but his film career never took off and he repeatedly returned to the stage.
Why it matters: The film brings to screen a performance the source says was "never preserved on film," letting audiences and Oscar voters encounter Charleson's final Hamlet through Scott, who insiders are heavily tipping for a best actor nomination after Eyre called his performance "brilliant."
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