Andrew Scott Debuts 'Elsinore' at Telluride, Eyes Oscar — SkimNews
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- Andrew Scott premiered "Elsinore" at Telluride, portraying Scottish actor Ian Charleson, who died of AIDS in 1990 at age 40 while playing Hamlet at London's National Theatre in what was hailed as one of the finest Hamlets of its generation.
- No openly gay man has ever won the Oscar for best actor, and Scott — previously snubbed by the Academy for "All of Us Strangers" — is positioned as potentially the first, with the piece framing "Elsinore" as "the correction."
- Olivia Colman plays Charleson's doctor in a supporting turn described as her "Maggie Smith era," while Billie Piper delivers a "stealth" performance as a casting director that the review argues could be a supporting actress spoiler if Focus campaigns her.
- Focus Features has minted five best actor winners from biopics over 25 years — Adrien Brody ("The Pianist"), Sean Penn ("Milk"), Matthew McConaughey ("Dallas Buyers Club"), Eddie Redmayne ("The Theory of Everything") and Gary Oldman ("Darkest Hour") — each film a best picture nominee.
- Focus won its first best actress Oscar last winter with Jessie Buckley in "Hamnet," the story of the family loss that inspired "Hamlet," meaning the studio now has a "Hamlet" in the race two years running.
- The film fits the Academy's reliable "actor staring down death" template — citing Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia," McConaughey in "Dallas Buyers Club" and Anthony Hopkins in "The Father" — and the screenplay was designated original by the WGA despite an "idea by Ethan Silverman" credit.
Why it matters: Focus Features has converted five of five biopic best-actor campaigns into wins over 25 years, and every one of those films also landed a best picture nomination — a track record that makes Scott's "Elsinore" launch the most strategically positioned awards play of his career and the clearest test yet of whether the Academy will cross its own threshold by awarding an openly gay best actor.
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