Tilda Swinton May Play the White Witch
The Insider Guide from This is London is reporting that British actress Tilda Swinton will play the role of the White Witch in the upcoming The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of the Narnia films. We have received no official comment from Walden Media or Walt Disney Pictures so this casting can’t yet be treated as official.
The article also mentions that James McAvoy, one of the stars of award-winning TV drama State Of Play and TV series Shameless, is rumoured to have been offered the role of Mr. Tumnus.
Pictures of Tilda Swinton
IMDB Filmography of Tilda Swinton
The following article can be found at the Insider’s Guide
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An Ice Day for Tilda
By Baz Bamigboye, Daily Mail
7 May 2004
The part is one of the biggest movie roles of the year – and Tilda Swinton has landed it. She will play the wicked White Witch who rules as the ice queen of Narnia, the fictional land created by C. S. Lewis where it’s always winter but never Christmas, in his classic novel The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.
The movie begins filming later next month in Wellington, New Zealand, at the Weta studios, where most of the special effects for The Lord Of The Rings trilogy were shot.
Andrew Adamson, who directed the Shrek movies, has been overseeing the creation of mammoth sets and computer-generated creatures.
Ms Swinton – so good in Young Adam with Ewan McGregor and opposite Ray Winstone in the heartbreaking The War Zone – won the part against much interest from Hollywood superstars, although contrary to many misleading reports Nicole Kidman was never up for the role.
Ms Swinton will prepare for the White Witch part once she completes her ten-day service on the Cannes Film Festival jury. She’ll watch movies at the festival, along with jury president Quentin Tarantino.
Fans of the C. S. Lewis book will recall that the story concerns four siblings evacuated to the country during World War II, their journey to Narnia, and subsequent meeting with the god-like Aslan the lion.
James McAvoy, one of the stars of award-winning TV drama State Of Play and TV series Shameless, is rumoured to have been offered the role of Mr Tumnus, the Narnian creature who tries to help the children after they stumble into his world via an old wardrobe.
I remember, as a young kid, being so entranced by this image that I thought that I, too, would be transported to a far away land if I walked through our wardrobe.
I didn’t get very far. The film will shoot for several months and will, with any luck, be ready by Christmas 2005.
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