"David Hare told me it had taken ten years to assemble the production, which will run at Wyndham’s Theatre from June 6 for just 11 weeks."
just because of that kind of dedication... copying this article entirely on this blog...
(From the Daily Mail online)
BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Why Bill Nighy chose Carey Mulligan over cappuccino
Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy are to play former lovers in a West End revival of David Hare’s Skylight, directed by Stephen Daldry.
This looks set to be classy theatre at its best. The play concerns Kyra Hollis, a teacher living a thread- bare existence in North-West London, who is briefly reunited with Tom Sergeant, her much older ex, a restaurant entrepreneur. They were once united, but are now divided on just about every issue: class, politics, sex, privacy and money.
Matthew Beard, who played opposite Carey in the films When Did You Last See Your Father? and An Education, plays her lover’s son.
David Hare told me it had taken ten years to assemble the production, which will run at Wyndham’s Theatre from June 6 for just 11 weeks.
Nighy, who’s so cool he’s like a rock ’n’ roll star, played Tom in an earlier revival, and he and Hare have long been eager to give it another go.
All manner of producers came after the rights and offered their own suggestions about who would play the leads. But Hare refused all overtures, arguing that it was difficult to find actors of the calibre of Michael Gambon (the original Tom) and Nighy to be in the play.
‘It’s too important to me to have it messed up,’ he said. He added that plenty of actresses had suggested themselves to play Kyra, but none were suitable.
Several years ago, Nicole Kidman wanted to do a film version, but Hare said no again, because he believes that screen versions of plays don’t work.
He got as far as discussing dates with Kate Winslet. ‘She would have been perfect,’ he said. ‘But she could only do four weeks because she wanted to be with her children.’
The playwright saw Carey play Nina in The Seagull and believed then that she would make a formidable Kyra. ‘She’s incredible on stage,’ he said, and went on to laud her powerful supporting performance on screen, opposite Oscar Isaac, in the much underrated Coen brothers’ gem Inside Llewyn Davis.
Several big-name directors were after Skylight, too. Hare said ‘one jealous director’ heard about Daldry’s involvement and hissed: ‘Tell him to check his brakes.’
Nighy, who was in London on a short break from filming The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 2 with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith in India, said that his decision to do Skylight a second time ‘is an odd thing’.
‘I could be sitting on a film set with people bringing me cappuccinos,’ he said. ‘But this is a role that I like and a play that I love.’
He called Skylight ‘funny, accessible and romantic’, adding that he enjoyed how it delved into aspects of civic responsibility.
That’s one of the reasons I like it, too.
Nighy labelled himself ‘reckless’ for staying away from the stage for so long. He last trod the boards in Hare’s The Vertical Hour on Broadway nine years ago, and said he’d love to do Skylight in New York, if everybody was agreeable.
It’s hard to say when a Broadway transfer could happen, because Daldry, Mulligan and Nighy have pretty full dance cards.
Carey is rehearsing Sarah Gavron’s film Suffragette with Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Marie Duff and Brendan Gleeson, with filming due to start in ten days. Then she goes directly to work on Skylight.
I’m very excited to see her play Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Vinterberg’s film of Far From The Madding Crowd, expected to be out in the autumn. ‘I have been looking for a play to do for such a long time,’ Carey exclaimed when we met. ‘And now I have found it.’
Skylight will be her official West End stage debut, because she did The Seagull at the Royal Court and on Broadway.
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