'Horrible Histories' cast reunite to make film
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E-mail CNTV, September 18, 2015
The life-story of William Shakespeare gets a comedic makeover in "Bill", and it comes from the team behind the popular British TV show, "Horrible Histories". The movie was penned by the screenwriting-acting team, Ben Willbond and Laurence Rickard.
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The life-story of William Shakespeare gets a comedic makeover in "Bill", and it comes from the team behind the popular British TV show, "Horrible Histories". |
Willbond and Rickard are joined by their BAFTA-award winning "Horrible Histories" cast: Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, and Jim Howick - who play 40 characters between them in this latest offering.
"Simply put, it's kind of the story of William Shakespeare's missing year. History knows he was a young father living in Stratford and everyone, obviously, knows he became a playwrighter in London and wrote a few decent works," said Laurence Rickard, screenwriter & actor.
"But between those two, no one knows for sure what happened. It was just a really tantalizing idea for a story to kind of plug that gap with something ridiculous."
For some of the roles the actors had to adopt Spanish accents which, they reveal, were inspired by some famous sportsmen.
"I tried to listen to Rafael Benitez interviews," said Jim Howick, actor.
Howick was referring to the coach of English soccer club, Liverpool. Farnaby, meanwhile, took his inspiration from a Spanish golfer.
"Mine's actually from the late Severiano Ballesteros, because you know Seve, I used to listen to him very often. He was fantastic. So I just think about what Seve would say of his ball landing in a rabbit hole," said Simon Farnaby.
For a small-budget film, it managed to get some big names on board, including star of 'Homeland' and 'Wolf Hall' Damian Lewis and his wife Helen McCrory, who appeared in 'Skyfall' and the 'Harry Potter' films.
As Willbond explains, a bit of gentle persuasion did the trick with McCrory.
"We have a mutual friend, and I'd known this for a while, and I was very cheeky, and I'd asked this mutual friend if she would show Helen the script over Christmas," said Ben Willbond, actor.
"So it's just (like): 'show Helen the script, tell her what it's about so it doesn't get filtered in any way, and let her make up her mind, and we'd love her to play Elizabeth'. And if we can get Helen, it would be the most amazing thing in the world, and she said 'yes.'"
Getting Lewis on board was thanks to his children.
"Damien had been on our wish list, and it'd just been so unlikely, particularly at that time, he'd just started doing 'Wolf Hall' and he'd just been finished doing 'Homeland', which are two huge shows, and basically his children had recruited him. They came to set to see Helen work and basically said, 'Come on Mommy's doing it, you have to be game.' He came in and he was fantastic," Laurence Rickard said.
"Bill" opens in the UK on Friday.
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