simon russell beale hamlet

Hamlet is played by Simon Russell Beale. He spent his early years abroad as his father was Surgeon General to the British Army (his mother is also a doctor), but aged 8 was relocated to England and became a pupil at St Paul's Cathedral School. But then John Caird, who had directed Russell Beale so successfully in Candide and Money, stepped into the breach. For a start there are no real villains here; not even the murderous and incestuous Claudius, played by Peter McEnery, is beyond salvation. For the past few years he has been gluing Trevor Nunn's fragile National Theatre ensemble together with a string of notable performances, including, appropriately, the spin doctor Pangloss in Candide, who believes all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. 09/05/2014 | 1 Comment. Many others, including Hamlet's beloved, the innocent Ophelia, are swept up in his tragedy. Some of his most notable movies include Operation Finale, The Death of Stalin, The Legend of Tarzan, Alice in Wonderland, Orlando, among others. Hamlet is played by Simon Russell Beale. Simon Russell Beale is one of Britain’s leading classical actors. It is Russell Beale’s refined and focused portrayal of the Great Dane that sets this production apart, yet as he siphons off the audience’s attention it works to lessen the impact and contribution of a very capable supporting cast. The antagonisms reflected in the dark prince’s personality has made him not only one of the most fascinating creations in all literature, but also one of the most difficult to render convincingly on stage. "I could have held out for Sam, but I knew time was running out for me. Hamlet is the part he has been yearning to play for almost 20 years. Two of the greatest contemporary Hamlets, Simon Russell Beale and Adrian Lester discuss this most celebrated and challenging of roles. Anyone who saw and admired Simon Russell Beale's Hamlet - and that's everyone who saw it, right? Two of the greatest contemporary Hamlets, Simon Russell Beale and Adrian Lester, discuss this most celebrated and challenging of roles. Hamlet is an actor’s rite of passage precisely because it is such a merciless and difficult role. Simon Russell Beale talks about preparing for the daunting role of King Lear at the National Theatre. He is at the epicenter of a living theater that speaks to us in a passionate voice, infusing old truths with new and urgent meaning. More recently, Simon Russell Beale managed Hamlet and King Lear within 14 years of one another. The young prince is driven to the edge of madness by his struggle to understand the situation he finds himself in and to do his duty. They said that he was too old, too fat, too ugly and too gay to play Hamlet. The combination of Beale’s magnetic stage presence with his command of the Shakespearean language propels his Hamlet well beyond the realm of antiquated quotes. The actor is so at home, in fact, that the tiny room even has his picture on the wall. Hamlet continues to be staged regularly, with such actors performing the lead role as Simon Russell Beale, Ben Whishaw, David Tennant, Tom Hiddleston, Angela Winkler, Samuel West, Christopher Eccleston, Maxine Peake, Rory Kinnear, Oscar Isaac, Michael Sheen, Christian Camargo, Andrew Scott, Paapa Essiedu and Michael Urie. He is not going to blow it now. Ever since his landmark performance as Konstantin in Terry Hands's production of … Day Lewis quit the role and hasn't been seen on stage since. Simon Russell Beale tells Lyn Gardner about his greatest ambition. I do feel rather jealous of ballet dancers who get roles created for them. Simon Russell Beale Sir Simon Russell Beale, CBE, was born in Penang, Malaya (now Malaysia), one of the six children of Captain Peter Beale and Julia Beale. Simon Russell Beale is happy. Has won 4 London Evening Standard best actor awards for performances on the London stage- 'Uncle Vanya', 'The Philanthropist', 'The Conformist', and 'Hamlet'. I just feel like the guy ropes have suddenly gone.". Why I shaved my head for Lear. As such, it was only a matter of time before he would have a crack at the “big one.” Many critics feared he would be too old and pudgy to play Hamlet, but Beale proves his skeptics dead wrong with a haunting rendition of the doomed Danish prince that is sure to be a major theatrical milestone. Even so, this is the Hamlet that nearly got away. When the run finally comes to an end next year, he will have achieved a long-cherished ambition, turned 40 and, for the first time in his professional career, will be facing an empty diary. Simon Russell Beale takes up the challenge and runs with it, and the Royal National Theatre’s subdued production provides a perfect vehicle for his acting genius. I miss her desperately and I think of her a lot. Simon Russell Beale has been deliberating the question of being or not being Hamlet for more than a decade. The only props on the dark, candle-lit stage are leather trunks and suitcases that suggest a state of flux as they are continuously being re-shuffled to furnish the changing scenes. The production loses momentum whenever Hamlet leaves the stage, as the happenings only seem relevant when in direct relation to the prince himself. The missing person is his mother, the woman who encouraged him to become an actor and never doubted that her son would one day get to play the role he coveted. To help focus on the domestic aspect of the play, he has toned down the play’s political content, cutting the scenes involving the Norwegian King Fortinbras and his army. Despite his success in the TV version of A Dance to the Music of Time, he is not an obvious TV or film actor, and without work in these two media, he can never expect to earn a great deal; while he would love to work at the Donmar or Almeida, he worries about the mortgage payments on his tiny Pimlico flat. He was cast against body type as Ariel by Sam Mendes in The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Company and was waiting for Mendes to direct him in Hamlet. His family moved around the world with his father, who was Surgeon General to the British Army, before settling down in England when Beale … While his prettier, sexier, thinner contemporaries such as Ralph Fiennes were flitting off to Hollywood in the late eighties and nineties, he went on slogging it out in Stratford, pushing his way out of the "comic actor" box into which he had been shoehorned, and honing his craft as a classical actor. His Richard III, suggested one critic, looked like the "unhappy result of a one-night stand between Père Ubu and Gertrude Stein", who never got over his own villainy. The rest of the actors do an utterly professional job, but their characters lack the psychological complexity to match Hamlet’s. Simon Russell Beale in Hamlet (Photo: Catherine Ashmore) Simon Russell Beale's performance in the title role of the Royal National Theatre production of Hamlet … "I am glad I've already done those more external, cynical roles like Richard III and Iago. Similarly, Hamlet doesn't go instantly insane with grief; he goes to the theatre and chats with his friends. Beale’s Hamlet is at once intelligent and ironic, charming and difficult, as he scurries around the stage with his scraggly beard and greasy hair, overwhelmed by the sorrow of his father’s death. ", The mechanics of grief obviously fascinate Russell Beale and perhaps explain his obsession with Hamlet. When he speaks the line: "that undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns", he will be thinking of her, and when the "sweet prince" grieves for his murdered father, Russell Beale will be experiencing his own grief. But there never was a play like Hamlet for getting under an actor's skin. The man who has spent almost all his professional life within the bosom of either the RSC or the National will suddenly be on his own. The Christian imagery serves to underscore the hypocrisy and double standard by which the characters go about their business, but it also seems to imply that when all is said and done, there is forgiveness to be had. Beale has said that his mother’s death softened his portrayal and made it more romantic, but I suspect that it also served to inspire his ardent performance. Simon Russell Beale: 'Hamlet is a very hospitable role: it will take anything you throw at it.' He has regularly appeared on films and stage in various roles. A few days later, word comes back that Stoppard might indeed be able to oblige. Simon Russell Beale. When Simon Russell Beale steps on stage at the National Theatre next week to fulfil his long-time ambition of playing Hamlet, one crucially important person will be missing. Even when ambition gets the better of Russell Beale, as when he played Edgar to Robert Stephens's swansong Lear at Stratford, his are quirky, watchable mistakes. Several members of his family had careers in medicine. The Tech • 84 Massachusetts Avenue • Suite 483 • Cambridge, Mass. Yet the efforts of Sara Kestelman as the uneasy and alienated Gertrude and Peter Blythe as the as the somewhat pompous Polonius will be remembered alongside Simon Beale’s tour-de-force rendition as one of the great highlights of this theatre season. - will really want to know only one thing: how he did it. But then Mendes went to Hollywood and made American Beauty, and it soon became clear that the one thing he wouldn't be doing this year was directing Hamlet on the South Bank. It's like that idea that all philosophy is a postscript to Plato: you come to realise that all plays are a postscript to Hamlet. "If I'd done it 15 years ago I'd have been much more of a show-off about it," he says freely. "Go on, then," I challenge, "ask him." WITH: Simon Russell Beale (Hamlet), Sylvester Morand (Hamlet's father and Player King), Simon Day (Horatio), Peter McEnery (Claudius), Sara Kestelman (Gertrude), Peter … I hope so. On the night before the first preview, Russell Beale had a vivid dream about his mother. Hamlet is much more uncynical. Beale’s Hamlet is at once intelligent and ironic, charming and difficult, as he scurries around the stage with his scraggly beard and greasy hair, overwhelmed by the sorrow of his father’s death. Every good Beale deserves a favour. Simon Russell Beale takes up the challenge and runs with it, and the Royal National Theatre’s subdued production provides a perfect vehicle for his acting genius. But I now know what they mean. You may not have heard of Simon Russell Beale due to his lack of Hollywood credits, but in England the short and chubby 40 year-old is widely considered to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation. The costumes, inspired by the Italian Renaissance, provide a tinge of color and makes the stage design by Tim Hatley look much like the paintings by Tintoretto or Titian. He told Russell Beale not to wait for him. Russell Beale looks abashed. Hamlet is at the National Theatre, London SE1 (020-7452 3000), from 5 September. Imogen Stubbs plays Ophelia, Jane Lapotaire is Gertrude, and Bob Peck is Claudius. The nightly experience of seeing the ghost of his fictional father walking the battlements proved too much for the actor, troubled as he was by his unresolved relationship with his own dead father, the poet laureate Cecil Day Lewis. This production was originally slated to be directed by Sam Mendes, the man Russell Beale describes as his "professional soulmate" and for whom he has given some of his greatest performances, including an Ariel in The Tempest that was a daring piece of casting against physical type. "I think I will. Imogen Stubbs plays Ophelia, Jane Lapotaire is Gertrude, and Bob Peck is Claudius. But Russell Beale is made of sterner stuff. The possibility of Russell Beale in the role has been talked about for almost a decade but never came to fruition. The plays are unabridged and based on The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, published by Penguin Classics. I'm not a dashing Alan Rickman figure who can do Hamlet at 45 and get away with it. Hamlet is Simon Russell Beale, only much more brilliant." "When you lose someone you love," he muses, "life goes on, even though you feel you are losing your marbles." Simon Russell Beale was educated at St Pauls Cathedral Choir School and Clifton College in Bristol. Simon Russell Beale, Actor: The Death of Stalin. Lounging on the sofa of the National Theatre’s interview cubby, the Thames ambling past over his right shoulder, he is entirely at home, writes Matthew Amer. A pause. Polonius is played by Norman Rodway.] "I told her that I loved her," he says happily. Beale’s convincing display of grief may tragically have sprung from a real-life experience: his mother lost her long battle with cancer during the rehearsals of the play. That's what I'd really like - to get Patrick Marber or Tom Stoppard to write a really good part for me.". It is so much to do with being you. Russell Beale admits that there never was a play like Hamlet for making you think about the fundamentals of your relationship with your parents, and that he'd be lying if he said the Day Lewis parallel hadn't crossed his mind. W hen Simon Russell Beale steps on stage at the National Theatre next week to fulfil his long-time ambition of playing Hamlet, one crucially important person will be … "I love Shakespeare but I have a feeling that I shouldn't do any more for a bit. "I kept asking myself would it really matter so much if I didn't." When Daniel Day Lewis was playing Hamlet at the National in the mid eighties he had a breakdown. Even so, this is the Hamlet that nearly got away. At 41, Simon Russell Beale is considered by many to be the leading actor of his generation. Shakespeare's most famous play is one of the greatest stories in the literature of the world. Simon Russell Beale is an English stage and film actor, author and music historian. As we get up to leave the restaurant, he spies Tom Stoppard at a table lunching with the rest of the National board. Beale was born to Lieutenant-General Sir Peter Beale, and Julia Winter in Penang, Malaya, where his father served as a physician, later going on to become Surgeon General of the British Armed Forces. Hamlet is Simon Russell Beale, only much more brilliant.". ", In fact, Caird's romantic sensibility could be the perfect match for Russell Beale's fierce intelligence, and Russell Beale admits that the wait to play the role might prove a bonus. When a classical actor plays Hamlet, a clock starts counting down to his Lear. Yet he believes she is still with him. But I've not had that great wailing moment that I expected to happen. Starring: Simon Russell Beale as 'Hamlet' , Cathryn Bradshaw as 'Ophelia', Sara Kestelman as 'Gertrude, Peter McEnery as 'Claudius' and Denis Quilley as 'Polonius'. Rather than staging an epic battle between good and evil, Caird portrays a dysfunctional family’s bitter struggles. But after years in a frock coat, he is aware that it's time to get out and spread his wings. He was awarded the Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to … She died of cancer in April, just before he went into rehearsal. The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare is a notable series of audio drama presentations of 38 of William Shakespeare's 39 plays.It does not include Edward III, having been only recently accepted as part of the canon.They were released from 1998 onwards on cassette and then on CD. 02139-4300. This promise of redemption is in the spirit of a production that is milder and less damning than most. Excuse me," he says politely, and slips away towards the playwright. "She always said she was certain that I would play Hamlet and that she would be there to see it," recalls Russell Beale, now 39. Presented by the Royal National Theatre of London. Hamlet, Max Beerbohm famously wrote, is ‘a hoop through which every very eminent actor must, sooner or later, jump.’ By the same token King Lear is a mountain up which every very eminent actor must, sooner or later, climb. Simon Russell Beale’s 2000–2001 Hamlet received adulation such as has not been heard since Derek Jacobi took on the role of the Prince of Denmark in 1979. "I am using playing Hamlet as part of my grieving process for my mum. He was first drawn to performance when, at the age of eight, he became a But she won't be. John Cameron’s sacred music gives the production a tint of religiosity, as does the paneled back wall that periodically opens up to let light in through a cross-shaped gap. All this talk of dead parents and dreams might well set alarm bells ringing at the National. I've always been slightly baffled when I've heard actors talk about the wonder of playing Hamlet. Yet it made him wonder yet again why he was so obsessed with the idea of playing Hamlet. No less was heard from reviewers in New York, home to the second group of dangerous theatre critics. Many actors and directors have tried to scale the mountain that is Hamlet, but the road to the top is littered with corpses of some serious talent (Kenneth Branagh and Ralph Fiennes to name a few recent victims). The hard work paid off. In the video Simon Russell Beale mentions having to shave off his hair in preparation for the role and he spoke about this in an interview in The Telegraph with Jasper Rees, which makes for a good read. Perhaps the biggest test will come when he stops playing Hamlet. “What piece of work is a man” exclaims Hamlet, and indeed, what an artist is the actor that can convey the ambivalence of such an intriguing character with ease and authenticity. So Simon Russell Beale, one of our leading Shakespearean actors had to prove them wrong in his fortieth year. While purists may raise their voices in disagreement, the production, which clocks in at three and a half hours, is probably better served by not having a bunch of knickerbocker-clad soldiers storm the stage at the end. "I understood completely," says Russell Beale. He is bright as a button but he is an innocent about the world and playing him is about playing what goes on internally. He was the best, most vivid Edward II and the most repulsive yet vulnerable Thersites in Troilus and Cressida that I've ever seen. Simon Russell Beale is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed talents in British theatre. He has, in the main, stayed in the theatre sometimes playing … I seriously think that this is my last chance of doing Hamlet. He won Best Actor in the Evening Standard Awards for his individual interpretation of Hamlet, and his Ariel in The Tempest was marked by an Olivier Award. Ron Daniels’s contribution is based on his so-called pyjama Hamlet with Mark Rylance in 1984; John Caird directed Simon Russell Beale for the National in 2000; Michael Boyd the artistic director of the RSC tackled the play in 2004 with Toby Stephens. Performing Hamlet contains Jonathan Croall's revealing in-depth interviews with five distinguished actors who have played the Prince this century: Jude Law: 'You get to speak possibly the most beautiful lines about humankind ever given to an actor.' "I never expected it would be so qualitatively different from the experience of playing any other," he says. Tag Archives: Simon Russell Beale. I'm 39. Much of the credit for this must go to John Caird, who has directed the play with a sparseness and simplicity that purposefully frames the brilliant acting. "But it is. "Do you really think I should?" Hamlet through Hoops? Challenge, `` ask him. Hamlet leaves the stage, as the happenings only relevant. 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