‘David Copperfield’ Cast Adds Tilda Swinton And Hugh Laurie Alongside Dev Patel
TheDavid Copperfieldcast keeps getting better and better.Tilda SwintonandHugh Laurieare the latest additions to the upcoming Charles Dickens adaptation fromVeepcreatorArmando Iannucci.Dev Patelstars in the project, calledThe Personal History of David Copperfield, which updates Dickens' tale to modern times.
Everything about this new adaptation ofDavid Copperfiledsounds pretty damn great. Armando Iannucci, creator ofVeepand director of the hysterically funnyThe Death of Stalin, is directing. Dev Patel is starring. And now, Tilda Swinton, who is great in everything, and Hugh Laurie, who is also great in everything, have joined the cast as well, according toVariety. The cast also includesAneurin Barnard,Ben Whishaw,Morfydd Clark,Anthony Welsh, andRosalind Eleaza.
There’s no word on who Swinton and Laurie are playing, but Patel is playing David Copperfield, who “navigates a chaotic world to find his elusive place within it.” Dicken’sDavid Copperfieldwas first published in 1850. It was Dickens' eighth novel, and was regarded by the author as the favorite of his books. Here’s the synopsis of the novel, from the Penguin Classic edition:
David Copperfieldis the novel Dickens regarded as his ‘favourite child’ and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters are David’s tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy, school-friend Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the magnificently impecunious Micawber, one of literature’s great comic creations.
Iannucci’s take will update the story to the present day, so imagine all that stuff from the synopsis above but with cellphones and Twitter, I guess. Iannucci wrote the script forThe Personal History of David CopperfieldwithSimon Blackwell, and theVeepcreator has been hoping to make the film since at least 2015. When Iannucci’sCopperfieldwas first announced, Christine Langan, head of BBC Films,said:
“It’s an amazing story and Armando Iannucci is hugely passionate about it. He has a very fresh way of tackling it. He is a Dickens aficionado, so he wants it to be very authentic but it will have his own sensitivity.”
When asked about the project last year, Iannuccisaid:
“I’m going to be very true to the spirit of the book and use as much of Dickens' dialogue as possible, but I want it to feel very contemporary.”
