Friday, January 15, 2010

Hogg calls and New Year's news


2010 looks like it's going to be a big year for Shakespeare authorship news. Kurt Kreiler's new book continues to make waves in Germany (one of the largest newspapers in Germany, the Suddeutsche Zeitung, earlier this month wrote up a big, favorable review of Kreiler's work); James Shapiro's Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? appears in April; Charles Beauclerk's Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom also appears in April.

And, good or bad or otherwise, it appears that the first big movie about Edward de Vere as Shakespeare is going to be helmed by Hollywood blockbuster director Roland Emmerich.

News arrives today of the first bit of casting for Emmerich's Anonymous -- which is now reportedly working with a $30 million budget and begins shooting in Berlin in March. According to the movie website Collider.com, Emmerich has cast the young British actor Edward Hogg as one of his marquee talents.

Looking over Hogg's resume he certainly doesn't lack for film/television or stage experience. Hogg is best known on screen for his lead role in last year's White Lightnin'. Hogg has also been in productions of Measure for Measure and The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe as well as a turn as the fool in King Lear at the RSC.

Expect a raft of Hogg puns (as in this post's title), especially if Hogg is cast as Edward de Vere -- the blue boar himself.