A few hours after the announcement of Luke Evans as Gaston, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively reports who the Beast will be:
Dan Stevens, the breakout actor of Downton Abbey and last year's cult action movie The Guest, is in negotiations to play the Beast/Prince in Disney's live-action retelling of Beauty and the Beast, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Stevens will join Emma Watson, who is playing Belle, the "Beauty" in the title, while Luke Evans is in talks to play the vain villain Gaston.
Bill Condon is directing what is turning out so far to be an all-British cast production while David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are producing.
Beauty continues Disney's plan of taking some of its animated classics and brushing them up for a 21st century live-action makeover. Cinderella, which also features mostly British leads, is the latest — it opens March 13 — and it's generating great reviews.
Last year's Maleficent was a live-action take on Sleeping Beauty and made $758.4 million worldwide.
Beauty, a French fairy tale, tells of a young woman who takes her father's place as a prisoner in a monstrous being's castle, only to fall in love with the creature, who turns out to be a prince.
While the studio has not confirmed if the retelling is a musical, when Watson was cast in January, she implied it was in a Facebook post: "It was such a big part of my growing up, it almost feels surreal that I'll get to dance to 'Be Our Guest' and sing 'Something There.' ... Time to start some singing lessons."
The highly sought-after role will be a big get for Stevens, who last starred in The Guest, Adam Wingard's action thriller, and has been working in supporting roles in such movies as Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and A Walk Among the Tombstones.
He is repped by WME, Julian Belfrage Associates, and Peikoff Mahan.
Could not be more happy that this man will be Beast!!! Welcome aboard @thatdanstevens #beautyandthebeast pic.twitter.com/F1ghG3pvcU
— Emma Watson (@EmWatson) March 5, 2015
3 comments:
Wonderful news - I adore Dan Stevens and for the first time I am so jealous of Emma - I am sure though that they will make a lovely couple and I can't wait for the film to come out.
I was felt jubilee about the prospect of Ryan Gosling playing the Beast. I like Dan Stevens though, and he is a good actor. The Brits have good actors, I think because of their training they receive in Theater. I saw Grint in Mojo and Its just a play on Broadway. He got better and better. This is great training for him. But back to Emma. This will be a great film. I am looking forward to it. Is their any word on Queen of Tearling? Emma will only be able to do the film if the Glynn Queen gets older in the books, which is not impossible. The fictional Glynn Queen reminds me historically of Queen Elizabeth (Tudor). This was just a quick connection I made reading the book. If the Glynn queen gets older, then Emma could still play the queen. If not, that would be a strange role for her to play at 25 and 26. But Hey, I enjoy all her work.
I think the last time she mentioned TQoTT was a year ago, in her Wonderland magazine interview. There's been no news since then, and no date of filming. Her playing the lead is everywhere though, including the sticker on the book when you buy it, so it's really doubtful she won't be in it, no matter her age.
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