I find amusing and ironic that a Brit...is portraying Benjamin Franklin...

[SaveElmer]

In a a miniseries about John Adams...

Tom Wilkinson...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0929489/

[Nailzberg]

1. Payback for the Bridget Jones Diary casting

Renee Zellweger? Man that pissed off the Brits.

[billyskank]

2. Happens all the time.

[supernova]

4. BJ was payback for Vivian Leigh in GWTW

:grr: There were no genuine southern actresses in Hollywood then? PFfffft. :P

[supernova]

5. Tom Wilkinson is a great actor

He's another one, I'll sit through an otherwise boring movie just to watch him.

[SaveElmer]

7. Deserves an Oscar nod for Michael Clayton...nt

[supernova]

13. Yes, he does

[Sequoia]

21. Grace Kelly was. She had voice lessons to get rid of the twang.

[MrScorpio]

36. Selznick could have picked Tallulah Bankhead, But he though her too old

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallulah_Bankhead

[Bucky]

8. Interesting that they don't get upset when Gweneth Paltrow does it.

I detect an anti Texas bias.

[Sequoia]

22. Me too, and I'm not Brit. I couldn't even watch the stupid movie.

Renee....not so great.

[Nailzberg]

23. I sat through the whole thing... the g/f influence. But I feigned my enjoyment.

The rest of them were great for their parts, but when you drop the ball on the main character does the rest of the cast matter?

[billyskank]

3. I never heard that actors had to play people of their own nationalities.

:shrug:

[SaveElmer]

6. Well I think the irony...

Is a brit playing someone the brits considered a traitor...by someone americans would have considered an enemy...

Would be like Robert Deniro playing Winston Churchill...

I didn't say it upset me...I think Tom Wilkinson is a great actor...should get a nomination for Michael Clayton as far as I am concerned...

I just thought it was an amusing observation...

[Sequoia]

9. Ben was an Englishman, not born in USA.

I'm missing the irony here.

[SaveElmer]

10. Cute...

However given that Benjamin Franklin was one of the architects of our independence...I think the irony is fairly obvious

[redqueen]

19. He was against that independence...

had to be dragged along the entire way.

:shrug:

[SaveElmer]

37. Uh...no...

Ben Franklin was sent to England in 1764 to represent Pennsylvania's interests there...and was later retained by Georgia, Massachusetts and New Jersey in the same capacity. While there he wrote a number of pro-American treatises and actively opposed the Stamp Act....

In 1774 he obtained letters which indicated that the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchison was encouraging the King to crack down on the colonists militarily..and Franklin sent these letters to those actively opposing what they viewed as tyranny by King George. The Brits got wind of this and hauled Franklin into the House of Commons where he was berated and humiliated for his role in the interception of these letters. By the time he arrived back in America later that year he was fully committed to American Independence...and was in fact, the driving force behind turning the Pennsylvania delegation at the 2nd Continental Congress in favor of independence...

So no...he was not dragged kicking and screaming to independence...

Perhaps you are thinking of John Dickinson

[redqueen]

38. No, not thinking John Dickinson.

It is my understanding his returning to America as a supporter of American Independence was something he was not enthusiastic about.

I've never heard the story about him fostering discontent between the Crown and the Colonies by intercepting and distributing letters. I understood that his presence there was dedicated to reconciling the two so that the Colonies would remain part of the British Empire. Yes, he argued against the Stamp Act, but after a new tax got started in Parliament, that's (as I understand things) when he *finally* gave up working to keep the Colonies under British control, and only then because he knew at that point that war was inevitable.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Pro-American" treatises... I would be grateful if you'd expand on that.

[Nailzberg]

14. Its a hazy little area

He wasn't born in the USA cause there was no USA. He was born in the colonies, so he couldn't be English.
However, he proudly considered himself a Briton under the Crown and was well respected in Europe and the colonies, about up until the Stamp Act. The colonies grievances with the Stamp Act allowed Franklin's enemies to brand him a traitor, and Franklin returned to the colonies.

At least that's how I remember it going in the book.

But the casting is still good. An Englishman today would sound more like a man born in Boston in the 1700s than a modern Bostonian would. Would we cast Ben Affleck and have Franklin say "wicked retarded" all the time?

[Bucky]

11. Wow, but what an awesome cast!

David Morse as Washington (both surprising and fitting), Justin Theroux as John Hancock, Laura Linney as Abagail (tho they may try to play her as more modern than she really was--bet they don't show the incident when Abagail went to a Shakespeare play in London and got upset that a black man was playing the part of Othello).

[SaveElmer]

12. Yeah it does look good...

I'm a fan of Morse...and think that was a great casting choice...

And I think Giamatti will be excellent as well...

[sarge43]

15. Why not? He was a Brit for a fair share of his life. n/t

[qwertyMike]

16. Ralph Laurie

Dr House

and Colin Farrell - OK he's Irish, so am I but Ican't hear even a hint of the brogue

[Kutjara]

20. Hugh Laurie. n/t

[gmoney]

25. He's amazing on House...

I wasn't really familiar with him before, so it really throws me off to hear him speak out of the House character.

[Kutjara]

26. I know him from way back in the UK.

Not personally, of course. He was part of a double act with Stephen Fry (another brilliant comedian, actor, and writer). Have a look on YouTube for "A Bit of Fry & Laurie" and you'll find quite a few sketches from their TV show. I used to love that show.

[gmoney]

28. I'd kind of prefer not to shake the illusion

I have such a tough time suspending disbelief with accents, that I'll just not mess with this one I think.

[Kutjara]

29. I saw an episode of House a few weeks ago...

...in which one of the characters was British, but was being played by an American actor. When he was talking to House, I was amazed the two could keep their accents straight.

I see what you mean though. Because I know Hugh from "Fry & Laurie" and the "Blackadder" series, I find myself listening for any slips when he's playing House. I do the same with Michelle Ryan on "The Bionic Woman." I remember her from playing cockney Zoe Slater in "Eastenders."

[SallyMander]

33. Yeah, i saw an interview with him

It blew my mind! :crazy:

[MonkeyFunk]

17. He's a great actor -

ever seen "In the Bedroom"?

I'd see him play ARETHA Franklin.

[redqueen]

18. Well he was quite the Anglophile...

:shrug:

[Arugula Latte]

24. No matter what we do, we will never be able to atone for the "Burt"/Mary Poppins atrocity.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Kenneth Braghnagh (sp?) did a great FDR.

Warmsprings? Something like that.

[Kutjara]

30. And don't forget Anthony Hopkins as Nixon.

Actually, let's do forget that.

[NoPasaran]

31. Or Ben Kingsley as Gandhi.

[MonkeyFunk]

32. Gandhi was American?!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. You know, I used to be skeptical of that casting...

but then I heard Kingsley is half Indian, and people who actually knew Gandhi said the performance was uncanny.

[sarge43]

35. Actually, that was a good match.

Kingsley's father was Indian, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji. Kingsley's paternal family was from the same Indian state, Gujarat, as Gandhi's. Quite possible the two of them shared a common ancestor or several for that matter.

[CGowen]

39. He had some skeletons in his closet

...

Benjamin Franklin was one of the founding fathers of the United States and spent the years between 1757 and 1775 in London. He was the only man to sign all four documents which effectively established the United States of America, but before that he was the chief representative of the interests of the colonists in the established territories of English America.

He became one of the highest profile mediators in the exploding unrest between Britain and its American colonies. Much of the mediation would have been conducted at the house in Craven Street. He was also and inventor and all round enthusiast for the sciences. There were clearly other strange goings on at the house.

With a recent grant of £3 million 36 Craven Street has been given a complete and authentic makeover. In the course of the building works they found the remains of several human skeletons. Apparently Franklin rented out the bottom of his house to some of the most skilled medical scientists of his day. They carved up cadavers in the basement to get a better understanding of human anatomy.

...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2006/01/30/kurt_barling_subterranean_treasures_feature.shtml

[sarge43]

40. Interesting.

He was a deist, perhaps an agnostic, and a scientist. The religious restriction on anatomy studies probably infuriated him.