Ronan, Macfadyen and Williams Reunite for Joe Wright's 'Anna Karenina'
Filming is set to begin in September on the Tolstoy classic
Joe Wright is already prepared to reunite with his Pride and Prejudice and Atonement star Keira Knightley as she'll take on the title role in his upcoming adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Starring alongside her are Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) as Anna's lover, Count Vronsky and Jude Law (The Talented Mr. Ripley) as Anna's husband, Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin. Today The Daily Mail cleared up the rest of the cast and Wright is bringing back several of his previous actors.
To begin, Benedict Cumberbatch was originally slated to appear in the role of Anna's brother, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky, but scheduling conflicts caused him to drop out. As a result Wright has brought on the man that played Mr. Darcy for him in Pride and Prejudice, Matthew Macfadyen. Kelly MacDonald ("Boardwalk Empire"), who was previously cast as Oblonsky's wife Dolly, remains on board in that role.
Also joining the production are Andrea Riseborough (Never Let Me Go) as Princess Betsy, Olivia Williams (who also starred in Wright's Hanna) as Vronsky's mother, Countess Vronskaya, and Domhnall Gleeson (Bill Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) will play Levin. But wait, that's not all.
It was previously rumored Wright was hoping to get his Atonement star Saoirse Ronan (whom he also directed in Hanna) in the film and it appears things have worked out as she'll play Kitty, Dolly's sister.
So it would appear Wright is well on his way back to the period pieces that made him a name in the first place as Tolstoy's 1878 novel has quite a cast. Shooting is set to begin in September in Russia and the UK with a script from Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love), telling the story of the title character who's trapped in a loveless marriage and in the search for a better life manages to only find a more complicated one. As of now, it does not have a distributor.
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The distributor will may be Focus/Universal. Mark.
This will be epic…can you say Oscar?
Oh thank god I dont have to read the book anymore.
You should read the book – it's magnificent and really easy to read, and Tolstoy does stream-of-consciousness for seven major characters, and at one point even a hunting dog. Anna is a bit part and the centre of the story is Levin, who will be played by Gleeson and no doubt marginalised. How can you cram an 850-page tour de force into a two-hour movie? Only by trashing it. But it will probably still be worth seeing.