(Nancy Tartaglione’s article appeared on Deadline Hollywood, 3/19/15; via Pam Green.)
On the Ealing Studios lot, which once played host to Alec Guinness and the Ealing Comedies — and is now the residence of Downton Abbey — Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen have been shooting BBC/Starz’s upcoming The Dresser. This is the adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s classic play that’s produced by Colin Callender’s Playground Entertainment. It’s the first time in many years that a play has been adapted in such a way for television. And it joins the two veteran stars together for the first time. It will air on BBC Two this year and on Starz in 2016.
Callender tells me it is likely the first project of a six-part series of single dramas that Playground is developing for television that he will produce with Sonia Friedman. I was on The Dresser set last week, speaking with the principals on such diverse topics as Hopkins’ distaste for theater acting thanks to “tyrannical directors” and McKellen’s belief that some television is currently “in the doldrums.”
http://deadline.com/2015/03/anthony-hopkins-ian-mckellen-the-dresser-set-1201395026/