Mark Rylance has bagged the title role in Steven Spielberg’s live-action adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s novel, The BFG.
Described as one of the finest and inspirational Shakespearian actors of our time, Rylance has spent more time on stage over the last few years — earning a trio of prestigious Tony awards in the process. In fact, the English actor has also signed on to star in Spielberg’s as-yet-untitled Cold War drama, which the director is working on concurrently with this latest project
Getting back to the realm of human beans and man-eating giants, however, Spielberg offered a statement to go along with today’s announcement, saying that Rylance is the perfect fit to play the big friendly giant.
“As I witnessed on stage, Mark Rylance is a transformational actor. I am excited and thrilled that Mark will be making this journey with us to Giant Country. Everything about his career so far is about making the courageous choice and I’m honored he has chosen The BFG as his next big screen performance.”
Based on the 1982 novel of the same name, The BFG follows Sophie, a young girl who finds an unusual and indeed gigantic friend one night who brings her into a world populated by, you guessed it, giants. But it’s not all candy canes and rainbows, as Sophie must convince the Queen of England to help prevent any of the more malevolent giants roaming into the human world and eating people at will.
Steven Spielberg’s take on The BFG will whizzpop its way to theatres on July 1st, 2016. In the meantime, you can check out the official synopsis for DreamWorks’ title down below.
Captured by a giant!
The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It’s lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, or any of the other giants—rather than the BFG—she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that the giants are flush-bunking off to England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!
Published: Oct 27, 2014 12:49 pm