It’s interesting that after a 50-year acting career, Dustin Hoffman would decide that his directorial debut should be about British retirees, but considering the success of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, perhaps he’s onto something. Based on Ronald Harwood’s play, the film is about Cecily (Pauline Collins), Reggie (Tom Courteney) and Wilfred (Billy Connolly), who are in a home for retired opera singers. Every year, on October 10the, there is a concert to celebrate Verdi’s birthday and they take part. Jean (Maggie Smith), who used to be married to Reggie, arrives at the home and disrupts their equilibrium. She still acts like a diva, but she refuses to sing. Still, the show must go on… and it does. The film is currently due out in the UK on January 4th, 2013.
Billy Connolly Rounds Out Hobbit Cast
The Hobbit may have been shooting for months, but with a year long production schedule, it’s still adding cast members, with the last being Billy Connolly, who Variety reports will play the dwarf Dain Ironfoot.
The character is a mighty dwarf and a cousin of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). Here’s what director Peter Jackson had to say about his final cast member, “We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the staunchest and toughest of Dwarves, than Billy Connolly, the Big Yin himself. With Billy stepping into this role, the cast of The Hobbit is now complete. We can’t wait to see him on the Battlefield!”
Peter Jackson is shooting both The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and its follow-up, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, back-to-back. It isn’t known if Dain Ironfoot will appear in both movies, but it seems likely he will be more prominently featured in the second, The Hobbit: There and Back Again.