Mike Newell – who directed Enchanted April, Four Weddings and A Funeral and Donnie Brasco, among others — is currently working on a version of Great Expectations, with Helena Bonham Carter playing Miss Havisham. Mighty fine casting. Deadline reports:
[HBC] is playing Miss Havisham at the same age she is in Dickens novel — previous incarnations by Charlotte Rampling, Anne Bancroft and, most memorably, Martita Hunt in David Lean’s version played her much older.
You know, back in the day, “spinster” was any unmarried lady over 25. But apparently Dickens wrote the character as a woman in her mid-fifties. (HBC is 45.) In any case! Miss Havisham is one of the most iconic characters ever created, and if any actress can channel the weird, wicked, heartbroken, bitter, broken-inside lady jilted at the altar, it’s HBC the HBiC.
First Look: Helena Bonham Carter As Miss Havisham In ‘Great Expectations’ [Deadline London]
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