Julie Taymor casts Helen Mirren as male in The Tempest

Love her or hate her, Julie Taymor, director of Across the Universe and Frida, has long been one of the few female filmmakers in Hollywood who has taken the industry by its throat and used it to her own ends. Even when that doesn’t necessarily sit well with major studios, she usually gets her way. So when, on her new film adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, she decided she wanted to cast Helen Mirren in the lead role of Prospero—a man—that’s precisely what she did.

Make that “Prospera.” The cast will also include Jeremy Irons, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Ben Whishaw and—in possibly cooler news than Mirren—Djimon Hounsou as Caliban. The play is technically one of Shakespeare’s comedies, but with its fraught racial politics and dark ruminations on patriarchal (perhaps now matriarchal?) social structures, there seems little question Taymor’s movie will not be all that lighthearted.

Taymor previously directed a rogue, stylized version of Titus, based on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and a short filmed stage version of The Tempest in 1986. The new film, scheduled for release next year, will mark Taymor’s return to her more customary old-school material after a string of original projects.

Related links:
Paste's Arthouse Powerhouse 100
Julie Taymor biography on IMDb
YouTube: Helen Mirren's Oscar win for The Queen

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