First Look At Anthony Hopkins As King Lear

The BBC and Amazon Studios has shared the first look image of their adaptation of King Lear. Acting royalty  Anthony Hopkins is set to play the titular leader alongside Emma Thompson.

The movie will mark the pair’s first collaboration since they starred in Remains Of The Day in 1993. Award-winning director Richard Eyre ’s will direct this adaptation of King Lear.He has also gathered a fantastic cast to Hopkins and Thompson.

What we know about this version of the popular Shakespearian play, is that it will be set in present time. This is not the first time one of Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted to modern time, with Ralph Fiennes Coriolanus been the last.

Set in the fictional present, King Lear sees Academy® Award winner Anthony Hopkins (The Dresser, Nixon, Silence of the Lambs) as the eponymous ruler, presiding over a totalitarian military dictatorship in England.

Thompson will play Lear’s oldest daughter Goneril with Emily Watson stars as his middle daughter Regan, and Florence Pugh the youngest of Lear’s children.

Other cast includes Jim Broadbent as the Earl of Gloucester, with Andrew Scott as his loyal son Edgar and John Macmillan as his illegitimate son Edmund.

Next to them will be Jim Carter as the Earl of Kent, with Christopher Eccleston as Oswald, and Tobias Menzies as the Duke of Cornwall. Anthony Calf plays the Duke of Albany and Karl Johnson is Lear’s loyal jester the Fool.

King Lear will premiere on BBC Two this Spring with Amazon Prime Video screening the drama not long after it’s aired.