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It looks like the rumored remake of My Fair Lady is still full speed ahead. There was a public dispute over who should play the Eliza Doolittle role – a role immortalized by Julie Andrews on the stage and Audrey Hepburn in the film. At first, it looked like a battle royale between Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson. Now it’s looking like An Education’s Carey Mulligan may have the part sewn up. So who, perchance will be able to fill Rex Harrison’s curmudgeon-y shoes as the incredible Prof. Higgins? Why, look no further then Hugh Grant! Yes, apparently Hugh is producers’ top choice to play the role. Part of me wants to rip my hair out. Part of me thinks it might be awesome.
Although his name scarcely has the lustre of Sir Rex Harrison, Hugh Grant is the surprise front-runner to play Henry Higgins in Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s remake of the classic film My Fair Lady.
“He can’t sing, but then neither could Rex,” whispers my man with the clapperboard. He adds that Emma Thompson, who has written the screenplay and is a pal of Grant, fought his corner with John Madden, the director.
The casting of Grant – potentially playing opposite Carey Mulligan as Eliza Doolittle, although the actress has still to sign a contract – is likely to be regarded as a safe, if uninspiring, move within the industry.
“It is starting to sound a bit like the sort of film the BBC would make,” one producer tells me. “They could have been a lot more daring.”
Patrick Garland, who directed Sir Rex on Broadway in My Fair Lady, says he has been “intrigued” by the Chichester Festival Theatre’s casting of Rupert Everett as Higgins in its production of Pygmalion – upon which the musical is based – this summer.
“I’ll be very interested to see how Everett interprets the part,” the distinguished director says. “I’m sure Grant will be fine in the film, but it will take a very big character indeed to banish Rex’s ghost.”
Grant’s involvement in a film ought never be taken as read, however. In 2008, I disclosed that he had withdrawn from his last British project, Lost for Words, of which Richard Curtis was the executive director. The actor was said to be unhappy with the script.
[From The Telegraph]
Now, I do think it’s incredibly dull to remake this film, as I’ve said before. It would be like remaking The Sound of Music, or From Here to Eternity. Yes, Audrey’s voice is weak and dubbed in the film, but it’s still a f-cking Oscar-winning classic. That being said, if you’re going to remake a classic, I guess Hugh and Carey are who you’d want. I’m kind of hoping Keira comes back though. She would flirt more with Hugh, I think. And he needs someone to flirt with him. Or else he has a temper tantrum.
Written by Kaiser
Posted in Carey Mulligan, Hugh Grant
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18 Responses to “Will Hugh Grant play Prof. Henry Higgins in ‘My Fair Lady’ remake?”
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Oh, please! Why why WHY?
Do HW producers hate us/me?
Why can’t they write an original script and leave those classic masterpieces alone?
I still remember the remake of Sabrina… a nightmare, crappy as hell.
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He’d be PERFECT! However, nothing will beat the original, classic version.
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If Kelsey Grammer doesn’t replace Hugh, there’s no way I’m watching the movie. He was born to play that!
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Total agree that theres no need to remake this film as it is what it is and everyone will always watch the original over the remake but if they have to do it then I think Hugh Jackman would rock the role but thats just lil’ ol’ me!
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YAY Hugh Grant!!!!!
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Well, at least we know how Hugh will play the role . . . as a stuttering, bumbling, nervous, silly little man who blinks his eyes all the time and never stops moving. It’s the only way he knows how to act.
I really don’t understand why anybody would want to remake this wonderful movie. Why?
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Oh he should!
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I don’t like Hugh Grant I want Hugh Jackman for Professor!!!
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although i have a firm bias against all british people (sorry, workplace bullying victim here– those people scarred the hell out of me), i adore hugh grant’s performances and know that he’ll be perfect for this role. look forward to seeing it.
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If they do a remake, I can totally see him in that role. But I don’t see the point of doing a remake.
Some movies just can’t be done over, period. Imagine trying to do a remake of “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Behind Gregory Peck’s performance, nobody else could ever play Atticus Finch.
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Hugh Grant? No, no, no ,no, no, no. NO!
I would rather see Mickey Rourke play Higgins, as a wrestler instead of a linguist.
Rupert Everett would be terrific. Why don’t they listen to the man who directed Rex Harrison on Broadway and tell silly, no talent Emma to shut up, for once?
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Rupert Everett broke my heart when he had all that scary and ill-advised plastic surgery. He was so adorable before that. I feel really bad for him.
I’m not happy that they are doing a remake of yet another classic, and I also can’t understand why any actor would want to be involved, when they are being set up for inevitably unfavourable comparisons. It’s gonna hurt!
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Thank You for sharing this one!
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mslewis, hear hear. Hugh Grant does not have the PRESENCE to be Prof. Higgins. Higgins is self-confident to the point of arrogance; Grant was most convincing, IMO, in Sense and Sensibility, in which his damn sensibilities overtook his common sense and native emotion to the point that Austen was able to make a stupid misunderstanding into a whole novel. (Of course: Jane Austen, forerunner of the modern sitcom writer. Why have I never thought of that before?)
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I think Hugh Grant will be very good playing Professor Higgins.
Could you please forward this to Mr Grant and ask him to contact me on the above mail address ref his forthcoming documentary about the 51st HD Divisions capture at St Valery on 12 June 1940. I did know his father.
Thank you
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Also-for the role of Henry Higgin’s Mother?
If they haven’t picked the actress-let me, at least suggest: Julie Andrewa.
WHY?
Because, Julie HAS played ELIZA in London/Broadway.
And furthermore-Julie WAS passed to play Eliza, in the 1964 movie version.
This will make up for that.
At lest Julie goter her own BACK any how to win her Oscar for playing Mary Poppins.
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DONT REMAKE THAT FILM!!!
Its a classic and NO ONE can re-do it!
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