Trailer
Plot summary
Queen Mary I of England dies in 1558, leaving the throne to her half sister Elizabeth, who has been held under house arrest over a suspected role in a rebellion. Elizabeth's advisor Sir William Cecil describes an England burdened by debt, crumbling infrastructure, hostile neighbors and nobles who plot against her, and tells her she must marry and produce an heir. Elizabeth postpones the decision and continues her affair with her childhood friend Lord Robert Dudley. Cecil brings in Francis Walsingham, a Protestant who had been exiled in France, to serve as her bodyguard and advisor. In Scotland, Mary of Guise, regent for her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, brings in four thousand French troops.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Elizabeth (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to the director's commentary, Shekhar Kapur said the role of the Pope, played by Sir John Gielgud, was originally offered to and accepted by Marlon Brando; plans changed when Kapur noted that many on set would probably be concerned that Brando would be sharing the set with them for two days.
- Shekhar Kapur's original choice for the role of Elizabeth was Emily Watson, but she turned it down; Cate Blanchett was chosen to play Elizabeth after Kapur saw a trailer of Oscar and Lucinda.
- Most of the film's royal palace interiors were actually shot inside Durham Cathedral, and the cathedral's distinctive lozenge-carved nave pillars can clearly be spotted in those scenes.
- The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights accused the film of anti-Catholicism, pointing to a New York Times review that called it "resolutely anti-Catholic" and a Buffalo News line claiming every Catholic character in the film is portrayed as "dark, cruel and devious."
- Historian Patrick Collinson criticized the film's handling of history in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, comparing its treatment of Elizabeth I's reign to jigsaw pieces that had been shaken up and scattered on a table at random.
