Me and Orson Welles (2008) on Netflix
New York, 1937. Teenager Richard Samuels wanders into the Mercury Theatre and is offered a part in Orson Welles's Julius Caesar. Sonja Jones, a production assistant, takes him under her wing.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.7/1012,393 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
In November 1937, Richard Samuels, a high school student who wants to act, takes a day trip to New York City. He meets Gretta Adler, an aspiring writer with the same ambition. He also finds the Mercury Theatre, where an unplanned audition wins him a place in Caesar, the first production of Orson Welles's new company. Rehearsals fill a Broadway house; Welles sets no fixed opening date. Sonja Jones, the cast's Ice Queen, looks after Richard and jokes that they are a couple, which turns aside the attention she gets from other men.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Me and Orson Welles (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Linklater's design team found the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man, which closely resembles the old Comedy Theatre on 41st Street; using Samuel Leve's original designs they reconstructed the Julius Caesar set there, and filmed some 15 minutes of the play lit to Jean Rosenthal's plot and accompanied by Marc Blitzstein's original incidental music.
- During filming in Douglas, Efron and Danes believe they sighted a ghost, or 'supernatural' being, outside a window on set at the Gaiety Theatre.
- Every exterior shot was filmed on a single street built at Pinewood Studios with a green screen at one end, with different angles and slightly altered set designs used between shots to make the street appear different each time.
- Linklater saw McKay perform at the 2007 'Brits Off Broadway' festival in the U.S. and cast him as Welles, retaining him over the subsequent objections of the project's producer.
- Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr. adapted the screenplay from Robert Kaplow's novel about a teenager who in reality was the 15-year-old Arthur Anderson, who played Lucius in Welles' production and was involved in the founding of the Mercury Theatre.
