Channel Four announce all-star cast for new drama
Channel Four has revealed an all-star cast for its adaptation of William Body’s Any Human Heart. Amongst the stars to appear in the drama will be Gillian Anderson [X Files/Bleak House], Matthew McFadyen [Spooks/Pride and Prejudice] Kim Cattrall [Sex and the City] and Samuel West [Cambridge Spies].
Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen, Kim Cattrall, Gillian Anderson,Tom Hollander, Natasha Little, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Ed Stoppard and Samuel West are amongst the top names to star in Carnival Films’ much anticipated adaptation of William Boyd’s Any Human Heart for Channel 4. Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen and Sam Claflin all take on the role of writer Logan Gonzago Mountstuart portraying different stages of his ordinary and yet extraordinary life, through every decade of the twentieth century. Boyd’s four part adaptation of his best-selling epic novel covers a life lived to the full and a myriad of historical events seen through the eyes of one man. Oscar winner Jim Broadbent (Iris, Longford) heads up the all star cast as the older incarnation of Boyd’s literary everyman, Mountstuart. The much admired actor plays the fictional writer through his final years: London in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the abject shame of poverty, unlikely heroism and his not-so-serene old age in ‘90s rural France.
Matthew Macfadyen (Frost/Nixon, Criminal Justice) takes Logan through middle age from the thrill and heartache of true love and the birth of his first child to scandal in the New York art scene in the ‘50s and ‘60s, via the horrors of war. Newcomer, Sam Claflin (The Pillars of the Earth) embodies the idealism, vitality and naivety of the young Logan, where his lust for life and women truly begins as a student in Oxford and then Paris in the 1920s.
“I am both thrilled and exhilarated at the prospect of these three sensational actors taking on the role of Logan Mountstuart as we follow him through the 20th Century on the emotional, dramatic and rackety journey that is his long and tumultuous life.” – William Boyd
Throughout his life it is Logan’s personal relationships which define him; through numerous flirtations and affairs to finding true love. Logan also has encounters with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (Tom Hollander, Gosford Park, In the Loop and Gillian Anderson, The Last King of Scotland, Bleak House); Ernest Hemingway and Ian Fleming (Tobias Menzies, Rome, A Very Social Secretary). Boyd’s epic tale charts an entire existence and in doing so reveals that all our lives are ultimately random, defined by luck and seemingly inconsequential choices.
The women in Logan’s life are many and varied; newcomer Emerald Fennell plays the young writer’s wife, Lottie, Hayley Atwell (The Prisoner, The Duchess) plays Freya; Logan’s mistress and the love of his life, Natasha Little (The Boys Are Back, Mistresses) plays third wife Alannah and Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City, My Boy Jack) takes on the role of older Logan’s glamorous lover Gloria. Other cast in the ambitious four part serial include: Julian Rhind-Tutt (Green Wing, Stardust) playing revolutionary John Vivian, the older versions of Logan’s two best friends are played by Ed Stoppard (Brideshead Revisited, The Pianist) as Ben and Samuel West (Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley, Cambridge Spies) as Peter. The cast also boasts a number of Britain’s hottest upcoming talent including; Freddie Fox, Hugh Skinner, Charity Wakefield and Lydia Wilson.
“Jim, Matthew and Sam lead a phenomenal ensemble cast. Playing Logan in the different stages of our hero’s life, they will brilliantly encapsulate the significant, and the wonderfully insignificant moments that we can all relate to. With such a talented range of British actors on board this is sure to be an unmissable television event and I can’t wait to see this epic tale unfold on Channel 4.” – Camilla Campbell, Channel 4 Head of Drama
“We are extremely proud of the exceptional line up of acting talent we have secured for Any Human Heart. It is testament to William’s fantastic script that we have such extraordinary talent both on and off screen.” – Sally Woodward Gentle, Creative Director of Carnival Films says;
The script has been adapted by William Boyd from his novel, Any Human Heart. Michael Samuels (The Curse of Steptoe, Mrs Mandela) will direct. Lynn Horsford (Boy A, The Mark of Cain) and Lee Morris (My Zinc Bed, The Damned United) will produce, with Sally Woodward Gentle (Enid, Whitechapel) as executive producer for Carnival Films. Any Human Heart will be broadcast on Channel 4 later this year.