Empire have exclusively revealed the the complete cast for Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming WWI drama “War Horse” and as usual, it looks like he’s assembled a solid group of players.
Emily Watson, Peter Mullan, David Thewlis and Benedict Cumberbatch are officially signed on to the film, but perhaps the biggest news is that relatively unknown Brit actor Jeremy Irvine has snagged the lead role. “But didn’t you guys report that Eddie Redmayne had the role?,” you ask. Well yes, we did. We reached back out to our sources who tell us that Redmayne had pretty much accepted the role, but Spielberg began to have second thoughts which led to more meetings and to the role eventually going elsewhere. For Irvine the role is a huge break. The actor has worked both in the National Youth Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company and his only screen appearance so far is in the Brit series “Life Bites.”
Anyway, as you might recall, the film is already set for release on August 10, 2011 and follows a young man named Albert (Irvine) and his horse, Joey, and how their bond is broken when Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to the trenches of World War One. Despite being too young to enlist, Albert heads to France to save his friend. So who will be playing who? Watson and Mullan will play Albert’s parents while Cumberbatch will play Major Stewart.
Also joining the cast are international actors Cecile Buckens who will play a French girl who takes Joey in with Niels Arestrup (“A Prophet,” “The Diving Bell And The Butterfly”) as her grandfather. Nicolas Bro, David Kross, Leonard Carow, Rainer Bock, Robert Emms and Patrick Kennedy round out the cast. Still in talks is the previously rumored Tom Hiddlestone and Stephen Graham both in unspecified roles.
Production is likely starting very soon with the release date just over a year away. We wonder if Spielberg will try and do a Cannes run with this next year before it hits theaters. Certainly the organizers would love to have him and it would be a great place to premiere the pic. At any rate, we’re glad that Spielberg is finally back behind the camera.