British Acting Legend Gets Biopic Starring Andrew Scott!

Ian McKellen once described him as an actor “without pretense“, “the least actor-like of all actors“, “the most genuine and honest“. Ian Charleston was one of the UK’s greatest talents. His story and his life’s end will be portrayed on screen in Elsinore with Andrew Scott (1917, Spectre, Never Let Me Go) in the role.

According to Variety, directed by Simon Stone, the biopic is set to be a major contender in the upcoming awards season. The film, also starring Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman, has been acquired by the independent distributor Focus Features – known for Brokeback Mountain and the recent horror hit The Obsession. A release is scheduled for this fall.

Best known to the general public for his role in the classic Chariots of Fire, Ian Charleston remains one of the most memorable performers of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

An Actor Cut Down by AIDS

Just months after his last performance, the actor died at the age of 40 from AIDS, four years after being diagnosed. It was 1990. His death significantly helped raise awareness about the disease in English society.

On his website, Ian McKellen vividly recalls Charleston’s very last performance as Hamlet, even as the actor was in the terminal phase. He writes:

“He covered his face with his delicate, pale hands. Hamlet had an instinctive awareness of his own mortality and, without any sentimentality or self-pity, [Ian Charleston] made us all feel that young men, princes, actors, all of us, are fated to die.“

Elsinore, coming soon to theaters