Behind the Candelabra
Short description
Behind the Candelabra tells the story of the relationship between the pianist and showman Liberace and Scott Thorson, a much younger man he met in the summer of 1977. The two began a secret affair that lasted for years, crossing boundaries of age and social background, and Liberace eventually moved toward adopting Thorson. The relationship had a painful public end. The film is based on Thorson's autobiographical book, and much of it unfolds in the world of Las Vegas performance and backstage luxury that Liberace inhabited.
Steven Soderbergh directed the film, working from a screenplay by Richard LaGravenese. It is the twenty-second of the thirty-five films Soderbergh has directed in chronological order, coming after Magic Mike and before Side Effects. Michael Douglas plays Liberace and Matt Damon plays Thorson, with Dan Aykroyd, Scott Bakula, Rob Lowe and Tom Papa in supporting roles; 103 cast members are credited. The production had a budget of 23 million dollars and took about 16 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
Reception split along predictable lines: critics rated it 8.1 out of 10 across 106 reviews, while audiences were more reserved, with 7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 47,000 votes and 6.6 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 849 votes. The gap suggests the film was admired more than it was loved by the general audience it reached.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on the novel by Scott Thorson and Alex Thorleifson, “Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace” (1988).
- To recreate Liberace’s distinctive voice, Douglas trained for a long time, and to teach the actor to play the piano, Soderbergh wanted to hire him a teacher, but the actor managed with real video recordings of the pianist and a meticulous study of his technique.
- Soderbergh incredibly quickly edited the footage, which was ready by the end of the shooting day.
- Soderbergh offered Douglas the role of Liberace as early as the filming of “Traffic” in 2000. The actor thought the director was joking, as he didn’t consider himself to resemble the American entertainment legend. Several years passed, Soderbergh returned to the idea, and gave Douglas the book by the real Scott Thorson, “Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace.” “I read the book and thought it was really very suitable for a film,” the actor said. He later admitted that this role was a “real gift” for him after he overcame throat cancer in 2011.
- Soderbergh spent several years trying to get a Hollywood studio to take his work 'under its wing'; he received a rejection each time with the explanation 'too gay a film'. After this failure, the director decided to make his film exclusively for television.
- Despite the presence of repeated bed scenes in the film, Douglas believed that the most difficult thing for the actors was still the daily application of makeup. 'We filmed this movie very quickly, but we had to apply complex makeup every day. And when I first went outside without it after the end of filming, I even got a little worried,' he recalled.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
