Looking for Richard
Short description
Al Pacino directs and stars in this documentary that examines why Shakespeare still matters to audiences today, focusing on Richard III. The film mixes staged scenes from the play with conversations about how actors approach the text and its characters. Pacino takes the role of Richard while other performers appear both as themselves and as figures from the drama. The production also travels to England and includes interviews with people on the street alongside working actors, weighing how a centuries-old play can speak to contemporary viewers.
Looking for Richard was released in 1996 and runs 112 minutes. It is the first film Pacino directed, followed later by Chinese Coffee and Salomé. He wrote the screenplay with Frederic Kimball and produced with Michael Hadge. The cast includes Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Aidan Quinn and Harris Yulin, among 63 credited performers. It earned about 1 million USD worldwide, a modest return for a documentary of this kind.
On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from roughly 8,800 votes, and on TMDB 6.8 out of 10 from 151 votes. A critics' rating of 7.3 out of 10 from 47 reviews places it in line with the broader audience score on IMDb.
What's left behind the scenes
- Al Pacino's directorial debut. Al Pacino shot over 80 hours of footage. It took 6 editors to cut all of that down to the length of a standard film.
- It took 4 years to shoot the original footage.
- Initially, Frank Langella was supposed to play Edward IV, but he preferred the role of George Plantagenet and eventually left the project altogether. Thus, Harris Yulin played the king, and Alec Baldwin played the first Duke of Clarence.
- In many scenes, the characters appear confused and worried because the actors often didn't understand what the director expected of them.
- Al Pacino personally invited Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey to join the film's cast; at the time, they were working with James Foley on the dramatic thriller "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992).
- Al Pacino didn't know where to shoot the final battle scene and was out of money for filming. Director Michael Mann, who was also directing Pacino in the action film "Heat" (1995) at the time, offered the services of his technical crew. The scene was filmed in a single day.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
