Confusion reigns re: Pettigrew and Lupin casting (Fwd from OTChatter)

[GulPlum]

Amy Z wrote in reply to Barb's comments on the rumours that Timothy Spall 
will be Pettigrew:

>OK.  I went over to IMDb with great excitement to see Pettigrew.
>Clicked on the name.  Saw a photo that I had previously seen over the
>caption "David Thewlis."  Huh?

The picture of Timothy Spall on his IMDb page is positively *ANCIENT*. I'd 
never have thought about it otherwise, but in the photo, he does indeed 
look a bit like Thewlis. :-)

A much better (and more recent) photo of Spall is in the IMDb gallery, 
taken at Cannes last year: 
http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Events/1428/TimothySpa_Vespa_467360_400.jpg

However, that is his true self, and I don't think he's ever been so clean 
for a part!  To the average Brit, his name conjures up an image much more 
like this (largely because the role for which he is most recognised is as a 
construction labourer in Auf Wiedersehn Pet):

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0286261/7M-19.jpg

I'm afraid he's nowhere close to my mental image of Pettigrew. Mainly 
because he's *huge* (largely as in err... "fat"...). That's one reason why 
he's basically built a career out of playing slobs (although I do admit he 
has played other parts). Another is that he speaks in an exceptionally 
broad Midlands accent (strange, IMDb lists him as born in London - he must 
have moved to this area when he was quite young). It is generally accepted 
that the Midlands accent is the stupidest-sounding of all British speech 
patterns (something I recently saw on a website about this area sums it up 
best: "even the most intelligent or well-educated Brummie sounds thick as 
sh*t"). One of the joys of his role in "Topsy Turvy" (an opera singer) was 
the sub-text that his middle-class accent was utterly phoney (Spall can do 
excellent "proper" English; in this case he made it sound phoney, which is 
very tricky).

Anyway, a small Sirius Black and a huge Peter Pettigrew is a perversion of 
the characters in my head and I would have a very difficult time accepting 
them. Pettigrew is small, and I picture him in constant movement, wringing 
his hands and with his eyes darting all over the place (he is a rat, after 
all!). Not to mention that when he appears, he's meant to look underfed and 
ill. Spall would need to lose about half of his body mass to look underfed. 
:-) In other words, I picture Pettigrew as someone like Gary Oldman, not 
someone like Tim Spall! :-)

>Went looking for David Thewlis websites, found a couple of stills on
>Yahoo!Movies, with an actor who looks more like the Lupin I picture
>than the photo of Thewlis?Spall? (more professorial).

Yes, there are some pictures of Thewlis looking brooding, but I personally 
don't think he can pull it off when playing a part. Not because he's a bad 
actor (he's not!), but there's just *something* about him I feel is wrong.

>So I am happy but confused.  Also, the Leaky Cauldron hasn't
>mentioned Pettigrew casting at all.  Help?

Indeed. I must admit that in my earlier post, I'd completely forgotten 
about the Spall rumours, and a search through Leaky didn't come to 
anything. It seems like there's a page missing in their archives - one page 
finishes on the 11th and the next starts on the 19th January. It seems from 
this list's archives that the Spall rumours surfaced around the 15th. This 
would explain searches coming up empty.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who is a Midlander born and bred but doesn't have the 
local accent. :-)