A lesson in how to slowly freeze…
Tony has completed two long days of shooting on the new historical drama The King’s Speech, which filmed in Leeds and Bradford earlier this week.
The movie stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham-Carter, Derek Jacobi and Timothy Spall. Tony, cast as a policeman, took part in a key scene in which Firth, playing the Duke of York (later King George VI) delivers an excruciating speech at the British Empire Exhibition in 1925. The moment was a pivotal turning point in the young prince’s life as the world discovered for the first time that he had a pronounced stammer.
Filming took place in near-freezing temperatures on the terraces at Leeds United’s Elland Road ground. It was Tony’s first experience of life as a background artiste on a major motion picture and follows his involvement in Peter Kershaw’s short subject Cinema of Horror, Werner Schweizer’s documentary Von Werra and the forthcoming feature Cricket, the eagerly-awaited debut from the Austin Brothers, in which he plays a Russian gangster.
The King’s Speech is scheduled for release in late 2010 or early 2011. The director is Tom (The Damned United) Hooper.