More SUNSET Film Rumors - Glenn Close To Play Norma Now? — Page 3

I was trying to make a joke about weight gain, following besty's post.

Plus she still has huge selling power (maybe not in the US, but overseas) and I'd love to get rid of my bootleg video of her and have a real HD quality one.

As this is for cinema then DVD (ala Upcoming LND) and filmed version of the stage show as opposed to an actual movie I can see a name for Norma and theatre people in other roles. I don't mind Glenn close as she acts it so well, I love the idea of Catherine zeta jones And maybe Vanessa Williams. There is a recording of pfiffer as evita and as much as I love her as an actress she could not sing the role. Streep I think gets too much praise for her mamma Mia singing, I don't think she could handle sunset.

It would not surprise me to see alw cast someone like Ramin Karimloo as joe, he is the lords current golden boy, is age and lool appropriate and anyone who has heard him sing the score knows he can sing the s'"@t out of it

Celine Dion would also be amazing.

In 10 years, Rachel Crowe would be amazing as Norma.

Updated On: 12/11/11 at 05:17 PM

How about Russell Crowe as Javert as Norma Desmond?

I'd love to see Jan Maxwell do this part one day.

How dare you, Sir or Madam.

HOW. DARE. YOU.

I don't think Norma would have to be an actual 50 years old. 50 today is not like 50 was back in the 50's (that's a lot of fifties). It's a shame though that they're not doing a full on movie version. It was always Swanson's dream to do a musical version. I wonder if the script still exists?

I personally feel her age is important because there is a fairly easily traced timeline to her life. For instance Max says "when we met she was a child, barely sixteen." The current day events are taking place in 1950. She was at the peak of her fame in the 20s, which means Max probably didn't find her and make her a star until around 1916. And of course her young age at the time he became "the first husband" just helps to highlight his obsession with her. The older the actress is the further and further back in time it would have to be for Max to have met her at the age of sixteen until it becomes a fact that he would have made her a "star" before there were actual movie stars.

There are a lot of reasons why its actually fairly important that Norma be 50 and not a decade or more older- most of the reasons have been pointed out here - the character's obsession with youth in relation to the film business is a pointed statement on the nature of the youth obsessed industry and isn't supposed to be one of complete absurdity. Equally important: the character's age in relationship to the timeline of the history of films (Norma and the creation of motion pictures 'grew up together'), and also in terms of her relationship with Joe, who is supposed to have been just a boy around the time Norma's career began to falter, but is in her eyes still believable as a love interest (i.e. a 20 year age difference, not 30).

But, the main point is that Norma is supposed to be a tragic character that the audience sympathizes with. The older she is, the more camp, the more absurd, the more ridiculous her desires to find romance, make a comeback and be young and beautiful are, and the less the audience really feels emotionally invested in her plight.

Updated On: 12/12/11 at 08:23 AM

But the tragedy is that she isn't an old woman; its that she is 'too old' for the youth obsessed world she lives in. As Joe says, "there is nothing wrong with being 50, unless you're acting 20" -- this is very much the same situation with a play like SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, in which the central character isn't an old woman; she's just no longer an ingenue and that is what the movie industry wants.

Nicole Kidman who was cast in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH is the right age for that play, and would by the same token by the right age for SUNSET BOULEVARD. Norma is in her late 40s/very early 50s.

Updated On: 12/12/11 at 10:00 AM