Mrs Birling = Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith was the first actor who sprang to mind to play Mrs Birling because she is so good at playing very cold and superior parts and has very strong presence which is exactly what I want my Mrs Birling to be like. She would very easily give Mrs Birling a very sharp and bitter look and would instantly make her very dominant and snobby. She would need to keep the posh English accent that she already has and would put on a very harsh, shrill and bossy voice to go with it. Mrs Birling is very interfering and is the kind of wife that tells her husband exactly what to do and when to do it and would not allow anything else. Maggie Smith would have to try and give Mrs Birling a heartless, authorative and cold image making her the kind of person that the audience would probably instantly dislike from the second they see her.
Sheila Birling = Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman is an instantly likable person when she acts and I think this is important to the audience because that is what Sheila should be portrayed as. She is very naturally pretty and elegant and can act a very wide range of roles. Sheila is the character in this play that everybody feels for and identifies with. She is the kind of person that the audience can easily have a connection with and understand every emotion and moment that she goes through and this is fairly essential because Sheila helps the inspector keep the story going and bring out the others confessions. At the beginning Sheila is a very pleased and excited character but this quickly changes to someone quite different. I think Nicole could quite easily play the first Sheila and the second Sheila (distressed and hysterical) she would carry off extremely well. She is very good at digging down deep into the characters she plays and bringing up every feeling and emotion they have and then portraying this to an audience. She would have to clearly show how distraught and frantic Sheila is while also showing that she is extremely caring about others and very willing to see the wrong in herself and others. She would have to speak with a well spoken accent but at the same time use a very soft and gently voice to make Sheila seem gentle and caring. Every movement Nicole Kidman would make on stage would have to be similar to the way a dancer moves, smoothly and softly, even when Sheila gets angry and upset.
Eric Birling = Matt Damon
Eric is a fairly neutral character so I don’t think he would be very hard to play but I chose Matt Damon, not because he is a particularly talented actor but because of the certain style of acting he has and also his look. He looks exactly how I imagine Eric to be, fairly good-looking, blond and fairly emotionless face, and he also very often acts similar characters. When acting Eric, Matt Damon should be careful not to give too much away because I think the audience should feel as if there is a lot about Eric that they don’t know. This is why it is quite important for Matt Damon to not show too much emotion or passion for anything and not give anything away through facial expressions or body actions. He is really the naughty boy in the family and seems almost a little bit cheeky. Eric doesn’t have many lines so Matt Damon would have to work very hard on giving Eric the right personality, which would be quiet, distant but also slightly mischievous. Matt Damon would have to make sure that Eric seemed as if he had a lot inside him that neither the audience nor the other characters know about.
Gerald Croft = Billy Zane
I chose Billy Zane simply because of the character he played in Titanic. He was a very rich upper class man who seemed very nice at first but then turned into a money obsessed selfish man. Gerald is maybe not this extreme but he is fairly similar. Billy Zane would have to show clearly that Gerald has many of the same beliefs, as Mr. Birling and all he really thinks about is the good of himself and he business. He would do this by using body language with Mr Birling as well as the lines he is given in the script. Billy Zane would need to give Gerald a very higher-class, snobbish look but at the same time make sure he was charming and loving. He would do this by making his voice fairly loud and clear and would have to move like a superior, very tall and upright. Billy Zane would have to be careful of how much of his character he gives away to the audience at the beginning of the play. He’d have to work carefully on making his changes of emotion and character convincing through out the play.
Edna = Clare Danes
I imagined Edna to be very small and timid, and a fairly plain character partly because this is how maids were meant to be in those days. They were not meant to have any opinions or show emotions on things. Clare Danes would not give Edna very much presence and this is quite important because she should not draw any attention to herself.
Eva Smith/Daisy Renton = Winona Ryder
This part would not have any speaking so I chose somebody that could move and be ‘Eva like’ just by using their body and facial expressions. Winona Ryder is beautiful, with brown hair and big brown eyes, which is exactly what I imagine Eva to look like. She would have to give Eva a look of sadness and helplessness to her face and look very innocent. She would also need to move with great elegance and sophistication even though her clothes may not look that way. Despite all these things she’d have to look very alive and have great presence about her. Winona Ryder would have to be very big and clear with this part because she has no lines to express how Eva may be feeling. She would only be able to use her facial expressions and her body so every movement she made would have to have a clear reason behind which she could only explain physically, not vocally.
Costume
All of the characters would be wearing Edwardian style clothes apart from the inspector who would be wearing something more from the period of the 1st world war.
Mr Birling would wear a black evening suit, in the style of 1912, a black waistcoat, black shirt, black tie etc. It would look very expensive and he would wear a gig gold pocket watch or something to show he wealth. This would be to represent some kind of death, or pain and the refusal to even admit what he did wrong. Black is often associated with death and things like the devil and hell. By him wearing all black it would kind of show that he is not a good kind character and is almost meant to be a baddy in the play.
Gerald would also wear pretty much the same as Mr Birling but instead of a black shirt he would wear a white one partly so he looks a bit different then Mr Birling but also because it shows he was not quite as cruel and was at least more kind hearted and less guilty.
Eric Birling would wear a cream casual suit to show that he is younger and a lot more laid back then the others. It also makes him stand out from all the other dark costumes and slightly represents that he, in the end, is at least willing to realize what he did and wishes he could have made things better.
Mrs Birling would wear a very grand and expensive looking dress. It would be very dark colours like black and navy blue for the same reasons that Mr Birling will wear dark colours, to represent death and guilt etc. Her dress would be extremely glamorous, covered in shiny beads and velvety material and she would have a lot of jewellery on to show her wealth and how important material things like clothes are to her. On her lips and her eyes she would have very dark makeup to make her look like a bad, almost evil figure. All of this shows her ignorance to others who are less fortunate then her, and how all she cares about is her status material things. Such an elaborate costume would also show that her clothes and jewellery have a masking nature, as if she or her emotions can’t be touched or affected.
Shelia Birling’s costume is quite important is showing what kind of person she is and how she shows this during the play. She would wear a stunning, glamorous white long dress, in a similar style to a wedding dress which would at first be to just show that she is going to get married and it will also stand out well from all the other characters. But it will actually have a deeper meaning then that. The dress being white will represent innocence and purity and that she is a good character who wants to be able to help others, almost like an angel. To contrast that she will have deep red long gloves, deep red shawl and red jewellery to match and on her lips she would wear blood read lipstick This would represent blood, guilt, death, and the fact that she isn’t all innocent but she helped kill Eva as well. Later on in the play she will take off all the red items as if she was stripping herself of the bad things she had done, almost cleansing herself and making her self pure again. After this Mrs Birling will pick up these red items and put them on her self to stress that she has not learnt and is not willing to make her self a better person. This will also show that material things like clothes which were all she really cared about before, no longer mean anything to her
Eva Smith would be wearing very old and shabby clothes to show the big difference between the Birlings being rich and her being poor. She would wear very dull and basic colours, a brown long skirt, a grey shirt with a navy blue over waistcoat and a black woollen shawl. She would have no jewellery as she would be unable afford it and her skin and hair would be very dull and dirty.
Edna would just wear basic lower class clothes but they would be a bit better quality then Eva’s. She would have a basic navy long skirt and a navy blue long sleeved shirt that buttoned up to the neck with a white apron over the top.
Inspector Goole’s costume is quite important in portraying who he actually is. At first I was going to dress him as an ordinary inspector but then I though I wanted something a bit different. I decided that my inspector was going to be wearing something very similar to soldiers uniform from the First World War. This would make the audience wonder if he is from the future and if he is actually a soldier coming back to teach the Birlings. He would wear a long brown/green thick trench coat with a casual dark brown suit that would not really be very visible under the coat. He would also have a brown bowler type hat that would shadow his face making him mysterious and unexplained.
