A Woman of No Importance
Last Update: 17 May 2007
The most recent information about this rumoured project is at the
bottom of the page.
Update September 2006
Annette Bening and Lindsay Lohan star in the bigscreen adaptation of
Oscar Wilde's "A Woman of No Importance," directed by
Janusz Kaminski.
Although information was released in May 2006 concerning Sean's
participation in this film, he is unconfirmed as of September 2006.
Myriad Pictures is producing with Donald Zuckerman, Sarah Radclyffe and
Howard Himelstein.
A fall start date is planned.
The screenplay is adapted from Wilde's tale about an ambitious young man,
Gerald Arbuthnot, who introduces his prospective employer, Lord Illingworth,
to his mother. But she realizes that Illingworth is the man who jilted her
long ago and is Gerald's father.
Wilde's "A Woman of No Importance" first appeared on stage at London's
Haymarket Theatre in 1893. Prunella Scales, Samantha Bond and Rupert
Graves starred in a stage production at the same theatre in 2003.
In Wilde's classic comedic play, the woman of no importance is Mrs. Arbuthnot,
a woman who has been scorned by society for having an illicit affair and
conceiving a child out of wedlock. "A Woman of No Importance" is both a
criticism of the shameful double standard applied to men and women in
such matters and a biting satire of the hypocrisy of the upper classes in
Victorian Society.
Update 16 February 2007
According to various press reports, Jessica Biel has signed up to star in 'A
Woman of No Importance' alongside Annette Bening, after Lindsay Lohan
dropped out of the project.
The film, based on a play by Oscar Wilde, will now be directed by Bruce
Beresford - who previously worked on 'Driving Miss Daisy', with production
due to begin in the spring.
Update 05 March 2007
In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Sean was asked about AWONI. This
was his response:
I'm also doing an Oscar Wilde adaptation, A Woman of No Importance, which
should be starting in about four weeks. That'll be a change for me, anyway.
It's with Annette Bening and Jessica Biel; I'm playing a guy called Lord
Illingworth who's a bit of a charmer - a bit of a lad, really, in the late nineteenth
century. [laughs] It's definitely an independent project and the director is a
guy called Bruce Beresford. It's probably as opposite as you can get to Outlaw!
I did a lot of stuff when I was younger when the BBC was doing a lot of
period pieces. I did a film called Clarissa and Anna Karenina and, of course,
Sharpe. It's been probably eight or nine years since I've done anything like this.
I'm looking forward to it. I've played pretty contemporary figures over the
past year or so and they've tended to be quite psychotic! [laughs] I'm quite
looking forward to a change, this guy's very urbane, very dapper, and very
humorous. It's just something that's a bit of a challenge for me - trying to
get my head around that - and it'll be nice to do something different.
Especially Oscar Wilde, I've always been interested in his material. The
film's been on and off for about a year and it's finally got the green light
so I'm pretty pleased about that now.
Update 17 May 2007
The Hollywood Reporter
reports from the Cannes Film Festival that Sienna Miller
is set to star in "A Woman of No Importance," one of the entries in Myriad
Films' Festival de Cannes presales lineup.
In the Oscar Wilde adaptation "Importance," Miller plays a 19-year-old American
who finds herself falling in love with the womanizing Lord Illingworth (Sean Bean)
in the English countryside until his mother (Annette Bening) throws a wrench in
his plans. Bruce Beresford is directing Howard Himelstein's screen version of
Wilde's comedy, set to begin shooting in September.
Stay tuned for further updates as they happen.
You can read the original play by Oscar Wilde
here
.
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