Angela Lansbury Doesn't Know Why BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is Being Remade

By: Nov. 25, 2016
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

Angela Lansbury recently sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss the upcoming remake of Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens.

When asked about the remake Lansbury stated "I was a bit taken aback, naturally. I thought, "Why? Why are we doing this over again?" But I guess, I don't know why they're doing it. But they are, and it will be interesting to see what they do with it. These are live action pieces and I know very well the actress who's playing Mrs. Potts and she's a very good friend of mine. It's Emma Thompson."

"I don't quite know why they're doing it. I can't understand what they're going to do with it that will be better than what we've already done. And how they're doing it live - it may turn out to be very entertaining and wonderful."

Read the full article here!

Lansbury has enjoyed a career spanning nearly 75 years in film, stage, and television. Winner of five Tony Awards, she made her Broadway debut in 1957 in Hotel Paradiso. In 1960, she returned to Broadway in Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey. In 1964, she starred in her first musical, Anyone Can Whistle, and in 1966, she triumphed as Mame, winning her first Tony. She won three more Tonys for Dear World (1968), Gypsy (1974), and Sweeney Todd (1979). After a 23-year hiatus, she returned to Broadway in 2007 in Terrence McNally's Deuce. In 2009 she won her fifth Tony Award as Madame Arcati in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. She also appeared as Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music (2010), and in Gore Vidal's The Best Man (2012). In 2013, she appeared in the acclaimed Australian tour of Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy, with James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines, a production which was filmed for cinemas.

In March 2014 she again played Madame Arcati at London's Gielgud Theatre, for which she won the Olivier Award. Previous London appearances were in the RSC's production of Edward Albee's All Over at the Aldwych, Gypsy, and Hamlet.

She has appeared in over 60 films starting with Gaslight at age 17 (first Academy Award nomination), The Portrait of DorIan Gray (second Academy Award nomination), and The Manchurian Candidate (third Academy Award nomination). She was the voice of Mrs. Potts in Disney's Beauty and the Beast and more recently, she co-starred in Emma Thompson's Nanny McPhee and with Jim Carrey in Mr. Popper's Penguins.

From 1984 through 1996 she starred as Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote, the longest-running detective drama series in TV history, for which she won four of her six Golden Globe Awards. She is recipient of the National Medal of the Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors. In addition to her five Tonys, Olivier, and six Golden Globes, she has been nominated for eighteen Emmys and three Oscars, and in 2013 was awarded an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures. She was named a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II and was invested at Windsor Castle on April 15, 2014.



Videos