Starring as the prickly and pessimistic English actor George Coulouris is Ben Chaplin. "In the States we think of him as a romantic comedy guy, but working with him on the film we got to see that he's got tremendous range as an actor" says producer Ann Carli. "He's amazing. I just said thank you for every arched eyebrow, thank you for every hurt and indignant pause - thank you for all of that."
The largely fictionalized template for Richard Samuels in ME AND ORSON WELLES, Anderson remained with Orson as a member of the Mercury Theatre On The Air and became one of the leading voice artists on radio, as well as making regular appearances on stage, in films and on television.
Based in real theatrical history, Me and Orson Welles is a romantic coming-of-age story about a teenage actor who lucks into a role in Julius Caesar as it's being re-imagined by a brilliant, impetuous young director named Orson Welles at his newly-founded Mercury Theater in NYC, 1937.
In 1938, just one year after forming The Mercury Theater, Orson Welles took to the air with a series of radio broadcasts on the Columbia Broadcasting System called The Mercury Theater on the Air. In the most famous of these episodes, Welles directed and narrated an adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel 'The War of the Worlds,' reading without commercial interruption as it was a news broadcast.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 134 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitation will be the only additions in 2009 to the Academy's roster of voting members.