It was bound to happen at some point: like Leo, Brando, and Hawke before him, Timothée Chalamet is about to take on his rite-of-passage, early-career Shakespeare role. And it’s definitely no Romeo Montague.
The Academy Award nominee will front Netflix’s much darker-looking The King, an adaptation of several of Shakespeare’s historical plays, including parts one and two of Henry IV, as well as Henry V. Ben Mendolson will star as Henry IV, with Chalamet playing his son, Henry V.
If your last Shakespeare hit was in high school English, all you need to know (to vibe with this morning’s trailer, at least) is that this specific group of plays is the closest thing you’ll see to Game of Thrones-turned-Shakespeare: i.e. a lot of blood, betrayal, and fancy robes. The King will focus on Henry V’s succession of Henry IV—which the former isn't too happy about.
While recent Shakespeare fare hasn’t made too much noise lately—like Anthony Hopkins’s King Lear TV movie, or Amazon’s Good Omens miniseries—The King looks like it could be a genuine hit. It seems like Chalamet’s is channelling the intensity in the Call Me By Your Name fireplace scene—that death stare is back—and throwing it back to medieval times. And aside from Chalamet and Mendolson, the rest of the cast is pretty impressive-we see Robert Pattinson armoured-up as The Dauphin, Joel Edgarton as Falstaff, and Lily-Rose Depp as Catherine.
Judging by the trailer, we’re definitely getting more sword-swinging than soliloquies. Either way, we’ll see King Timmy in his full glory when The King hits select cinemas and Netflix this autumn.
