Jim Broadbent, winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his excellent work in Iris (2001; my review), talked to Dark Horizons recently about his work in a couple of upcoming franchise pics:
Question: You must have a comfortable life which is hard to give up unless something comes up you want to do.
Broadbent: Yeah I had basically three months in Lincolnshire in the summer and suddenly now I’m back on the rollercoaster again and I’ve got to finish off Indiana Jones next month and I’ve got a bit on Young Victoria and it’s all been sort of stacking up and then I’m doing Harry Potter.
Question: Who are you?
Broadbent: Who am I? He’s called Horace Slughorn. He’s a retired teacher of magic who’s drawn back out of retirement because he’s got some secrets they need in the battle against the Deatheaters and he’s quite star struck as a teacher and he’s drawn back into the fold because he likes to notch up celebrity students, and he’s drawn back by Harry.
Question: Is he a comic character?
Broadbent: He is quite a comic character, yes. . . .
Question: And who are you in Indiana Jones?
Broadbent: I’m Indiana’s academic colleague at Yale. I’m his friend and colleague – there’s a couple of my scenes to go.
As others have noted, it sounds like Broadbent will be playing the same sort of role in the next Indiana Jones film that the late Denholm Elliott played in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and The Last Crusade (1989). But will it be serious, a la Elliott’s role in Raiders, or buffoonish, a la Elliott’s role in Last Crusade?
So … Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Superman, The Chronicles of Narnia … how many other franchises has Broadbent been in?
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