casting call - Hydra

[Wybe]

[HugoD]

The fools, they should have scheduled this audition at the LC meeting weekend in May.

[LisaLCFan]

A new mini-series about Leonard Cohen? Does anybody know anything about it, aside from the fact that they are looking for extras?

[Dem]

Yes, there is some publicity about it in the greek press:

https://www.protothema.gr/culture/artic ... gurismata/

According to the newspaper above the mini-series will be titled "So Long, Marianne"
and will be based on Kari Hesthamar's book "So Long, Marianne: A Love Story".

Will be directed by Øystein Karlsen («Lillyhammer»/Netflix) and Bronwen Hughes («Breaking Bad»/Netflix).
The shootings will be on Hydra of course but also in other places like Oslo, New York and Montreal.

So maybe there will be some shooting going on at the time of the next Hydra meetup in May.

Dem

[LisaLCFan]

Thanks, Dem, for that info! Cheers!

[hydriot]

I really don't think this is for us. Filming wiiI, I suspect, take a long time at an inappropriate date. We've all got better things to do.

[Dem]

Here is one more major newspaper report about it:

https://www.kathimerini.gr/culture/tv/5 ... tai-seira/

Dem

[B4real]

A new mini-series about Leonard Cohen? Does anybody know anything about it, aside from the fact that they are looking for extras?

Seems this is the same mini-series and it seems the major players have been cast
https://variety.com/2023/film/global/le ... 235580865/

Leonard Cohen Series ‘So Long, Marianne’ Casts Alex Wolff as Singer, Thea Sofie Loch Næss as His Muse

Alex Wolff will play Leonard Cohen in a new series about the Canadian icon and his muse Marianne Ihlen.



Thea Sofie Loch Næss (“The Last Kingdom,” “Delete Me”) will portray Ihlen in the show, which is called “So Long, Marianne” — the title of one of Cohen’s songs about his partner. Other cast members include Anna Torv (“The Newsreader,” “The Last of Us”) as Charmian Clift and Noah Taylor (“Preacher,” “Peaky Blinders”) as George Johnston.

The show is a co-production between Norwegian broadcaster NRK and Canada’s Crave, the streaming service owned by Bell Media. Cineflix Rights is distributing the series globally. Principal photography on the show began on March 24, with shooting taking place on the Greek island of Hydra — where Cohen first met Ihlen — as well as Ihlen’s home country of Norway, and the late singer’s hometown of Montreal, Canada.

“So Long, Marianne” is billed as an “intimate tale of two, lonely people falling in love, during a period of their life when they are trying to figure out who they are and their place in the world, while one is becoming one of the most famous singers of all time.”

The majority of the series is focused on the picturesque Greek island of Hydra where the couple lived during the 1960s. There, they joined Australian novelists Charmian Clift and her husband George Johnston, the matriarch and patriarch of a bohemian group of writers, artists, poets and outcasts who were exploring a new world of free love, drugs and artistic freedom, while also experiencing the rivalries and jealousy that accompanied their intense, interwoven lives.

Wolff will star this fall in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” The star is also reteaming with “Pig” filmmaker Michael Sarnoski on Paramount Pictures’ “A Quiet Place: Day One” alongside Lupita Nyong’o, set for a 2024 release.

Developed by Ingeborg Klyve (“Exit”) and Tony Wood (“Irvine Welsh’s Crime”) and written for the screen by Øystein Karlsen (“Dag”), who is also among the directors, and Jo Nesbø (“Harry Hole”), “So Long, Marianne” is co-produced by Letters From Leonard, Tanweer Productions and Connect3.

Executive producers are Ales Ree for NRK, Richard Tulk-Hart and Tony Wood, Vegard Stenberg Eriksen and Ingeborg Klyve for Redpoint Productions, Dionyssis Samiotis and Nancy Kokolaki for Tanweer Productions, and André Barro and Pablo Salzman for Connect3.

Øystein Karlsen, series creator for Redpoint Productions, said: “It feels like the way the world is right now, a series that celebrates life and love, with a core about finding your way in life, is needed more than ever.”

Marianne Furevold-Boland, head of drama for NRK, added: “Øystein Karlsen has shown in his previous projects that he can create original dramas that are both exciting and emotional. We believe this project has the potential to become a timeless drama with a universal appeal — it is about life and the pursuit of happiness.”
Justin Stockman, VP of English content development and programming at Bell Media, said: “As Crave continues to expand its output of original content in both English and French, we’re excited to be part of this unique co-production opportunity and lean into the strengths of our international partners to deliver stories that translate, and resonate around the world.”

James Durie, head of scripted at Cineflix Rights, said: “’So Long, Marianne’ must be one of the most iconic love stories of the last century. The events the series depicts, the beautiful locations in which it’s set and with an incredible cast, makes it a drama that will enthrall audiences around the world, whether they know the story already or are coming to it fresh.”

Wolff is repped by WME, Untitled and Definition Entertainment. Loch Næss is repped by Actors in Scandinavia, Independent Talent Group, Gallant Management, Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern. Torv is repped by United Management and WME. Taylor is repped by Lou Coulson Associates in London and Andrew Freedman in the U.S.

[LisaLCFan]

Seems this is the same mini-series and it seems the major players have been cast
https://variety.com/2023/film/global/le ... 235580865/

Leonard Cohen Series ‘So Long, Marianne’ Casts Alex Wolff as Singer, Thea Sofie Loch Næss as His Muse

Thank you for this info!

Reading the article you posted caused a bit of déjà vu, and I recalled an earlier thread (from 2020, as it turns out) about another film about Leonard and Marianne, also filmed on Hydra and also entitled "So Long Marianne" (link below). If this earlier film was released, I must have missed it. Does anybody know what became of it?

https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewt ... or#p376880

[hydriot]

Probably, the 2020 film collapsed for lack of funding and/or the film rights expired. Many films don't make it to the finishing post.

This 2020 trailer seems particularly weird: why set the conversation with the bronzed Greek on a towpath when it took place at a bank in central London? And I don't recall mention of Hydra at that first exchange: I thought Leonard got an invitation to the island from Ghika's wife, only to receive a frosty response from an antisemitic housekeeper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5DWuNY7dnE

[B4real]

My pleasure Lisa,
and I also looked at that link first before I posted the above article just to make sure I had the right "So Long Marianne"

hydriot,
I was also thinking along the same lines.
And in another thread I recently posted in there is also no more word on the progress of that film too.

https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewt ... 26#p380026

Still no word about the film that was going to be made from this book.
Still wondering who will be playing Leonard in it

And thinking about the title of this "Casting Call" thread, maybe they might require some forum members with expert LC knowledge in a couple of other cities they will be filming in, namely Montreal and Oslo.......hummm

[LisaLCFan]

Probably, the 2020 film collapsed for lack of funding and/or the film rights expired. Many films don't make it to the finishing post.

This 2020 trailer seems particularly weird: why set the conversation with the bronzed Greek on a towpath when it took place at a bank in central London? And I don't recall mention of Hydra at that first exchange: I thought Leonard got an invitation to the island from Ghika's wife, only to receive a frosty response from an antisemitic housekeeper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5DWuNY7dnE

Wow, that trailer was shockingly bad! The actor playing Leonard looks to be about 6 foot 5 -- he towered over the other actors! -- hilarious! And then there was his accent and vocal delivery -- oh my gosh, that was just painful! Perhaps the dreadful acting had something to do with the film disappearing...

[Andrew (Darby)]

This article below suggests that filming has already commenced.

I expect someone will confirm this shortly, as our gathering there kicks off in less than a week.

https://greekreporter.com/2023/05/19/le ... ra-island/

Cheers,
Andrew

[B4real]

More cast members have been added to this mini series.
https://www.tv-eh.com/tag/so-long-marianne/

Crave and NRK announced today additional Canadian cast members for the highly anticipated new drama series SO LONG, MARIANNE, co-produced by Montréal’s Connect3 (part of the Cineflix Media group of companies), about the legendary love story of Canadian singer and poet Leonard Cohen, and Marianne Ihlen.

Joining the lead cast of Alex Wolff (Leonard), Thea Sofie Loch Næss (Marianne), Anna Torv (Charmian Clift), Noah Taylor (George Johnston), and Peter Stormare (Irving Layton); is Macha Grenon, alongside special appearances from Éric Bruneau, Kim Lévesque Lizotte, and singer-songwriter Patrick Watson.

Macha Grenon plays Leonard’s mother, Masha Cohen; while Éric Bruneau takes on the role of Cohen’s long-time friend Robert Hershorn; and Kim Lévesque Lizotte plays Monique Mercure, who runs into Marianne at a party in Montréal. Patrick Watson has a cameo as a singer who performs for Cohen on a rooftop.

[B4real]

‘Oppenheimer’s’ Alex Wolff on ‘So Long, Marianne,’ a Series About How Leonard Cohen ‘Sacrificed Love on the Altars of Fame’

https://variety.com/2024/tv/global/alex ... 235945226/

“’I sacrificed my love on the altars of fame,’ Leonard Cohen said in the ‘70s,” “So Long, Marianne” showrunner Øystein Karlsen notes. Cohen was referring of course to his ‘60s decade-long relationship with Norway’s Marianne Ilhen, which shaped him for life.

One of the highest-profile and most anticipated world premieres in Series Mania main competition, “So Long, Marianne” is a coming of age love story which, in a quietly innovative, genre-breaking turn, asks whether the place in the world chosen by one character, Leonard Cohen, was always for his good.

Sold by Cineflix Rights as an eight-part series, “So Long, Marianne” begins in 1959 focusing on Norway’s Marianne Ilhen and Cohen’s love idyll on Hydra, a Greek island, which Ilhen reaches as the partner of budding Norwegian novelist Axel Jensen, and Cohen looking to find a place where, he says in Episode 1, he “can take responsibility for my own identity.”

Starring Alex Wolff (“Oppenheimer,” “A Quiet Place: Day One”) as Leonard Cohen and Thea Sofie Loch Næss (“The Last Kingdom”) as Marianne Ilhen, the series takes in their chance meeting at the door of a taverna – which still exists to this day. As their love deepens, Cohen takes his first steps to become one of the most famous singer-songwriters in the world.

The series ends with Cohen releasing his first two albums which brought that fame, “running for the money and the flesh,” as he put it, on New York’s singer-songwriter scene.

Included in Cohen’s first album, the song “So Long, Marianne” was not originally written as a goodbye: Its first title was “Come On, Marianne” – which may explain why its chorus is an invitation to get together, and “laugh and cry again.” But soon after he recorded it, Ilhen and Cohen split.

“Cohen wanted to travel the world and be a popstar, Adam Cohen, his son, told us, "says Karlsen. “So Long, Marianne” is “a story about what’s important in life,” he adds. “Long before Leonard became a sort of older statesman in his later years, he had success, everything that he had hoped for, but he was probably at his unhappiest.”

He never stopped loving Ilhen. “I’ve always loved you. You know that,” he famously wrote to her in 2016, a scene caught early in the series. Also early on in the series, Cohen is seen on his deathbed a few months later. His life was a search for a higher meaning, a religious belief structuring his world. That could explain, Karlsen suggests, the accusation he makes in “So Long, Marianne,” that she distracted him from this quest: “We forgot to pray for the angels and the angels forgot to pray for us.” “You hung onto me like a crucifix,” he also sings. His belief in Marianne’s love was one act of faith he never seems to have questioned.

“So Long, Marianne” is co-produced by Norway’s Redpoint Productions, Greece’s Tanweer Productions, the UK’s Buccaneer, and Canada’s C3 Media, which is owned by Cineflix Media alongside Cineflix Rights.

“So Long, Marianne” is developed by Ingeborg Klyve (“Exit”), Karlsen and Tony Wood (“Marcella,” “The Burning Girls”) and written for the screen by Karlsen and Jo Nesbø (“Harry Hole,” “Headhunters”) for Norwegian pubcaster NRK and Canada’s Crave, the streaming service of Bell Media.

Karlsen and Bronwen Hughes (Better Call Saul) directed; Ingeborg Klyve and Glenn Lund produced.

Variety talked to star Alex Wolff about playing Leonard Cohen.

So Long, Marianne
Credit: Nikos Nikolopoulos
The series weighs as a poignant and quietly revolutionary coming of age love story. Normally in coming of age, the hero finds his place in the world, which is beneficial for him. Here, Leonard Cohen finds fame, which he always wanted, but he loses the love of his life. I wonder if you could comment?

I couldn’t phrase it as well as you just did. The show and [showrunner] Oystein Karlsten – who is one of the greatest collaborators I’ve ever had and has become a dear friend – is special. It’s impossible for me to sum up it’s going to be impossible for me to sum up in a few words what it’s meant for me as a person and as an artist going through Leonard’s journey. I like you’re calling it quietly revolutionary because I also think it’s pretty special. All I did was grab on to the racing car and hold on for dear life. My only job was just to trust Øystein and hope to not do too bad.

Øystein tells me you dedicated almost a year and a half of your life to “So Long, Marianne,” had a voice coach to speak like Leonard, another to write like him and another to play the guitar like he did. And you really researched his life.

Yeah, at this point, it’s spooky, you know, the amount of things. When I started talking to Øystein about Leonard’s blood type, I realized, I had to really soft pedal the whole thing….The two of us and Thea Sofie Loch Næss, the wonderful actress playing Marianne and who’s the real star of the show in my opinion, went far, we went deep.

Learning everything that I could about Leonard was the least I could do. Because I already felt that it’s an impossible task to recreate someone who was an original, a landmark of our time. So figuring out what size shoes, who his influences were, reading [Federico García] Lorca and all that, was the least I could do.

He walked into a bookshop in Canada and found a collection of Lorca’s poetry.

The first collection wasn’t translated.

Penguin brought out an elegant translated slim volume in 1965….

I wish I knew that. I brought the 2,000-page Lorca block to Hydra. Everyone made fun of me.I was going around reading this, what looked like something you would use to build a roof.

One thing which marks out the series are its dialogs. They sound, at first occasionally, but increasingly, like something Cohen could have sung, for example when at a drunken dinner, he’s asked if he believes in God and he says: “The devil is just God when he’s drunk.”

I originally said: “Yes, he’s an old friend of mine,” and Øystein took that and made it better. We didn’t want to paint Leonard Cohen as a high priest, just a brilliant, young, flawed person.

Yours is also a much funnier Leonard Cohen which you might expect. When he talks to Marianne for the first time, he invites her to a drink in the taverna and says we can find a hockey team to join us or some Members of Parliament.

That was improvised. I’d read “The Favorite Game” and “Beautiful Losers” over and over again and found some really deep interviews from the CBC, and I noticed that he’d resort to quips when talking about himself. I was just rolling with the stream of consciousness, assuming it would be cut in the edit but Øystein is a brave director and left a lot of those things in.

“So Long, Marianne” from its title to credit explanation “based on true stories” makes clear, as Episode 1 quickly bears out, that this is not just Cohen’s story but also Marianne’s.

What Thea did with Marianne is inform a lot of what happens in that story, whether she’s on camera or not. Her performance is so vibrant that you start to feel her creep in through all these scenes, whether she’s in it or not. You think a lot: ‘What does she think about this?’ ‘What does this mean in terms of her interpretation of Leonard?’

She’s been described as Leonard Cohen’s “muse.” Traditionally, in a patriarchal cannon, as pioneering feminist Charmian Clift, another expat on Hydra, tells Marianne Ilhen, that connotes a young woman who inspires with her beauty. Ilhen’s role seems far larger.

I think the show from the get-go lets you know that it’s about two people and that they’re equals. I love the title being “So Long, Marianne” and not being “Leonard.” One person got famous because of the art that they were making became commercially successful. But I’ve never bought into the concept of a “muse” in general. It’s really about two people and their lives and this great, almost Shakespearean revolutionary romance. But it was kind of happenstance how they found each other. What the show is really saying is look at these two rich, complex people and how lucky they are to have this time together, complex as it is.

You’re a professional musician, have been part of a duo, “Nat & Alex Wolff,” as well as a film director (“The Cat and the Moon”). How did you approach playing Leonardo Cohen, which includes singing in character as Leonard Cohen?

I just learned every Leonard song. I was like a jukebox. They could just press, you know, F3, and I’ll play “Bird on a Wire,” and they press a 6 and I’ll play: “Tonight Will be Fine.” I wanted to just be as much of a jukebox for them as, as they needed. I just considered myself like a gumball machine of Leonard songs.