#adrian schiller

[kingslionheart]

he does enjoy a haggle

[lord-aldhelm]

March 10, 2022 Behind the scenes on the set of The Last Kingdom. Posted by Eliza Butterworth on Instagram.

[ingravinoveritas]

Interesting, is it not, that the Romeo and Juliet photos with the most chemistry are the ones with his male co-stars?

Hi, Anon! This is in reference to this post, for anyone who hasn't seen it, featuring production photos of David when he was in the RSC staging of Romeo & Juliet in 2000.

Your observation that the R&J photos where David has the most chemistry are with his male costars is indeed interesting...but also not surprising. Well, let's first take a look at a few particular photos that stood out:

When I say that it's not surprising, it's because we don't have to look any further than David himself, who wrote an entire essay about this production in 2005. From his words, the chemistry and homoerotic undertones to Romeo and the male characters' relationships--especially Romeo and Mercutio (Adrian Schiller, in the first picture)--were absolutely intentional:

"It certainly seems from the text of the play that Mercutio doesn't entirely applaud Romeo's interest in girls. He bombards Romeo with criticism and lewd innuendo about his mooning after Rosaline. Adrian Schiller (playing Mercutio) felt sure that this endless vitriol must be based on something more than locker room horseplay and that the character's fury must stem from a feeling, however subconscious, of sexual jealousy and betrayal. We had no trouble finding this in the playing of the scenes. "

There are many factors that go into the staging of a play--what the director wants/envisions, how/where the play is set (i.e., a conventional/traditional staging vs. a more contemporary one), and how the actors interpret the characters and their relationship to each other. Shakespearean plays in particular are (in my opinion, at least) always a tug-of-war between conveying the author's intended meaning--even references that are narrowly specific to the Elizabethan era--and a larger and more timeless universal message that speaks to a modern audience.

Romeo & Juliet is a play that has had tremendous resonance and countless adaptations over the centuries. (The play itself is an adaptation of the story of Pyramus & Thisbe, originally penned by Ovid.) We can look at those different adaptations and see what each cast/crew brought that others didn't...and it seems clear that David made a purposeful choice to highlight the queer/homoerotic subtext between Romeo and Mercutio.

This also seems to be the starting point for David revisiting these themes throughout various other Shakespeare plays in which he has acted, in ways both subtle (Benedick in Much Ado; Hamlet) and more overt. In particular, his deliberate choice to play Richard II as androgynous and his idea to have Richard and Bolingbroke passionately kiss during one moment in the play. And again, all those factors mentioned above are still pertinent, but we can start to see a pattern in David's readings of these plays that is unique and specific to him.

Which finally brings me to one other line in the above-mentioned essay, still talking about the relationship between Romeo and Mercutio (bold emphasis mine):

"The further Romeo moves away from his 'childhood' friends into the grown-up world of heterosexual desire, the more Mercutio rages and the less Romeo is affected by him."

Almost immediately, I was struck by that line--"The grown-up world of heterosexual desire." Especially in the context of the homosexual undertone of this production of Romeo & Juliet. As we've said, what goes into the staging of a play involves many different factors, but a clear one in this case is David's reading of it/collaboration with another actor. In addition, many actors bring elements of lived experience to their roles, and that made me think of what David experienced when it came to gay relationships and growing up in the 1980s.

In most (if not all cases), gay relationships on television or in movies in the '80s/'90s were shown as tragedies--something that was sinful, unhealthy, and (more often than not) ended in death. This is where the "Bury your gays" trope in media comes from, as such plot lines sadly became so common over time. Another trope that (at least in my estimation) was less common but still present is the idea of queer people "experimenting" in childhood but ultimately having to give up those relationships/hide those feelings when they grew up, in favor of doing what was "expected" instead.

What both of those things mean is that David (and so many others) had no model or picture of a healthy gay relationship in adulthood to look to--to see as something that he could potentially have. Because it did not exist, and never could. So it became this thing that was relegated to childhood--that same-sex attractions are immature and something you grow out of/leave behind for a "real" (straight) relationship--essentially the concept we know now as compulsory heterosexuality (or "comphet").

It sounds so patently absurd to us in 2025 that it's almost impossible to imagine...but this is the world David grew up in. These are the messages that he internalized. And the heartbreaking and long-lasting effect of that on him seems borne out and clear as day in his writing of this essay, and in how he came to view the relationship between Romeo and Mercutio.

So yes, going back to your question, it is interesting to see that chemistry, and when we look at everything surrounding it, the pieces very much start to come together. It's been 20 years since David wrote that essay, and I just wonder if, given time and the shifting attitudes in society, perhaps he is able to see things differently now. For his sake, I hope so...

[capitan-roberto]

This man was once the Great King of Turan!

RED SONJA (2025) dir. MJ Bassett

[hailturinturambar]

-> For The 10 Years of The Last Kingdom

Other media: Harry Gilby & Adrian Schiller in TOLKIEN (2019) Toby Regbo & Jacob Dudman in MEDICI: THE MAGNIFICENT

[4framesofentertain]

A CURE FOR WELLNESS | 2016:

"An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps, but soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem." - IMDb description.

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

Have you seen Victoria (2016-2019)?

Yes

Partially

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Voting ended onDec 8, 2024

[dailytlk]

" Tell him the worst of it, tell him or I shall! Confess your sins and live, or die disgraced. ” 

THE LAST KINGDOM 5X10