{"id":639795,"date":"2026-10-08T04:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/639795\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T04:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:16:10","slug":"emotional-andrew-scott-elsinore-open-2026-london-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/639795\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional Andrew Scott, ‘Elsinore’ Open 2026 London Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAndrew Scott<\/a>, Olivia Colman<\/a> and the cast of Elsinore<\/a> have officially kicked off the 2026 BFI London Film Festival<\/a>, and the opener couldn\u2019t have been more fitting.<\/p>\n

\n\tScott \u2014 already garnering immense awards buzz for his \u201cshattering\u201d performance<\/a> \u2014 was joined by co-stars Colman, Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Luke Thompson, Peter Mullan and Joe Locke for the showing, and became visibly emotional on stage as he welcomed out the real-life people who inspired particular Elsinore characters, including Colman\u2019s Professor Margaret Johnson, a pioneer of HIV\/AIDS treatment in the late \u201980s, as well as the National Theatre\u2019s stage door keeper of 46 years Linda Tolhurst, and Ian Charleson\u2019s sister, Lizzie.<\/p>\n

\n\tDescribed by Thompson as \u201ca real love letter to theater,\u201d the film is based on the life of Ian Charleson. It follows the actor\u2019s final weeks before his death from AIDS playing Hamlet at London\u2019s National Theatre in the 1990s. The glitzy gala at this year\u2019s London Film Fest was especially poignant for audiences, with the Royal Festival Hall just a stone\u2019s throw from the NT.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how extraordinary this feels for us to be here,\u201d began Scott \u2014\u00a0also a producer on the film \u2014\u00a0on stage. \u201c[And] how grateful I feel to play this extraordinary person. [\u2026] It was an extraordinary honor to play this person who was so wickedly funny and joyful and talented and charming and beautiful,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt was the honor of a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the film screening, which earned a raucous applause from attendees (and a standing ovation for its lead actor), Scott encouraged the audience to dance their way out to a song by the late Ethel Merman. \u201cIan did an extraordinary Ethel Merman impression,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want you to be able to remember not just Ian, but how extraordinarily he lived \u2014\u00a0with such flair and zest and warmth and charm and passion and talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMonica Dolan, Juliet Stevenson, Adeel Akhtar, Matthew Beard, David Dawson, Kadiff Kirwan, and Dickie Beau also star in Elsinore, from The Dig director Simon Stone and Pride writer Stephen Beresford.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeartstopper alum Locke confessed to THR that his first read of the script was emotional. \u201cI was flying home for Christmas last year and I was reading it and couldn\u2019t stop crying,\u201d he said on the carpet ahead of the premiere. \u201cThe flight attendant was like, \u2018Are you okay?’\u201d he laughed. \u201cI was fully sobbing. But it\u2019s a gorgeous piece of writing and Andrew gives the most incredible performance. I feel like Andrew is the best actor working, and it\u2019s really nice he\u2019s getting his recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAndrew Scott and Olivia Colman in \u2018Elsinore\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnthony Dickenson\/Focus Features<\/p>\n

\n\tFilmmaker Stone concurred with Locke\u2019s assessment of Scott\u2019s performance, also hailed by THR\u2018s chief film critic David Rooney in his review<\/a>. \u201cAndrew has spent most of his life on stage. He\u2019s a stage animal,\u201d the Aussie said to THR. \u201cIt\u2019s rare to know someone who can be as magnetic on stage as they are on film, and [who] can really move between those two modes effortlessly, and you see him doing that in this film. It\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the National Theatre\u2019s shadow loomed over the carpet, you couldn\u2019t help but feel the evocativeness of the setting. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to have been chosen to open the London Film Festival<\/a>, the story takes place 100 meters away from here,\u201d continued Stone. \u201cI\u2019m that we made a not-bad film enough to be allowed to do this very quintessentially London experience. But the London theater and film community is so incredibly strong; it\u2019s a mecca, and we\u2019re all here tonight to celebrate this joyful tribute to why we\u2019re all in this business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe artistic director of the BFI London Film Festival, Kristy Matheson, explained that the selection committee \u201cfell so deeply in love\u201d with Elsinore. She added: \u201cIt has such an array of incredible British talent. But I think what makes the film so wonderful is it\u2019s really looking at what radical care can be. You have all these people in this film; they\u2019re creating work together, they\u2019re creating community together. So I think it\u2019s a film that\u2019s steeped in activism and it\u2019s also steeped in the triumph of art. And they feel like really wonderful themes to be putting out in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTHR broke the news <\/a>of Scott and Colman\u2019s Fleabag reunion on Elsinore earlier this year. The Irishman is also a producer on the film, alongside Andrea Occhipinti of Lucky Red with Gabrielle Tana of Magnolia Mae Films, Pete Shilaimon and Mickey Liddell of LD Entertainment, and Stefano Massenzi and Carolyn Marks Blackwood.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt marks the beginning of 10 star-spangled days of galas for the British capital, with films such as Artificial<\/a>, Bunker<\/a>, Behemoth!<\/a>, Ink, Club Kid<\/a>, A Long Winter, Wild Horse Nine, Ray Gunn and Paper Tiger<\/a> all premiering at London Southbank\u2019s Royal Festival Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Scott, Olivia Colman and the cast of Elsinore have officially kicked off the 2026 BFI London Film…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[96622,51487,275647,458,255608,146,85,399,46,26457,3780,1299],"class_list":["post-639795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-andrew-scott","tag-bfi-london-film-festival","tag-bfi-london-film-festival-2026","tag-celebrities","tag-elsinore","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-international","tag-israel","tag-london-film-festival","tag-olivia-colman","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}