Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest sibling, was only 19 when he staged his coup. We nominate Taissa Farmiga to play Pauline. Photo by Gregory Harris, Interview, September 2011.
Napoleon and Joséphine never had children; and in 1810, he divorced her for the younger Austrian duchess, Marie-Louise. Their marriage was documented in George Rouget's Marriage of Napoleon and Marie-Louise, (1811). Our suggestion for Marie-Louise is cover girl Rooney Mara. Photo by Mikael Jansson, Interview, March 2013.
Our first choice for Joseph Fouché, the other most important minor character, instrumental in Napoleon's 1799 coup and later his head of Internal Affairs, is Guy Pearce. The Australian actor always does a good job.
Photo by James Houston, Interview, April 2001.
According to Kubrick notes, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, aka Talleyrand, was one of "the two most important minor characters." Born to a noble family, Talleyrand started his career as a Catholic clergyman and then a Bishop. This ended when he was ex-communicated by Pope Pius VII. He is most famous for his work as the French Foreign Minister and as an advisor to Napoleon. We're not sure someone like Daniel Day-Lewis is interested in a supporting role, so we nominate Jason Isaacs instead.
In his notes on the film, Kubrick described his dream actor to play Napoleon Bonaparte: "An actor of about 30, who has the strikingly good looks of the younger Napoleon and who can be padded and aged and made-up for the middle-aged Napoleon." A somewhat arbitrary but steadfast rule of cinema is that all period European characters must speak with an English accent. Kubrick's first choice Bonaparte was British actor David Hemmings; his second, Oskar Werner. We'd like to recommend British actor Henry Lloyd-Hughes. With past roles in Anna Karenina and the Parade's End, he's accustomed to period dramas.
There is, however, one little problem. Napoleon was approximately 5'7", Benedict Lloyd-Hughes is 6'2". Perhaps Lloyd-Hughes could stand in a ditch—it works well for Tom Cruise's leading ladies.
Napoleon's first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, was six years his senior and a widow with two children. Kubrick wanted Audrey Hepburn. "I haven't really gotten interested in another Josephine," he wrote in his production notes. We'd like to nominate Hepburn's Givenchy successor, Liv Tyler. Tall and striking, is easy to imagine her enchanting a young Napoleon.
