STACK August 2016 Issue 142

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28 AUGUST 2016
T he Ben-Hur story
has been told
multiple times, the
1959 version starring
Charlton Heston earning its
place in film history with 11
Oscars.
“Ben-who?” quips uber-
producer Mark Burnett,
who hired Russian director
Timur Bekmambetov to re-
introduce Ben-Hur to new
audiences.
“I felt this story
was worth re-telling. Its message of
forgiveness is even more relevant today,”
says Burnett, responsible for hit TV shows,
The Voice, Survivor, The Apprentice and
Shark Tank.
When first approached to play Ben-
Hur, Brit actor Jack Huston balked at
re-enacting Hollywood’s holy cow. The
grandson of fabled director John Huston
and nephew of Angelica Huston, he grew
up in reverence of WilliamWyler’s original
epic.
“I sort of gaped a little and was like,
‘really?’ But I read it and was so surprised
with the re-imagining of this beautiful
story, a story I now believe can be told and
told again for different audiences,” Huston
tells STACK with the weary air of a man
already tired of defending his choice.
“Whenever someone asks me, ‘Why
WHEN IN ROME
CINEMA NEWS
CINEMA
Jesus is but a humble carpenter when a prince, Judah Ben-Hur, is wrongfully forced into
slavery. After years of hard labour, he sets out to avenge the treacherous Roman friend
who betrayed him, culminating in an epic chariot fight. Sound familiar? Words: Gill Pringle
would you remake something like
Ben-Hur?’ I point out that this is
actually the fourth time it’s been
remade. There’s always room for
a modern audience where a lot of
people haven’t seen its predecessor,
and we have a lot more at our
fingertips, technology-wise. I loved
the Wyler version, and I would be the
first person to say, ‘Oh, don’t do that,’
if I felt in any way it wasn’t going to
hold up. But now I feel we’ve created
something incredibly special.“
With his chiseled jaw, piercing blue
eyes and mop of black hair, Huston
even resembles a bygone matinee idol
although he is a thoroughly modern
renaissance man who sculpts, paints,
writes and has two kids with US
model Shannan Click.
“I think we can all respond to Ben-
Hur’s story of relinquishing anger.
The ability to forgive and say sorry is
beautiful. Saying sorry works every
time with my girlfriend,” smiles the
actor who starred in HBO drama
Boardwalk Empire.
Undergoing intensive chariot
training in Rome with screen
nemesis, Toby Kebbell’s Messala,
the actors survived a couple of near
misses. “Toby and I were doing the
finale of the chariot scene where
we’re going at it and smashing
into each other and, one time, we
actually crashed and I got smashed
into the wall but managed to get
out. It’s very dangerous because
you can actually lock wheels, and
that’s the last thing you want to
happen. There were a few injuries.
Luckily Toby and I didn’t injure
ourselves but there were a few near
misses with some of the stunt guys
on other chariots. Luckily no one
died.”
Shedding 40lbs for his role, he
recalls, “Even though we were in
Rome, the day I finished with the
slave-ship I went to an American
café and ordered cheeseburgers,
hot-dogs and French-fries. I ate the
entire menu.”
Ben Hur is in cinemas on August 25.
American author Lewis
‘Lew’ Wallace wrote the
fictional novel Ben-Hur: A
Tale of Christ in 1880.
Lew Wallace had been
a Union general during the
American Civil War.
It only sold 3000
copies in the first month
but it eventually topped the
best sellers list untilGone
with the Wind, written by
Margaret Mitchell, was
released in 1936.
Ben-Hur was the
first work of fiction to be
honoured by the Catholic
Church when Pope Leo XIII
blessed the novel.
Ben-Hur has featured
on the big screen three
times prior to Timur
Bekmambetov’s 2016
version. The first adaptation
was in 1907, the second in
1925 followed by William
Wyler’s epic starring
Charlton Heston in 1959.
Some
BEN-HUR
facts