Christopher Plummer Stars in BARRYMORE Film May 2012

After premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2011, the acclaimed film BARRYMORE starring Academy Award® winner Christopher Plummer, directed & adapted by Érik Canuel, will be shown at select cinemas in Canada beginning in May 2012 and throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other countries in October 2012. BARRYMORE is based on the play by William Luce. The film also features John Plumpis in the role of “Frank, the Prompter”.

In 1997, Luce’s play BARRYMORE premiered on Broadway in a celebrated production starring Mr. Plummer, who won the Tony® Award for Best Actor in a Play for the role. In 2011, for the film, Plummer recreated his performance for multiple high-definition cameras, filmed over seven days on location and on the stage at the Elgin Theater in Toronto.

BARRYMORE, set in 1942, follows acclaimed American actor John Barrymore, a member of one of Hollywood’s most well known multi-generational theatrical dynasties. No longer a leading box office star, the film finds Barrymore reckoning with the ravages of his life of excess. He has rented a grand, old theatre to rehearse for a backer’s audition to raise money for a revival of his 1920 Broadway triumph in Richard III. It leads him to look back on the highs and lows of his stunning career and remarkable life. Directed, and adapted for the screen, by Érik Canuel (Bon Cop, Bad Cop), BARRYMORE stars Christopher Plummer in the tour de force film performance of his career.

Presented by New York-based alternative content distributors BY Experience and Executive Producers Steve Kalafer and Peter LeDonne. The 90-minute film is produced by Garth H. Drabinsky.

For participating venues and ticket on-sale information, visit www.barrymorethefilm.com

Christopher Plummer (John Barrymore). Christopher Plummer has enjoyed almost sixty years as one of the world’s most revered and beloved actors on screen and on stage. He recently won the Academy, Golden Globe, BAFTA and SAG awards for his performance in the film “Beginners”. Since Sidney Lumet introduced him to the screen in “Stage Struck” (1958), his range of notable films include “The Man Who Would Be King,” “Battle of Britain,” “Waterloo,” “Fall of The Roman Empire,” “Star Trek VI,” “Twelve Monkeys,” and the 1965 Oscar winning “The Sound of Music;” more recently, Oscar-nominated “The Insider” (as Mike Wallace, he won the National Film Critics Award), the Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind,” “Man in the Chair,” “Must Love Dogs,” “National Treasure,” “Syriana,” and “Inside Man.” His TV appearances, which number close to 100, include the Emmy-winning BBC “Hamlet at Elsinore” playing the title role, plus the Emmy winning productions “The Thorn Birds,” “Nuremberg,” “Little Moon of Alban,” and many others. He has received two Emmys and seven Emmy nominations, the latest being for his narration of “Moguls and Movie Stars” for Turner Classic Movies. His more recent film roles include, Pixar’s “Up,” “9,” and “My Dog Tulip,” all animated film projects; the title role in “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” directed by Terry Gilliam; and “The Last Station,” in which he plays the great novelist Tolstoy opposite Helen Mirren, written and directed by Michael Hoffman, for which Mr. Plummer received Best Supporting Actor nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®. Raised in Montreal, Plummer began his professional career on stage and radio in both French and English and played Cymbeline under the great Russian director, Theodore Komisarjevsky. After Eva Le Galliene gave him his New York debut (1954) he went on to star in many celebrated productions on Broadway and London’s West End, winning accolades on both sides of the Atlantic. He has won two Tony Awards for the musical Cyrano and for Barrymore, on which this film is based, plus seven Tony nominations, his latest for his King Lear (2004) and for his Clarence Darrow in Inherit the Wind (2007). He has also won three Drama Desk Awards and the National Arts Club Medal. A former leading member of the Royal National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier and the Royal Shakespeare Company under Sir Peter Hall, where he won London’s Evening Standard Award for Best Actor in Becket, Mr. Plummer also led Canada’s Stratford Festival in its formative years under Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Michael Langham. This past summer he starred to critical acclaim as Prospero in Des McAnuff’s production of The Tempest at Canada's Stratford Festival, which was subsequently filmed and exhibited across Canada. Apart from honours in the UK, USA, Austria and Canada, he was the first performer to receive the Jason Robards Award in memory of his great friend, the Edwin Booth Award and the Sir John Gielgud Quill Award. In 1968, sanctioned by Elizabeth II, he was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada and holds honorary doctorates from six major Canadian universities. He has an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at Julliard and also received the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 1986 he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and in 2000 Canada’s Walk of Fame. Mr. Plummer received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival on September 26, 2011. In December, Mr. Plummer was recently seen in director David Fincher’s American remake of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” portraying patriarch Henrik Vanger. Plummer’s unparalleled life is recounted in his autobiographical memoir, In Spite of Myself (Random House), published in November 2008.

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