'A Knight's Tale' Director Recalls Heath Ledger Changing The Song To The Iconic Dance Scene
A Knight’s Tale is celebrating its’ 20th anniversary and director Brian Helgeland is looking back on the medieval fantasy film, which starred Heath Ledger.
The movie focused on peasant-born William Thatcher (Ledger), who begins a quest to change his stars, win the heart of an exceedingly fair maiden (Shanynn Sossamon) and rock his medieval world.
With the help of friends (Mark Addy, Paul Bettany, Alan Tudyk), he faces the ultimate test of medieval gallantry — tournament jousting — and tries to discover if he has the mettle to become a legend.
Click inside to see what Brian Helgeland remembered about Heath Ledger on “A Knight’s Tale”…
Brian opened up to Vulture about the comedy film and how Heath had pitched to change the iconic dance scene in the movie.
At first the scene was set to KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight,” however, Heath much preferred David Bowie’s “Golden Years.”
“When Heath wanted to sell you on something, you could tell in a second,” he recalled. “He would assume this kind of boyishness to him; he’d become nine years old, like out of a Dickens story, like the Artful Dodger.”
He added, remembering how Heath pitched the change to him: “Heath got this big grin on his face. He goes, ‘It’s the same tempo. It’s going to work.’ He said, ‘Don’t come to rehearsal today. Let us get it right and then come down. We’ll do both of them and you decide.’ He was like, ‘It’s so inescapable that it should be ‘Golden Years’ that there’s no way you can disagree with me.’ He just laid it all out like a legal case.”
Choreographer Stuart Hopps also supported the change.
“At the time, I thought that the Bowie choice was a good one,” he wrote in an email, “and although the dance patterns remained much the same, the choice of music meant I could give the dance routine a more modern feel and get the actors to let go more and swing more.”
Brian also just remembered Heath‘s spirit on the film set, saying that he “never saw someone like that. Everyone just fell in love with him — guys, girls, everybody. Just everyone loved him, and he loved you back.”
If you missed it, it was just revealed that Heath almost starred in this musical film!
This post first appeared on Justjared.com
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