![]() ![]() Dickens remarked on what an unusual name it was, and he said: “Oh yes, you never hear the name Marley”. ‘They came across a Dr Marley who they befriended. ‘A year before he wrote A Christmas Carol, he was out walking with some friends,’ Lucinda tells us. ‘I think we can still appreciate the characters he created because they’re still relevant people still recognise those personality traits, foibles and themes.’Īn outgoing and friendly man, Dickens made the most of his observational skill by basing a lot of his fictional characters on the real life people he met on his travels. ‘If he had been alive today, he would have been sidelining in stand-up observational comedy,’ she jokes. This longevity, Lucinda thinks, is down to Dickens’ superb ability to observe his surroundings and capture their essence. ‘Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit – they’re characters that have just gone into the imagination.’ It seems as if the tropes of money-hungry businessmen, long-suffering workers and vulnerable children are just as relevant now as they were 175 years ago when A Christmas Carol was first published. ‘You hear people talk all the time, saying: “ooh he’s such a scrooge”,’ Lucinda says. One of the things that strikes you most when reading A Christmas Carol – something Lucinda urges everyone to do at least once – is how utterly timeless the story is. We spoke to Lucinda Hawksley – the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens and author of Dickens and Christmas – about how observations made and friendships forged in the beautiful surrounds of Malton became the inspiration for the classic Christmas story. Charles Dickens’ great masterpiece of festive spirit – A Christmas Carol – is one of the best loved and most recognisable stories there has ever been, but not many people know that it owes much of its origins to the market town of Malton, and Dickens’ close friendship with a local lawyer called Charles Smithson. It is nice to play a character wearing a costume rather than a skimpy leotard with dots on the front of it.It’s a tale known the world over. The makeup calls were very long, but as you are going through that process of all of this stuff being put on you, it does certainly help you transform into the character. “I was wearing a costume that weighed about 250 pounds and tripped every other actor up on set. “I was wearing prosthetic makeup and had scars and an eye that is dead on one side,” Serkis said. Ghosts are as magical as anything in Lord of the Rings but instead, Serkis appears in live-action on the set, albeit with prosthetic enhancements. ![]() So we made him a much more physically threatening and scary version.” You’ll see the real Andy Serkis in ‘A Christmas Carol’Ī Christmas ghost could easily qualify for one of Andy Serkis’s performance capture gigs. But he’s so tough that it becomes a much bigger job for him than he ever expected. “ It is quite confrontational, and what’s behind it is this desire to hold the mirror up in a very direct and scary way. “In our version, we did want to make him a bit more confrontational and a little less sweet,” Serkis said. Andy Serkis’s version isn’t playing around. In other Christmas Carols, the Ghost of Christmas Past may be comic relief leading up to the more serious ghosts. ![]() But the more he goes on the journey, the tougher he finds the challenge.” Andy Serkis’s Ghost of Christmas Past gets in Scrooge’s face But this one, this character is such a nut to crack that he finds it kind of an enjoyable pursuit. “He’s spent thousands of years kind of dealing with other people’s spirits and is, quite frankly, bored of the job. “The journey that the Spirit of Christmas Past goes on is one of trying to crack open and make Scrooge face himself and open his soul up,” Serkis said. L-R: Guy Pearce and Andy Serkis | Robert Viglasky/FX ![]()
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