I’m not sure why I jump at writing every little tidbit of Tintin news. I hold no special love for the series, having spent a childhood immersed in more American young lit like The Anarchist’s Cookbook. Furthermore, the general response to the films seems to be a collective shrug. But when Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and the Mystery Cow get together to make a mocap trilogy, it’s worth writing about.
The current bit of news is another unconfirmed bit about the actor possibly tapped to play the title character. The Hollywood Reporter passes on word from London’s massively reliable Daily Mail that Thomas Sangster will be the blonde Belgian reporter. Sangster helped hooked his dad up with Claudia Schiffer in Love, Actually and will appear next year in Bright Star, Jane Campion’s take on the love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. (Which, I have to say, I’d probably see as part and parcel of a sprawling Hyperion/Endymion adaptation.)
I realize that Love, Actually is enough to cause some grown men’s testicles to retreat so far into the body that they’re mistaken for tonsils, but consider Spielberg’s track record when casting children. For every Joseph Mazello there are a couple of Christian Bales and Henry Thomases; when he sets directorial sights on an under-20 lead the results are typically reliable.
This could still turn out to be bunk. But most of the ‘unconfirmed’ Tintin news has ended up being true, and Sangster is right enough for the part that we’ll run with it until the Jacks/berg camp says nay.