Everything To Know About the BBC's Star-Studded New Brideshead Revisited

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For any fan of classic literature or British period dramas, Brideshead Revisited is a sacred text. First published in 1945, Evelyn Waugh's novel follows Oxford undergraduate Charles Ryder, and his complicated, years-long friendship with the wealthy Flyte family. The book was already adapted into an acclaimed series by Granada Television in 1981, which starred Jeremy Irons, and now it's about to get the BBC remake treatment. Here's a few key things to know.

The cast is wildly star-studded.

Per Deadline, the casting information first reported by The Daily Mail may be premature, so take this with a grain of salt. But according to the Mail, an impressive array of stars are close to signing on for the new Brideshead Revisited. Andrew Garfield is reportedly set to play Charles, with Joe Alwyn co-starring as Sebastian, and Rooney Mara as Julia. Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett are said to be in negotiations to play Lord and Lady Marchmain, the patriarch and matriarch of the Flyte family.

Director Luca Guadagnino is also a prestige name.

Italian director Guadagnino rose to Stateside prominence a few years back, when he directed the acclaimed romantic drama Call Me By Your Name. His credits also include I Am Love, A Bigger Splash, and the 2018 remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria, so he's no stranger to rebooting iconic properties.

Guadagnino more recently wrapped up his first TV project, the HBO drama We Are Who We Are, which chronicles a love story between two Americans on a U.S. army base in Italy.

This is the second remake of Brideshead Revisited since the 1981 version.

Waugh's novel follows a twenty-year span, beginning in the 1920s when Charles meets Sebastian when both are undergraduates Oxford University. Sebastian's family, the Flytes, are a wealthy clan of Catholics who live at a palatial estate called Brideshead. The story follows Charles's tempestuous relationships with Sebastian and his sister Julia, over the course of the next twenty years.

In the 1981 TV series which aired on ITV, Charles was played by Jeremy Irons, while Anthony Anderson and Diana Quick played Sebastian and Julia respectively. That impressive cast also included British thespians Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.

More recently, the novel was adapted into a movie in 2008, starring Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell as Charles, Sebastian and Julia, and Emma Thompson as the Flyte matriarch, Lady Marchmain.

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