VOA标准英语2009年-'Me And Orson Welles' Recaptures Legen

（单词翻译）

In 1937 a 24-year-old actor and director became the toast of New York's Broadway with the first production of his "Mercury Theatre" company. Worldwide fame and a fabled¹ Hollywood career would follow.

Alan Silverman | Hollywood 15 December 2009

 Me And Orson Welles by writer/director Richard Linklater recreates the drama and excitement of Orson Welles' early days as seen through the eyes of a stage-struck teenager played by Zac Efron.

"This is the story of one week in my life. It was the week I fell in love, the week I would make my Broadway debut² …and the week I would meet Orson Welles."
   
The fledgling Mercury Theatre troupe³ is struggling to put the finishing touches on an innovative⁴ production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. As storm clouds of war rumble⁵ across the Atlantic, Welles puts the play not in ancient Rome, but in contemporary Europe with Caesar as a fascist⁶ dictator. Into this creative whirlwind … enter young Richard:

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Zac Efron as Richard Samuels in 'Me And Orson Welles'

Zac Efron, well known for the romantic comedy of the High School Musical series, takes on a different kind of role as the teenaged participant in Welles' great experiment.

"It was exactly what I was looking for - a great opportunity - and I loved the script," Efron says. "I thought I could relate to the character; this whole adventure, this week in the theater, resembled my life experience growing up in the theater. It was all of the best moments in one movie, I think, and it was different [and] something I didn't necessarily know I could pull off. It wasn't a predictable next move and that for me was all the right signs.

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Christian⁷ McKay as Orson Welles in 'Me And Orson Welles'

English-born actor Christian McKay co-stars as Welles, a character he first explored in a one-man play that spanned the lifetime of the acclaimed⁸ genius; but in Me and Orson Welles McKay says the challenge was to rediscover the brash young man who would become the stage and screen icon⁹:

"I felt a tremendous responsibility toward him, especially because of his own mythology¹⁰ …his own myth making," McKay says. "He created all the legends about himself. He used to say 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story.' But when you're playing him you have to take away all of those [and] just peel him back to try and find the truth."

"I am Orson Welles! And every single one of you stands here as an adjunct to my vision. You want a career in the Mercury Theatre and in everything else I plan to do, then remember one simple rule: I own the store. If you don't like the way I work here, there's the door. Find somebody else to star you on Broadway."

"The wonderful thing about this character is that everybody has their own take on him; and so any actor playing him, you've got the people going 'he doesn't look like him'," McKay adds, "he doesn't sound like him …' So that was entirely¹¹ personal [and] something I had to satisfy for myself to answer certain personal questions. Take him off the pedestal and look him in the eye as a human being. That's the only way I could have played him. Otherwise I would have been totally intimidated¹² all the time."

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Director Richard Linklater on the set of the movie

Writer-director Richard Linklater believes any moviemaker would be daunted¹³ by the challenge of telling the story of the man behind the great American film Citizen Kane; and Linklater found the real Welles within those iconic characters

"He is an enigma¹⁴. He is Charles Foster Kane. I don't think you can ever pin Welles down," notes Linklater. "For every opinion there is a counter-opinion. Someone says 'oh, he was a blowhard¹⁵;' someone else says 'he was a charming, sweet guy.' I think the truth is in between; but that is ultimately the Welles theme, isn't it? The unknowable-ness of an individual. What does it matter what you say about somebody? It comes up all through his work that you never can pin anyone down. I think he was aware of those contradictions in himself: you could be a great man and a mediocre¹⁶ individual. You could be all these things at once and that's the Welles we're trying to portray¹⁷ in this."

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Zac Efron and Claire Danes in scene from 'Me And Orson Welles'

Me and Orson Welles is adapted from a best-selling book by high school teacher and novelist Robert Kaplow. The cast includes Claire Danes as the ambitious young production assistant in the Mercury Theatre office; and, in a bit of 'movie magic,' the film re-creates 1937 New York in and around a vintage theater on the Isle¹⁸ Of Man in the Irish Sea.