Entertainment Weekly - 11.2019

Caro

A Christmas

A CHRISTMAS CAROL WILL ALWAYS BE THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON

giving, but that doesn’t mean Andy Serkis (Black Panther) was

immediately sold on playing the Ghost of Christmas Past in

a new adaptation premiering on FX in December. “Do we really

need another one?” Serkis remembers asking, especially since he

grew up loving the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim as the

heartless miser Ebenezer Scrooge. “But this is the most amazing

piece. It felt very contemporary and fresh.” And a smidge more

youthful: Unlike previous iterations in which Scrooge was played

Andy Serkis

by rather unappealing men, this version stars

easy-on-the-eyes Guy Pearce, 52, in the

role of the despicable cheapskate who is

visited by some unnerving spirits on Christ-

mas Eve. “What I wanted to do was to make

Ebenezer Scrooge someone who, if it weren’t

for what he is and how he behaves, would

be an attractive man,” writer Steven Knight

(Peaky Blinders) shares of his vision. “I didn’t

↑ Andy Serkis

arrives with

a blast of the past

22 NOVEMBER 2019 EW ● COM

(THIS SPREAD) ROBERT VIGLASKY/FX (3)