page_title: Evita (1996 film)
section_title: Casting
hierarchical_section_title: Evita (1996 film) / Production / Casting
caption_attribution_description: English: Madonna Rebel Heart Tour 2015 - Stockholm
context_page_description: Evita is a 1996 American musical drama film based on the 1976 concept album of the same name produced by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, which also inspired a 1978 musical. The film depicts the life of Eva Perón, detailing her beginnings, rise to fame, political career and death at the age of 33. Directed by Alan Parker, and written by Parker and Oliver Stone, Evita stars Madonna as Eva, Jonathan Pryce as Eva's husband Juan Perón, and Antonio Banderas as Ché, an everyman who acts as the film's narrator.
  Following the release of the 1976 album, a film adaptation of the musical became mired in development hell for more than fifteen years, as the rights were passed on to several major studios, and various directors and actors considered. In 1993, producer Robert Stigwood sold the rights to Andrew G. Vajna, who agreed to finance the film through his production company Cinergi Pictures, with the Walt Disney Studios distributing the film through Hollywood Pictures. After Stone stepped down from the project in 1994, Parker agreed to write and direct the film.
context_section_description: Antonio Banderas was the first actor to secure a role in the film. He was cast as Ché when Glenn Gordon Caron was hired to direct the film, and remained involved when Stone returned to the project. Before he left the project, Stone had considered casting Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead role of Eva, and this was confirmed in July 1994. Pfeiffer left the production when she became pregnant with her second child. Parker also considered Glenn Close, along with Meryl Streep, to play Eva.
  In December 1994, Madonna sent Parker a four-page letter explaining that she was the best person to portray Eva and would be fully committed to the role. She also sent him a copy of her "Take a Bow" music video as a way of "auditioning". Parker  insisted that if Madonna was to be his Evita, she must understand who was in charge. "The film is not a glorified Madonna video," said Parker. "I controlled it and she didn't."  Rice believed that Madonna suited the title role since she could "act so beautifully through music". Lloyd Webber was wary about her singing. Since the film required the actors to sing their own parts, Madonna underwent vocal training with coach Joan Lader to increase her own confidence in singing the unusual songs, and project her voice in a much more cohesive manner. Lader noted that the singer "had to use her voice in a way she's never used it before. Evita is real musical theater — it's operatic, in a sense. Madonna developed an upper register that she didn't know she had."
  In January 1996, Madonna travelled to Buenos Aires to research Eva's life, and met with several people who had known her before her death. During filming, she fell sick many times due to the intense emotional effort required, and midway through production, she discovered she was pregnant. Her daughter Lourdes was born on October 14, 1996. Madonna published a diary of the film shoot in Vanity Fair. She said of the experience, "This is the role I was born to play. I put everything of me into this because it was much more than a role in a movie. It was exhilarating and intimidating at the same time ... And I am prouder of Evita than anything else I have done."
  Parker decided to keep Banderas in the supporting role of Ché after checking the actor's audition tape. While writing the script, the director chose not to reveal the character as Ernesto "Che" Guevara, which had been done in several versions of the musical. "In the movie Ché tells the story of Eva", Banderas said. "He takes a very critical view of her and he's sometimes cynical and aggressive but funny, too. At the same time he creates this problem for himself because, for all his principles, he gets struck by the charm of the woman." For the role of Juan Perón, Parker approached film and stage actor Jonathan Pryce, who secured the part after meeting with the director.
caption: Madonna secured the role of Eva Perón after writing a four-page letter to Parker, stating that she would be fully committed to the role.
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