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A Knight’s Tale

Year: 2001
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Director: Brian Helgeland
Producer: Brian Helgeland
Writer: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Heath Ledger, Shannon Sossamon, Rufus Sewell, Paul Bettany, Alan Tudyk
The one where Amy Pascal of Sony Pictures sat a kid from suburban Perth in a conference room in Los Angeles and told him they were going to use his sandy, surfer-boy looks to plug their $40m around the world, to which he excused himself to go and be sick in a nearby bathroom to quell his nerves.

Ledger went on to become the respected actor he wanted to be, but not before a roller coaster career where the studios wanted to trade on his good looks and use him to flog a bunch of committee-designed rom-com and adventure movies, he chose all the wrong projects for awhile and finally found his niche.

This is from the very early Ledger years, a light-hearted farce that everyone from the studio to the official production notes warned us not to take as historical gospel. A single scene ensures you won't and will almost shatter the illusion for you as well; with the gentry and peasants watching the arrival of Thatcher (Ledger) for a jousting battle, it's not just Queen's We Will Rock You in the background - they're singing it.

Thatcher is an atypical boy who wants to make something more of his life than his peasantry background allows, so he starts to make a name for himself as a jouster, assembling an atypical band of misfits around himself to aid him in his quest for glory and the love of interchangeable movie babe princess Shannon Sossamon. It's all the very drab usual fare.

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