Rupert Everett


Why isn't Rupert Everett listed in the credits?

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because he had a small role as christopher merlow during the scene in the bar

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Merlow? Seriously, dude, that's Marlowe. I don't know why he isn't listed in the credits. He should be. Though, really, it is a very small role.

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Everett was uncredited by his choice. It's his way of taking a role - slyly and successfully - in long-running historical and theoretical tussles over whether Marlowe is really the author of any or many of the plays credited to Shakespeare. Marlowe wrote 6 plays produced under his name in his short life. Playwrighting and commercial success came easily to him, as Everett's scene suggests, and he did (allegedly) die in a barroom brawl at age 29, just before Shakespeare came into his own. Conspiracy theorists are still having a ball with this 400 years on, as Everett knew.

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[deleted]

I don't get it, what does Everett's being uncredited have to do with the (ridiculous) conspiracy theories about Marlowe being the author of Shakespeare's plays? The scene is a tongue-in-cheek nod to these conspiracy theories, of course, since it implies that Marlowe helped write R&J, but I don't see how his not being credited in the film plays a role in the debate?

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Goin' meta here, try to follow: Marlowe partisans ("Marlovians") believe he is the true author of one, two, or more plays credited to Shakespeare, and that his role has been wrongly suppressed. Therefore, his name doesn't appear on the works that are his. In parallel / homage / solidarity to Marlowe's invisibility, Everett chose invisibility in the movie credits. It's a symbolic riff on a centuries-old literary mystery. If you skipped English class that year, I can't help you - I lack the skills to explain it more clearly. To my fellow Elizabethan scholars, I hope you got the inside joke without any help from me, and enjoyed a laugh.

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Thank you for going to the, I'm sure, excruciating trouble of explaining your theory, even if you did it in a really rude way.

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I also wondered why Rupert Everett wasn't credited.

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