"Anonymous" film

And, as I said, the film is not really about the Essex Rebellion. It is about showing that ideas are stronger than brute force. So how to make that point without wasting 20 minutes of the audience's time? Well, Sir Robert Cecil—our villain—was in real life a hunchback. And so is King Richard III in Shakespeare's play of the same name. By switching the play that precedes the Essex Rebellion from "Richard II" to "Richard III," I was able to let the movie's audience immediately see the political implications of the performance. I didn't have to explain any complicated political metaphors: They only needed to see Richard III's hunched back to understand instantly a point that would have been obvious to London bricklayers and cobblers of the era.

In the end, the Essex Rebellion failed. In "Anonymous," it fails because Robert Cecil uses cannons—brute force—to destroy it. But, ultimately, Cecil couldn't silence the plays—or the ideas that they contain. The next king, James Stuart, was an immense fan of the theater, and he, too, understood what "Richard II" and "Richard III" were trying to say.

Is "Anonymous" an exact account of the history that it covers? No. But the liberties that it takes are necessary for capturing a deeper truth. In this, I can point to noble literary antecedents. Just consider the fictionalized characters and imagined events of the "history" plays of Shakespeare himself.