You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

Okay, I was skeptical when it was to be Kiera Knightley starring and Joe Wright directing, especially as both of them were involved with a recent abomination of another icon of Englishness (at least to Americans), Pride and Prejudice. But apparently neither of them are attached to the (*defeated sigh*) remake of 1964 Best Picture winner My Fair Lady. But lookie who IS...

John Madden, director - he hasn't done much of note since the 1990s, when he delivered the one-two punch of Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love. I think he's a fantastic director when he has the right material to work with. And it will be hard to go wrong with Shaw's play, Lerner and Loewe's music, and a screenplay by...

Emma Thompson, screenwriter - It saddens me to see the '05 P&P on her credits list (for "additional dialogue"), but her other screenwriting work has been pretty exemplary, especially her screenplay for Sense and Sensibility. Thompson recently mentioned her hopes that Hugh Grant might be considered for Henry Higgins, and confirmed the casting of...

Carey Mulligan, actress (Eliza Doolittle) - She's already been compared many times over to Audrey Hepburn, and this will only add fuel to the fire. This is another connection to the '05 P&P (she played Kitty, her first ever film role). She's also been Isabella Thorpe in the recent Northanger Abbey, as well as Daniel Radcliffe's sister in My Boy Jack. ETA (can't believe I left this out): She's already proved she's more than capable of carrying a film with her Oscar-nominated performance in An Education. And she'll be seen in Oliver Stone's Wall Street sequel playing love interest to her real-life boyfriend (I wish I were kidding) Shia LaBeouf. Taste in boyfriends aside :P, she's rather perfect for this, I think. She went into acting in the first place because she wanted to be in musical theater, so this must be a dream come true for her.

I'd like to be up in arms about yet another remake, but it's hard to criticize remakes of movies that themselves were adaptations of plays and musicals, since Broadway and theaters all over the world have been "remaking" plays and musicals for many, many years. And when they do, it's always interesting (though not always successful) to see new actors take already established characters and make them their own.

And now the gears in my brain are already working on casting the rest of the roles. I say Judi Dench for Henry's mother, definitely - she's worked with Madden twice before and once it won her an Oscar, which she accepted with a lovely declaration to Madden that "if you ever need someone to slouch in a doorway, you can count on me." The key part, for me, is Eliza's father. Can ANYONE be more awesome than Stanley Holloway was in the 1964 version?! I also wonder if Emma Thompson will play one of the roles. She's far too young to be Higgins's mother, but perhaps Mrs. Pearce?

I note in Googling that both Brad Pitt and George Clooney vied to play Henry Higgins and supposedly their close friendship hit some rocks over it. Really? What other wildly unsuitable actors were interested in this role - Bruce Willis? Billy Bob Thornton? Gene Hackman? Vince Vaughn?