Roland Emmerich (Reuters file photo)

When Hollywood has had an end-of-the-world plot that needs the big screen treatment, Roland Emmerich has been the go-to guy for all things disaster related.

The German-born director is best known for showing audiences how the world almost ends in such big-budget epics as 2012, The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day.

But his newest feature Anonymous (in theatres Friday) finds him skirting disaster scenarios to investigate the possibility that William Shakespeare was a fraud. Pretty highbrow, considering Emmerich is known solely for making flicks that appeal to action junkies.

"Maybe, as a name, I'm the worst thing that could have happened to this movie," he told QMI Agency while promoting the film at the Toronto International Film Festival. "If someone else had directed Anonymous, perhaps it would be taken more seriously. Pedigree is important, and the pedigree I have is disaster movies."

Working from a script by John Orloff (Band of Brothers), Emmerich's Anonymous casts Shakespeare (portrayed by Rafe Spall) as a vain, two-bit actor who becomes the literary face for the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans), whose love of words is seen as being beneath his position.

"I believe we are teaching our kids a lie," he said. "I don't believe Shakespeare, the man from Stratford, wrote those plays. But I also wanted to explore how (the Earl) felt about that. When you're a writer, you're a writer and he must have felt terrible (not being able to take credit). And I wanted to examine that."

With Shakespeare a revered name around the world, the idea that he was a fraud might seem like heresy. But Emmerich says the authorship debate has been going on for decades with as many as 30 other potential writers thrown into the mix. "At first, when I heard about this story I found myself wondering what was true," he said. "And I found out most of it was true."

Emmerich was first tipped to the authorship question in 2002 when he was looking for a writing partner for The Day After Tomorrow.

"There was a script floating around Hollywood called The Soul of the Age that I read. Then I re-read it and went on the Internet and discovered a slew of websites devoted to the subject and then I read every book I could find."

That was nine years ago. What would eventually become Anonymous has been his passion project since then.

But while studios have been more than willing to open their purse to finance Emmerich's celluloid trips to the brink of disaster, bankrolling a story about Shakespeare's true identity came with a smaller price tag.

"That was a good lesson for me, though," he said, smiling. "I think we are making movies that are too expensive. A lot of films have the budget of some small African country and that's not a good thing. So I actually liked working hard to make this movie cheaply."

Being that his film is bound to ruffle some feathers, Emmerich knows there are some who will try to poke holes in the historical accuracy of his rendering of the story. But he's fine with that.

"One of my favourite historical dramas is Amadeus. But when you analyze Amadeus, not much of it is true as it is depicted in the film "¦ That's why we chose Richard III in Anonymous. The historical Richard III was not a hunchback. Shakespeare made him a hunchback for dramatic reasons.

"That's how I see this. There's always an inner truth and there is the storytelling part in which you try and work in as many real facts as you can."

So, if Shakespeare, as Emmerich paints pretty convincingly, was a fake, one wonders how much longer it will be before this is accepted as a matter of convention.

"I think Stratfordians will have a hard time in the coming decades," he said. "Don't forget, the people saying that this is nothing more than a conspiracy all have something to lose. They are all history professors living in Stratford.

"But I'm always very simple. I say, 'Show me a letter by William Shakespeare that he wrote during his life.' There's not one measly letter. That, for me, is the most amazing thing of all. A writer, a man of the word, and not even a note to his wife saying, 'How's it going honey? I'm doing fine in Southwark.'

"Even something like that, I'd say, 'Fine, I'll stop. You've won.' Until that happens, I'm sure I can stand up to anybody in the literary establishment."

 

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