Alexander (2004)

For the role of the immortal Greek philosopher and naturalist Aristotle, who as Alexander’s boyhood tutor influenced the king throughout his life, Stone approached Christopher Plummer, an actor whose remarkably prolific career spans several decades and dozens of films. Although the role would require that he journey from his home in the United States to Morocco to be on camera for just two days, Plummer was excited by the prospect of breathing life into Aristotle, and undaunted by the notion of portraying the great thinker. “He is a difficult creature to play because we can’t really know him,” the actor notes. “It’s impossible to research a character like Aristotle, because there are millions of argumentative thoughts on the chap. So I gave up searching and put myself in the trustworthy hands of Oliver Stone. I tried to infuse the character with as many colors as I possibly could to suggest Aristotle’s intellect, his wit, and also his energy and mesmeric powers of teaching.”

Aristotle’s lectures to Alexander and the boys who will later become his closest companions – including Hephaistion, his lifelong best friend – touches on many subjects: geography, politics, the gods, and sexuality as it was understood in the ancient Hellenic world, a time in which contemporary definitions were meaningless. Alexander deals with the sexual mores of the era naturally, with neither apology nor sensationalism.

“There was a philosophy in that period that the sharing of knowledge and the physical was a very pure thing between men,” explains Farrell. “It was Eros, pure love, about growing, sharing and educating. There was no ‘homosexuality’ or ‘bisexuality.’ There was just an inevitable sexuality whenever it happened. Hephaistion was a friend who Alexander grew up with, and someone who, from the start to the finish, never had an agenda. He was the only one in Alexander’s life who in the truest sense of the word was a real companion and a true friend who just wanted the best for him.” “I think that Alexander and Hephaistion had an instant kinship and brotherhood that transcended mere ‘friendship,’” adds Leto. “Most important was the love they had for each other, which wasn’t based on the physical, but on spiritual kinship. They played a part in each other’s destinies, which was a source of real tension between Hephaistion and Olympias, and later Roxane.”

In the wake of casting his leads, Stone had to come to a carefully considered decision about how the language in his script would be spoken on screen. Ancient Greece and Macedonia were melting pots of different dialects – people moved around the ancient world constantly, mixing their own dialects with the local tongue. Philip extended the borders of Macedonia to include territories in which people from different backgrounds had settled. As a result, the people of Macedonia in Alexander’s time had varied ways of speaking. Even the high-country Macedonians and the low-country Macedonians spoke in different dialects. To southern Greeks, Athens being the center of Greek culture, Macedonian Greek would have a pronounced accent. To reflect this, the actors portraying the Greeks and Macedonians speak with outlying English accents (Irish, Scottish, Welsh). The modern equivalent would be the way in which English is spoken in different dialects throughout the British Isles. As Greek royalty from an outlying Greek kingdom, Angelina Jolie as Queen Olympias has her own distinctive accent in the film.

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