Trailer Drops For Gay Biopic ‘Elsinore’, Starring Andrew Scott (AKA Hot Priest From ‘Fleabag’)
Image: Screencap from ELSINORE - Official Trailer / Focus Features
A new trailer has dropped for Elsinore, a gay biopic exploring closeted actor Ian Charleson’s battle with AIDS, starring Fleabag and The Strangers’ Andrew Scott and the iconic Olivia Coleman.
In the film, Andrew Scott is tasked with bringing to life the final years of Ian Charleson, a Scottish stage and screen actor best known for playing Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire.
After being diagnosed with HIV in 1986, Charleson went against his doctor’s orders to star in Shakespeare’s Hamlet at London’s famed National Theatre. Eight weeks after his final performance, he died of AIDS. Though Charleson remained closeted his entire career, he asked that his cause of death be publicised posthumously to promote awareness of the disease.
Elsinore Trailer Captivates With Star-Studded Cast
In this latest sneak peak of the film, Andrew Scott’s depiction of Charleson is both sardonic and resigned, and yet, also passionate and fiercely hopeful, garnering sparkling reviews from both DEADLINE and The Hollywood Reporter.
Alongside Andrew Scott, Olivia Coleman plays Dr. Margaret Johnson, a pioneer of HIV and AIDS treatment and personal doctor to Charleson. In the trailer, it is she who offers Charleson his terminal diagnosis, to which Scott’s character has only one thing to say: “but I have to play Hamlet.”
This scene is followed by a series of clips backed with orchestral pathos in which Charleson pleads with his loved ones to let him follow his dream, despite the obvious health risks. Dr. Johnson eventually concedes, declaring “if you’re going to play this part, there is to be no more talk of death”.
In reply, Scott wryly delivers one of Charleson’s most iconic lines: “That might be tricky. It’s one of the central themes of the play.” The line, both yielding and playful, continues as an L-cut into a different scene, in which Charleson sits over a man lying in hospital bed, clearly a loved one succumbing to HIV.
Audiences can now watch the full trailer here, with the film slated for cinematic release in Australian cinemas on January 28, 2027.
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