Orloff calls Shapiro an asshole

Screenwriter John Orloff and actor Rhys Ifans featured on
title card of today's Don't Quill the Messenger podcast

by Linda Theil

In a long reminiscence of Rolland Emmerich's 2011 film Anonymous, screenwriter John Orloff recalled Robert (sic) Shapiro as an "asshole". Twice.

In the Oct 20, 2023 "Not so Anonymous" episode of his anti-Stratfordian Don't Quill the Messenger podcast, host Steven Sabel spoke to Orloff for over an hour about the making of Emmerich's epic flop that brought the Shakespeare authorship question to international prominence. (See: "Anonymous Opens . . .", et al on Oberon weblog.)

At time-mark 38:30 during a discussion of the Anonymous post-release furor, Orloff opined regarding Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro -- although Orloff did Shapiro the ultimate disrespect of not remembering his first name correctly:

"Robert (sic) Shapiro! Oof, that guy! . . . he's such a dishonest broker. Above anything else. I mean, whatever else you want to say, he's just an asshole. I mean, he's just an asshole. He wouldn't be on stage with me so I couldn't come to things that he would denounce our film at. He published two articles about the movie, maybe three. It was just endless."

Shapiro's discourse on the topic can be recalled here:

"Hollywood Dishonors the Bard" by James Shapiro, New York Times, Oct 16, 2011

"Shakespeare - a fraud? Anonymous is ridiculous" by James Shapiro, The Guardian, Nov 4, 2011

During the interview, Sabel suggested the film should be made into a series for streaming, like Masters of the Air -- a series soon to be released on Apple TV for which Orloff wrote the screenplay adaptation from the Donald Miller book.

Wouldn't that chap somebody's ass.

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