Finding Neverland
About the Film
London, 1903. The playwright J.M. Barrie is smarting from a flop when he meets the widowed Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her four young sons in Kensington Gardens. Enchanted by the boys’ games of make-believe, Barrie is drawn into their world and becomes a devoted friend and surrogate father, and the imaginative afternoons they spend together slowly take shape as the story of a boy who never grows up.
As Barrie pours himself into writing Peter Pan, his intense but platonic closeness to the family stirs gossip, strains his marriage and worries Sylvia’s protective mother. The play’s opening becomes a triumph, but Sylvia’s failing health casts a shadow over their happiness. When she dies, Barrie remains a guardian and guiding presence for the boys, having given them — and the world — the enduring magic of Neverland.
Plot synopsis by johnny-depp.org.
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp plays J.M. Barrie as a gentle, whimsical dreamer more at home in a child’s imagination than in polite Edwardian society. Adopting a soft Scottish accent, Depp underplays the role, letting Barrie’s warmth, playfulness and quiet melancholy carry the story of how grief and friendship gave birth to Peter Pan. The performance earned him Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and SAG nominations for Best Actor.
Cast & Crew
Cast
J.M. BarrieJohnny Depp
Sylvia Llewelyn DaviesKate Winslet
Emma du MaurierJulie Christie
Charles FrohmanDustin Hoffman
Mary Ansell BarrieRadha Mitchell
Peter Llewelyn DaviesFreddie Highmore
Arthur Conan DoyleIan Hart
Crew
DirectorMarc Forster
ScreenplayDavid Magee
Based on the play byAllan Knee
MusicJan A.P. Kaczmarek
CinematographyRoberto Schaefer
ProducersRichard N. Gladstein, Nellie Bellflower
StudioMiramax Films
“Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older, and then before you know it, they’re grown.”
— J.M. Barrie, Finding Neverland
Filming Locations
- Kensington Gardens & Hyde Park, London
- Richmond Theatre, London (standing in for the Duke of York’s Theatre)
- Brompton Cemetery, London
- Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios, England
- Laredo Wild West Town, Kent, England
More about this film
Trivia
- Release was pushed back a year, to late 2004, to avoid competing with Universal’s live-action Peter Pan (2003).
- Impressed by young Freddie Highmore, Johnny Depp recommended him to Tim Burton, who cast the boy as Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- Dustin Hoffman declined to wear the Captain Hook costume for one sequence, so the scene was rewritten.
- The film later inspired a Broadway stage musical, which opened in 2015.
Awards
- 2005 Academy Award — Best Original Score (Jan A.P. Kaczmarek) Won
- 2005 Academy Award — Best Picture, nominated
- 2005 Academy Award — Best Actor (Johnny Depp), nominated
- 2005 Academy Award — Best Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Costume Design & Film Editing, nominated
- 2004 National Board of Review — Best Film Won
