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Based on the worldwide best-selling novel by Simon Winchester, THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN is an extraordinary true tale of madness, genius, and obsession about two remarkable men who created literary history with the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary.
The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857 by professor James Murray (Mel Gibson), who took on the challenge of creating the most comprehensive dictionary ever compiled. By “crowd sourcing” the work; that is, by enlisting definitions from people all over the world, the dictionary could be compiled in mere decades instead of a century.
As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor (Sean Penn), had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was a convicted murderer and being held at an asylum for the criminally insane.
Original Release
03/15/2019
US Release
05/10/2019
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Mel Gibson | James Murray |
Sean Penn | Dr. William Chester Minor |
Natalie Dormer | Eliza Merrett |
Ioan Gruffudd | Henry Bradley |
Jeremy Irvine | Charles Hall |
Brendan Patricks | Winston Churchill |
Adam Fergus | Alfred Minor |
Brian Fortune | Head Board Member |
Aidan McArdle | Defence Attorney Clarke |
Kieran O'Reilly | Minor's Father |
Directors
Writers
John Boorman, Todd Komarnicki, Farhad Safinia, Simon Winchester
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Mel Gibson | James Murray |
Sean Penn | Dr. William Chester Minor |
Natalie Dormer | Eliza Merrett |
Ioan Gruffudd | Henry Bradley |
Jeremy Irvine | Charles Hall |
Brendan Patricks | Winston Churchill |
Adam Fergus | Alfred Minor |
Brian Fortune | Head Board Member |
Aidan McArdle | Defence Attorney Clarke |
Kieran O'Reilly | Minor's Father |
Christopher Maleki | Joseph / Fredo |
Steve Gunn | Lambeth Man |
Malcolm Freeman | Colonel |
Joe McKinney | Attendant No.1 |
Shane Noone | George Merrett |
John Morton | Scriptorium Assistant |
Bryan Murray | Henry Liddell |
David Crowley | Parfit |
Oengus MacNamara | Bailiff #1 |
Shane Gately | Angry Spectator |
Producers
Name | Role |
---|
Zev Foreman | Executive Producer |
Manu Gargi | Executive Producer |
Peter McAleese | Executive Producer |
Dominic Rustam | Executive Producer |
Tyler Zacharia | Executive Producer |
Bruce Davey | Producer |
Mel Gibson | Producer |
Gaston Pavlovich | Producer |
Nicolas Chartier | Producer |
Jayson de Rosner | Producer |
Léonard Glowinski | Producer |
Macdara Kelleher | Producer |
Jenny O'Brien | Producer |