Jeremy Irons Hosts the Five-Part Working Shakespeare Educational DVD Series of Historic Shakespeare Workshops Conducted by the Royal Shakespeare Company's Legendary Voice and Speech Teacher Cicely Berry. Twenty actors from both sides of the Atlantic, most of whom had never met before, convened in New York for three days of intensive Shakespeare training workshops. The group, which included Emily Watson, Helen Hunt, Samuel L. Jackson, Victor Garber, Blythe Danner, Lindsay Duncan, Toby Stephens, Claire Danes, Cherry Jones, Tony Goldwyn, and Robert Sean Leonard, didn't sign up to demonstrate "how to" perform Shakespeare for the general edification of the theatre-going public.
Mike Figgis' grim drama documents a romantic triangle of sorts involving prostitute Sera (Elisabeth Shue), failed Hollywood screenwriter Ben (Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage), and the constant flow of booze which he loves more dearly than life itself. Arriving in Las Vegas with the intention of drinking himself to death, Ben meets Sera, and they gradually begin falling for one another. From the outset, however, Ben warns Sera that no matter what, she can never ask him to quit drinking, a condition to which she grudgingly agrees. A darkly comic tragedy, Leaving Las Vegas charts the brief romantic convergence of two desperately needy people who together find a brief flicker of happiness.