Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Rosencrantz

Guildenstern

The Player

Tragedian

Tragedian

Tragedian

Tragedian (as Srdjan Soric)

Tragedian

Tragedian

Tragedian

Ophelia

Hamlet

Claudius

Osric

Polonius

Laertes

Horatio

Ambassador from England

The title comes from one of the final lines of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", where a British ambassador enters the Danish court to find Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes all dead. The ambassador's line is, "...To tell [the King] his commandment is fulfilled, that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead."

While on the ship bound for England, Tim Roth remarks, "I think I'll spend the rest of my life on boats." He does just that in the The Legend of 1900 (1998), in which his character spends his entire life on a cruise liner, never once stepping on dry land.

Originally, the two leads (who appropriately spend the movie mixing up their own names) were cast the other way around.

Throughout the movie there are scenes where day suddenly changes to night and vice versa. This is a running gag of Tom Stoppard plays which often have "time jumps" written into the stage directions.

The Player: [after the performance in front of the servants] Are you familiar with this play?

Rosencrantz: Shouldn't we be doing something... constructive?

Rosencrantz: Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well. At least I'm not dead.'