It is a truth universally acknowledged (around this website anyway) that casting British actors immediately makes your project more respectable. It’s why so many films at Cannes and other International Film Festivals feature casts that are studded with British talent; it’s why HBO and Game of Thrones initially drew hard from the BBC’s stable of overqualified performers, in hopes that it would counteract the “fantasy dragon” of it all. Now, it’s Apple TV+’s turn to comb through the U.K.’s A-list roster, in hopes that two very high-profile “serious actors” will offset the fact that Wild Things is a docudrama tracing the life, careers (and tiger mauling) of Siegfried and Roy.
It’s hard to explain the trashy vibe that the duo represented in their heyday without understanding the deeply anti-LGBTQ+ feeling during the 1980s and 90s. German-American Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn were not out exactly, but they were themselves, in that they wore flamboyant, rhinestone and feather-encrusted costumes as part of the magic and animal training act. It was an open secret they were in a long-term relationship at a time when marriage was still restricted, dating back to the late 1950s when they first started as an act in Europe and in the late 1960s when they first performed in Las Vegas.
“Siegfried & Roy” were a popular act whenever they played Vegas. With the end of Mafia control of the strip in the 1980s, the city decided to make the pair a cornerstone of its push to become a family destination. The two took up residency in The Mirage, and their act was the anchor that brought in a new, more upscale middle-class client. By 1999, they were the highest-paid entertainers in Vegas, and probably would have run forever, had the inevitable not finally happened when Roy’s tiger turned on him in 2003. They promptly retired, but the lurid fascination with the duo has never disappeared.
