What is Casting Couch? Today it’s mostly about smaller-name actors getting roles in upcoming projects, but that can be interesting too. Not everyone can be an old favorite coming back to an X-Men movie or getting hounded about the new Star Wars.
It’s been known for a while that Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is a big fan of comedy—just look at how many lowly podcasts he’s appeared on, bit parts in comedies, and even his SNL host gigging for proof of that—but he’s yet to get his chance to take his love of the yuks further and actually star in a comedic feature. That might soon change though. Variety is reporting that he’s currently circling a project called Epic Fail that’s about a down-on-his-luck high school teacher who hires two students to kidnap his wife, in the hopes that if he swoops in and rescues her he might rekindle his marriage. The film has been written by Kevin Costello and will be directed by Mark Teitelman.
Beau Mirchoff
Desperate Housewives actor Beau Mirchoff finds himself in good company as he joins the indie thriller Poker Night. It’s a movie about a young cop attending a regular poker game that’s organized by a bunch of grizzled old vets. At said poker party Mirchoff and the other police are apparently pulled into a “mutual web of deceit” by a killer, whatever that means. The important thing to know is that the older cops are going to be played by Ron Perlman, Delroy Lindo, and Ron Eldard, who are kind of a triumvirate of awesome. [Variety]
Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Remember hearing about that upcoming movie All You Need is Kill? It stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, and it’s about a space soldier reliving the day that he gets killed battling space aliens over and over again. Well, Variety has a report that, despite the fact that production on the film is currently underway, it’s just cast 360 and Won’t Back Down actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste in the role of a scientist. It would seem that this role is likely to be pretty pivotal, because someone is going to need to explain why the heck Tom Cruise is running around in robo-armor.
Claire Forlani
Not only did Claire Forlani star opposite Brad Pitt early in her career in Meet Joe Black, but she was also featured in Kevin Smith’s first big flop, Mallrats, and one of the later Police Academy sequels. So why didn’t this girl turn out to be one of the biggest actresses on the planet? Who knows, these things are often random, but a report from Deadline indicates she might be getting another shot to become a household name. Apparently Forlani is all set to take a break from random TV roles to star in Panda Eyes, a paranormal thriller about a young girl being haunted by her past. It also stars Sophie Turner, who is the girl who plays Sansa on Game of Thrones. Turns out she’s going to be haunted.
Dale Dickey
Also coming out of Deadline is news that character actress extraordinaire, Dale Dickey, is the latest to join Gregg Araki’s White Bird in a Blizzard, aka that movie where Shailene Woodley is all upset because her mom split. If you don’t know Dickey by name, just look at her picture. She’s basically the go-to actress to cast whenever a director wants a scene to feel like it’s involving “real,” everyday people and not Hollywood actors. She’s been in stuff like My Name is Earl, Winter’s Bone, and True Blood, and generally she’s pretty awesome. Here she’ll be playing the blind neighbor.
Lesley Ann-Brandt
Lesley Ann-Brandt, who you may know as the pretty lady from Spartacus: Blood and Sand, is the latest to join the seriously interesting ensemble cast of Killing Winston Jones. This is that comedy about a tiff over the naming of a high school gymnasium that stars Danny Masterson, Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover, and Jon Heder. Ann-Brandt will be playing Danny Glover’s daughter, which pretty much makes her the luckiest girl ever. Also, it seems that her character is the school’s assistant principal, which points to the fact that this is probably a pretty big role, but, come on, Danny Glover’s daughter! Danny Glover is so awesome. Remember how sweaty he got in Predator 2? [Variety]