What is Casting Couch? It’s the casting column that has updates on the careers of some promising young talent. And Matthias Schoenaerts.
Josh Hutcherson is one of the hottest young actors in the business right now, but when you first hear that he’s negotiating to star in a movie about Pablo Escobar, it sounds a little confusing. Never fear though, because Deadline has an explanation. Paradise Lost is the movie about Escobar that’s being written and directed by Life of Pi actor Andrea di Stefano and is starring Benicio Del Toro as the infamous drug lord. The reason that Hutcherson is said to be negotiating for the lead role is because, while Del Toro gets to do the showy stuff as Escobar, Hutcherson’s character is the one whose eyes we see the story through. If he signs on he’ll be playing an Irish surfer who falls in love with Escobar’s niece and then has to meet her murdering, drug-dealing uncle. Colombia sounds fun.
Eddie Redmayne
It’s hard to say what Andy and Lana Wachowski’s next film, Jupiter Ascending, is going to be about. As if their work isn’t always complicated enough already, the only thing we know about this one is that it’s set in a future where humans are at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder and it follows the story of a young girl who has been targeted for assassination because she’s a threat to “the Queen of the Universe.” I know, right? Weird. The movie already stars Mila Kunis as the girl though, and Variety is reporting that awesome up-and-coming actor Eddie Redmayne is also negotiating to join the cast, so chances are it’s going to be a must see. If you’re not quite sure who Redmayne is by name, you might have noticed him in stuff like My Week With Marilyn, Hick, or the trailers for Les Misérables. He’s pretty great.
Mackenzie Davis
Mackenzie Davis just recently made her acting debut in Smashed, but already she’s earning buzz for her performance in a Drake Dormus movie called Breathe In that’s set to play Sundance. So, while you probably don’t know her name yet, chances are good that you will very soon. Especially since she’s now set to star opposite Zac Efron in a romantic comedy called Are We Officially Dating?. People love Zac Efron. According to Variety, the movie comes from a Blacklist script by Tom Gormican and is about three dudes who all make a pact to stay single, right as each of them meets the perfect girl. Davis will play the ex-wife of one of the three guys. In addition to Efron, she joins a cast that includes names like Imogen Poots, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan.
Matthias Schoenaerts
Matthias Schoenaerts has been working for way too long to be lumped in as an up-and-comer with the rest of the actors in today’s list, but seeing as he just started turning heads in the States due to his roles in things like Bullhead and Rust and Bone, let’s pretend like he’s a newcomer, just to make things more fun. Deal? Okay, the news: Variety is reporting that he’s just signed on for roles in two more movies. First he’s set to re-team with his Bullhead director Michael R. Roskam for a film noir set in Brussels called The Faithful, and then he’s going to star in a road movie from director Robin Pront called The Ardennes. This one is about a trio of Belgian “losers” traveling near the heavily wooded French border in order to dispose of a corpse. It’s been described as being a cross between Trainspotting and Fargo, which sounds ridiculously great.