What is Casting Couch? It’s the casting news roundup that’s been out of work since casting agents seem to be treating the week between Christmas and New Years as one prolonged food coma.
If there’s one thing that Jurassic Park taught us, it’s that nature finds a way. Well, casting finds a way too. In a week where there isn’t any news getting leaked to the trades, leave it to Albuquerque Business First to break a new scoop. The eagle eyes over at The Film Stage noticed that, in an article about how that Michael Fassbender-starring rock and roll comedy called Frank is coming to town to shoot, the local source managed to break the news that Maggie Gyllenhaal is coming to town with it. Her involvement in the film sees her joining a cast that includes not just Fassbender, but two of the young MVPs of 2012, Domhnall Gleeson and Scoot McNairy, as well. Which, you know, makes her one of the luckiest ladies in the world.
In some casting correction news, FSR reader Christopher Marc pointed out that the story we reported on regarding the casting of the upcoming Marvel movie, The Guardians of the Galaxy, was refuted by that film’s director, James Gunn, and indeed that does seem to be the case. Gunn took to his Facebook account to let his fans know, “Almost everything in that Variety article on the Guardians of the Galaxy casting (and all the following articles based on it) was/is completely inaccurate. Just for the record.” This means that we now have no idea who is in the running to play the Guardians’ leader, Star-Lord. Which means the window still might be open for us to campaign for David Bowie to get the job. Let’s start that petition.
It feels like we’ve been hearing about all of the people appearing in Wes Anderson’s followup to Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, for quite a while now. Longtime Anderson collaborators have been mentioned, a couple new names have been thrown into the mix, and it’s all looked very promising. There’s never quite been a clear sense of who was official for the film and who was just rumored though, so the fact that Anderson confirmed his cast in a recent interview with THR is very helpful. According to the filmmaker, “We have Ralph Fiennes, and we have Tilda Swinton and Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, we have F. Murray Abraham and Jude Law, and we’ve got Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Mathieu Amalric. And I think Owen is gonna have a little part, too. Oh, Saoirse Ronan has quite a big part.” Anderson’s films have always been known for their ensembles, but just chew on that list for a while.
That’s got to be the most interesting cast he’s ever put together. Isn’t it?