What is Casting Couch? It’s full of casting news! Read on to find out what Charlize Theron is up to.
Sean Bean was already a star on the rise before he took one of the lead roles in HBO’s Game of Thrones, but since then he’s reached a whole new level of stardom that led to the spawning of a “Sean Bean dies in everything” meme here on the Internet. That’s how you know you’ve arrived. Makes sense, then, that he should finally get the chance to be one of the promoted names in a big-budget tentpole film and see how it works out. According to Deadline, makers of epic film Lana and Andy Wachowski have just signed Bean to play the Han Solo-type for their next big project, Jupiter Ascending. He joins Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, and Eddie Redmayne in a cast that’s starting to look like the strongest the Wachowskis have ever worked with.
Kristen Wiig
Remember that rumor that Kristen Wiig was going to join the cast of Anchorman 2 in the role of Brick Tamland’s lady squeeze? Of course you do, because it was an awesome rumor. It seemed a bit questionable at the time though, because Wiig was the hottest commodity in comedy and pretty much everybody was trying to get her into their films. Well, the time for celebration has arrived, because director Adam McKay has confirmed via his Twitter account [via ComingSoon] that the rumor was true and Wiig is now official for the film. Rejoice!
Geoffrey Rush
What is The Book Thief? It was a novel written by Markus Zusak, it’s about to become a movie directed by Brian Percival (Downton Abbey), and it’s important to our discussion because it just cast Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson in big roles. They’ll be playing the foster parents of the title character, a young girl who teaches herself to read using stolen books while the horrors of Nazi Germany play out in the background. Newcomer Sophie Nelisse will be playing the girl, while Ben Schnetzer plays a Jewish boy that the family is hiding under their stairs. Oh wow, that sounds pretty interesting even without Rush and Watson signing on and making it better. Keep an eye out for this one. [THR]
Felicity Jones
It’s been about a year since we’ve heard anything about that adaptation of Michael Finkel’s memoirs, True Story, which has Jonah Hill and James Franco signed on to star; but things must now be moving on the project, because they’ve just cast a female lead. According to Deadline, up-and-coming British actress Felicity Jones has just signed on to play the loyal and longtime girlfriend of Hill’s Finkel character, a journalist that ruins their lives through a series of poor decisions. This begs the question, if you were his girlfriend, how long would you stay with Jonah Hill after he became publicly shamed and self-destructed his life? Not long? Yeah, me either. Jones is going to have to dig deep to find her motivation for this one.
Stacy Keach
Didn’t think Robert Rodriguez could possibly squeeze anymore actors into his Sin City: A Dame to Kill For cast? Think again! Variety has the news that he’s just hired veteran evil bastard Stacy Keach to come on board as one of the villains. Apparently he’ll be portraying a mob boss who goes by the name of Wallenquist and is the character that author Frank Miller describes as being, “the one man who can’t be redeemed in Sin City. He is pure evil.” It looks like they’ve found the right man for the job then. Keach stores up extra evil in his mustache.
Charlize Theron
Dark Places is an adaptation of a Gillian Flynn novel about a young girl who watches her whole family get killed, testifies that her older brother was the killer, and then has to relive the whole ordeal many years later when she gets approached by some strange secret society of crime solvers who are willing to give her money to dig deeper into her memory. Originally it was going to star Amy Adams, but now Deadline is reporting that this didn’t work out and Charlize Theron is pretty close to signing on for the role. The film doesn’t yet have distribution deals, but if the Theron deal goes through, one would imagine they would follow pretty quickly—even though Theron is kind of a downgrade from Amy Adams. If we want to get catty about the whole thing.