What is Casting Couch? It’s your daily dose of casting news. Today we find out what Helena Bonham Carter is up to with McNulty.
It’s that time of the month again. What time? When Nic Cage takes another job, of course. You’ve got to feed the monkey. This time around he’s agreed to star in an upcoming thriller from Spanish director Paco Cabezas called Tokarev. According to Deadline, it’s about a former criminal whose daughter gets kidnapped, which forces him to go looking for her kidnappers, and threatens to make him slip back into his devilish old ways. None of the particulars really matter as long as Cage is going to have some sort of ridiculous hairdo and act all weird and intense and stuff though. All we needed to know was new Nic Cage movie. High five!
Amanda Seyfried
Word is coming out of THR that Seth MacFarlane is looking to recruit Amanda Seyfried for his upcoming followup to Ted, a Blazing Saddles-inspired Western comedy called A Million Ways to Die in the West. It’s being reported that Seyfried is being eyed for the role of the MacFarlane characters’ ex-girlfriend, which brings whether or not she’ll actually sign on to the film into question a bit. I mean, who among us isn’t currently trying to get Amanda Seyfried to become our ex-girlfriend? Get in line, buddy. You’ve got to appreciate MacFarlane’s moxie, though. Best of luck to him in the negotiation process.
Sigourney Weaver
Screen Daily has a report that Sigourney Weaver has just joined a new film called Body Art. This one is an adaptation of the Don DeLillo book “The Body Artist,” which is about a grieving performance artist trying to cope with the suicide of her significantly older husband. Luca Guadagnino is set to direct, and Weaver joins a cast that already includes names like Isabelle Huppert, David Cronenberg, and Denis Lavant. Guadagnino recently directed the lavish I Am Love, which got some play here in the States, so if you caught that one you know that we’re in for something pretty.
Danielle Bisutti
Danielle Bisutti, an actress who’s done mostly TV work up to this point, is getting the chance to ply her trade on the big screen. Variety is reporting that she’s the latest name to join James Wan’s Insidious sequel, which now seems to be being referred to as Insidious Chapter 2. There isn’t any word on what kind of role Bisutti is going to be playing, but if they’re bothering to leak to the press that an actress whose name nobody really knows is joining their film, let’s just assume that it’s going to be an important one. She’ll be joining Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne and all of the notable people from the first film.
Dan Stevens
What’s next for Downton Abbey actor Dan Stevens? This veteran of dashing tuxedo tails and perfectly coiffed hair is in talks to co-star with Liam Neeson in a film called A Walk Among the Tombstones. Variety reports that Tombstones is a Scott Frank-directed project about a NYPD officer turned private dick who gets hired to find the kidnapped wife of a drug dealer. Neeson, of course, is the one playing the hard-boiled detective, so it’s unclear which role Stevens is in the running for. Can pretty British men be drug dealers? Or kidnappers? Maybe I could buy dognapper, but this seems a little extreme.
Helena Bonham Carter
The BBC is putting together a TV movie about the volatile relationship shared by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. According to Deadline, the film—cleverly titled Burton & Taylor—will chart the duo’s ill-fated appearance in a Broadway play called Private Lives. The big news here is that director Richard Laxton has landed The Wire’s McNulty (Dominic West) and Tim Burton’s Helena Bonham Carter to star as the film’s bickering lovers. That’s some dang good casting for a 90 minute movie that’s going to premiere on BBC 4. Way to step up your game, Merry Old England.