John Turturro’s new effort as a writer and director, Fading Gigolo, sounds like a pretty fantastic story, and already it’s attracting a pretty fantastic cast. First, the story: Fading Gigolo tells the tale of two cash-strapped friends who decide to get into the prostitution business, one as a gigolo and the other as a pimp, which quickly attracts the suspicions of the community living around them; because they happen to be Hasidic Jews. Oh, also they take on the names Virgil and Bongo.
Now, the cast: Turturro plans on playing the gigolo himself, and in the role of the pimp will be none other than Woody Allen, the famed director who hasn’t acted in somebody else’s work (in Picking up the Pieces) for twelve years now. This project must look pretty interesting on the page to get a guy who’s busy making a movie a year to take time out of his schedule and do some acting.
Turturro and Allen aren’t the only names that have already been added, either. A couple of Turturro’s lady customers have also been cast. Sharon Stone is set to play a dermatologist in need of his unique services, and Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara is expected to play a bored housewife looking to get a three-way going with both Turturro and Stone’s characters. Stone and Vergara at the same time; that’s a pretty outrageous situation for a guy like Turturro to be in. It’s easy to picture how incredulous Woody is going to be about the whole thing already. [Variety]