UPDATE: Jessica Chastain will NOT star in “Iron Man 3″ opposite Robert Downey, Jr.

April 23, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 1 Comment

05/07/12 UPDATE: According to Chastain herself, she is too busy and will be unable to take on this role. The search continues…

Now that she’s proven her acting chops in smaller, more serious roles and landed an Oscar nomination to boot, Jessica Chastain is ready to tackle a tentpole/franchise. And she’s picked a doozy as Deadline reports the actress is in talks to take on a starring role in Marvel’s “Iron Man 3″ opposite Robert Downey, Jr.

Chastain is circling the role of a smart (but, of course, sexy) scientist who goes toe to toe with Tony Stark. The role had been offered to her but it seemed like scheduling conflicts would force her to pass. The studio began meeting with other young actresses including Diane Kruger, Isla Fisher and Gemma Arterton, but when Chastain’s schedule cleared up, she is looking like the one who will ultimately win out after all. Chastain will join Downey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson and fellow newbie Guy Pearce as geneticist Aldrich Killian.

The film is said to be based on Warren Ellis’ “Extremis” storyline from the Marvel comics, and it seems to reason that Chastain will be playing Maya Hansen, a colleague of Killian’s with whom she develops the Extremis virus, which forces the human brain to rewire itself into something stronger. The scientists hope to send it to the US military, but it falls into the hands of terrorists instead and Hansen teams up with Stark to stop it.

Chastain starred in an unbelievable six films in 2011, including Cannes Palme D’Or winner “The Tree of Life”, Jeff Nichols’ Sundance hit “Take Shelter” and Civil Rights era drama “The Help”, which ultimately won her her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She is currently filming Kathryn Bigelow’s Bin Laden military thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” and will then reunite with co-star Joel Edgerton on “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His and Hers.”

Academy Awards Snubs and Surprises, Full List of Nominees include Rooney Mara, Jonah Hill and more

January 24, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards 2 Comments

It certainly was a morning full of surprises and snubs as the Academy Awards announced their nominations this morning. There was plenty to be ecstatic about and plenty to scratch your head over, so let’s dive in to some of the biggest reveals.

“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the 9/11 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, had been deemed down and out by most prognosticators after getting severely mixed reviews and not being lauded by any other group aside from the Broadcast Film Critics, but the Academy clearly fell for the emotional movie (sidenote: so did I) and it landed the biggest shock of the morning as the final Best Picture nominee announced. Max Von Sydow, in a riveting mute performance, also landed a well-deserved (but quite surprising as well) Best Supporting Actor nomination. Similarly, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” was a movie that seemed to be missing out on key precursors and thus had little shot at any nominations in major categories, but came on strong and landed Best Picture, Best Director and – most deservedly – Best Cinematography.

“The Artist” wins big with New York Film Critics; Jessica Chastain takes Best Supporting Actress

November 29, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards 1 Comment

“The Artist” is definitely the first big winner of Awards Season 2011. Following on the footsteps of leading the nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards, the New York Film Critics have just announced they have chosen the silent French film their Best Picture of the year, also naming Michel Hazanavicius Best Director. Indie flick “Margin Call”, which has seen a groundswell of support from bloggers who have seen it, also got a big surge by winning Best First Feature.

Meanwhile, one of our favorites, Jessica Chastain, has cemented her status as a major player by winning Best Supporting Actress for three of her performances this year: “The Tree of Life”, “Take Shelter” and “The Help.” The question now becomes which equally deserving performance other organizations who only allow one film per performer per category will choose to honor – and hope there is no vote-splitting.

Overall, it really was the year of the Pitt with “The Tree of Life” and “Moneyball” each taking major categories, and Brad Pitt himself winning Best Actor for both. Meryl Streep edged out the young upstarts by taking Best Actress for “The Iron Lady” while Albert Brooks was a surprise win for Best Supporting Actor for Nicolas Winding Refn’s ultra-violent actioner “Drive.”

Full list of winners below.

Felicity Jones is Breakthrough Actor at Gotham Awards; “Tree of Life”, “Beginners” tie for Best Feature

November 28, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards 3 Comments

In a big bump to her somewhat stagnant Oscar campaign, Felicity Jones has won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor for her performance in Drake Doremus’ improvisational style love story “Like Crazy”, beating out Best Actress competitor Elizabeth Olsen of “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and Supporting Actress hopeful Shailene Woodley for “The Descendants”, as well as lower profile indie actors Harmony Santana for “Gun Hill Road” and Jacob Wysocki for “Terri.”

Will this translate to elevated Oscar chances for Jones? Well, history seems to indicate so. Five consecutive winnters out of the past seven – Catalina Sandino Moreno for “Maria Full of Grace” (2004), Amy Adams for “Junebug” (2005), Rinko Kikuchi for “Babel” (2006), Ellen Page for “Juno” (2007) and Melissa Leo for “Frozen River” (2008) – have gone on to score Oscar nominations. For the past two years, however, actors in much smaller films have won (Catalina Saavedra for “The Maid” and Ronald Bronstein for “Daddy Longlegs”, respectively) though Jones’ win over Santana and Wysocki could mean the winds are changing yet again. Nobody knows anything, isn’t that how the saying goes?

Hollywood’s favorite rising actress Jessica Chastain to star as Princess Diana

November 7, 2011 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Casting 2 Comments

Current awards darling Jessica Chastain is set to play the late Princess Diana, reports Thompson on Hollywood. The news has come from this year’s American Film Market, with the project being tentatively titled “Caught in Flight”, and with German director Oliver Hirschbiegel (“Downfall”) on board.

Based on a “real-life affair that the princess long kept under wraps”, the film revolves around a secret affair between the late princess and a heart surgeon, Dr. Hasnat Kahn, who was said to have been the love of her life. Described as a “love story between a princess locked in a tower and an ordinary man,” the film is set to go into pre-production in March 2012 for the British production company, Ecosse Films, whose credits include “Nowhere Boy” and “Mrs. Brown.”

A film about Princess Diana is sure to be controversial, and the script by Steven Jeffreys is said to not cast the Princess “in a particularly favorable light; she is shown as a damaged person who stalks the doctor after he ends the affair.” But director Hirschbiegel has talked to potential buyers at AFM “about the compassion and wisdom that Dr. Kahn showed the princess”, and Chastain has been racking up awards buzz all year for her performances in three of the year’s hit films – “The Tree of Life”, “The Help” and “Take Shelter” – and has also landed a role in Tom Cruise’s upcoming untitled sci-fi film (formerly titled “Oblivion” and “Horizons”), so we think she could be the kind of actress to bring respect and poise to this kind of role.

Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara join Terrence Malick’s “Lawless”; Isabel Lucas in for “Knight of Cups”

November 1, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 2 Comments

It looks like Terrence Malick is making up for lost time in a big way, after having only directed five films in the past four decades. With “The Tree of Life” recently out, Malick will have up to four projects at various stages of production and release in 2012. Announced today via press release from the American Film Market, Cate Blanchett, Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara have joined Christian Bale and Haley Bennett in “Lawless”, while Aussie up and comer Isabel Lucas has signed on for “Knight of Cups”, which will also co-star Bale and Blanchett.

“Lawless” is that thing Malick, Bale and Bennett were filming at the Austin City Lights Music Festival, though apparently, all of that was pre-production and rehearsal and will probably not end up in the final film. No plot details exist for either project (shocker!) though the press release confirms it’s actually Gosling, not Bale, who is the lead on “Lawless”, while Bale headlines “Knight of Cups.” And while we originally thought Bennett had beaten out Mara for the female lead and that “Lawless” would feature only one pair of leads – one male, one female – that now appears to be in question as well. Both films are in pre-production and will shoot in 2012 back-to-back. On top of this duo, Malick has already completed an untitled romance starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams (aka “The Burial”) that is awaiting release and a long-gestating documentary “Voyage of Time” that’s still in the development stages.

“Lawless” will mark Mara’s first project since landing the role of a lifetime in David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” over a year ago, while Gosling is on something of a hot streak with high profile projects, recently wrapping Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines”, currently filming “Gangster Squad” for Ruben Fleischer and gearing up to shoot a remake of “Logan’s Run.” Lucas can be seen as Athena in Tarsem Singh’s “Immortals”, releasing on November 11th, and has the remake of “Red Dawn” still patiently waiting for a release date.

Jessica Chastain lands one of two female leads in new Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller

September 26, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 3 Comments

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jessica Chastain, the hardest working actress in Hollywood right now, has landed one of two female roles up for grabs opposite Tom Cruise in a new untitled sci-fi epic, formerly titled “Oblivion”, then “Horizons.” Variety broke the news earlier today. Chastain beat out the likes of Olivia Wilde, Brit Marling, Noomi Rapace and Olga Kurylenko for the role, although it’s possible one of the other actresses could end up taking the other role.

“Tron: Legacy” helmer Joseph Kosinski directs the film about a man named Jack who lives in the clouds above the earth and goes down to the surface to repair drones that keep the planet safe from an alien race that has practically wiped out the human race. The two female leads had previously been reported to be Victoria, Jack’s fellow cloud dweller, confidante and lover, and Julia, who had been his fiancee on earth before the invasion, but now it appears there are conflicting reports. Presumably Julia may be who is now being described as Cruise’s wife, while Victoria is now reported as “a mysterious woman in a crash-landed pod” who Jack discovers and “sets off a chain of events that cause him to question everything he knows.” Though there is no word which character Chastain plays, her penchant for playing wives may logically lead us in the direction of Julia. For that reason though, we hope she mixes it up and plays the mysterious Victoria instead.

Chastain, just earlier today reported to be receiving the Breakthrough Actress Award at the Hollywood Awards next month, came out of nowhere to be the name on everyone’s lips this year (did we call it or what?). She grabbed attention with a graceful and angelic turn in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”, then churned out a completely different performance as hilarious and outrageous housewife in the year’s biggest sleeper hit, “The Help.” She was also seen in – and received high marks for – “The Debt”, “Take Shelter”, “Corionalus” and “The Texas Killing Fields”. In 2012 she’ll have John Hillcoat’s “The Wettest County in the World” and recently signed on to star in “Mama”, a ghost story produced by Guillermo Del Toro.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jessica Chastain and Felicity Jones honored by Hollywood Awards

September 26, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards 4 Comments

Expect to hear these names a lot over the next several months. The first awards show of the season has unveiled a partial list of honorees, and a few of our favorites will be receiving their first trophies next month. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, earning raves for his performance as a young cancer patient in dramedy “50/50″, will receive the Hollywood Breakthrough Actor Award at the annual Hollywood Awards, while Jessica Chastain, earning raves for all 40+ of her movies released this year, including “The Tree of Life” and “The Help”, will receive the Hollywood Breakthrough Actress Award. British thesp Felicity Jones will receive the New Hollywood Award for her work in “Like Crazy.”

Chastain will be honored twice as she and the cast of “The Help” (along with Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Chris Lowell, Ahna O’Reilly, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, Cicely Tyson and Mike Vogel) will be receiving the Hollywood Ensemble Acting Award. Veteran actor Christopher Plummer will also be honored with the Supporting Actor award for “Beginngers”, and Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Editor Stephen Mirrione, Production Designer James Murakami and Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Farrar will receive awards as well. Johnny Depp voiced “Rango” will also be honored with additional honorees to be named. All the big ones like Best Actor and Actress are presumably still to come.

Last year, Andrew Garfield and Mia Wasikowska took home Breakthrough Actor and Actress, while Jennifer Lawrence and Zack Galifianakis were New Hollywood Award recipients, so Gordon-Levitt, Chastain and Jones are in good company as they head into an awards season where all three are hoping – and expected – to bring home more trophies on the way to Oscar. The Hollywood Awards ceremony will take place on October 24, 2011.

LA Times Magazine Scene Stealers: Imogen Poots, Jessica Chastain, Deborah Ann Woll and Mary Elizabeth Winstead

September 2, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Features, Lists 1 Comment

The LA Times Magazine proclaims “Hollywood is ripe for a new generation of leading ladies” (we couldn’t agree more) and puts the focus on four lovely young actresses who have that certain indescribable “It factor” that could propel them onto the A-List. Lo and behold, the magazine has included a few of our favorites. So just how bright are the rising stars of Imogen Poots, Jessica Chastain, Deborah Ann Woll and Mary Elizabeth Winstead? We take a closer look at the careers of each actress below.

Jessica Chastain is ghostly “Mama” in Guillermo Del Toro produced horror flick

July 19, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting Leave a comment

Jessica Chastain is gearing up to be one scary mother. The “Tree of Life” star is in negotiations with Universal International to take the lead in “Mama”, a horror flick produced and mentored by Guillermo Del Toro, reports Twitch Film. Spanish helmer Andres Muschietti will direct the feature, which he is expanding from his own short film of the same name.

Mschietti’s original short centered around two young girls, Lili and Victoria who flee from a ghostly woman that resembles their dead mother, while the expanded feature will skew the story slightly for Chastain to play a more adoptive mother role, taking care of two girls abandoned in the woods. Her presence is no no less sinister though: she’s planning on using the two girls to bring back her own deceased children.

Chastain, one of our faces to watch in 2011, is having one hell of a year indeed. Earning high marks for her turn opposite Brad Pitt in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” and Sundance hit “Take Shelter” opposite Michael Shannon, she can also be seen in next month’s female ensemble drama “The Help” opposite Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard and “The Fields” opposite Sam Worthington. Chastain also has a role in Malick’s next, still untitled romance starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams, and recently completed John Hillcoat’s Prohibition era drama “The Wettest County in the World” with Tom Hardy.

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