Damien Chazelle's upcoming Babylon project continues to add to its exciting cast list, so it's helpful to have a guide of all the actors connected to the film thus far. After bursting onto the scene with 2014's Whiplash, an Academy darling which earned Screenplay, Director, and Picture nominations along with a win for J.K. Simmons in Supporting Actor, Chazelle continued his momentum as Hollywood's next it-director with the classic musical love-letter La La Land (2016). Though that film famously endured an all-time Oscars snafu, Chazelle continued his career with First Man and has been relatively quiet ahead of this, his next big awards play.
Though still in pre-production, Babylon is said to be about 1920's-era Hollywood and the transition from the silent era to the talkies. Hollywood loves to celebrate Hollywood, so Chazelle appears to be taking the cues from his last critical smash-hit La La Land and applying them to the infamous moment in movie history already immortalized on film by the 1952 musical classic Singin' in the Rain. The film has set a limited release date of December 25th, 2022, aiming for a wide release on January 6th, 2023, which should provide ample time for theaters to realign the distribution windows in a post-pandemic movie industry landscape.
In the interim, the buzz surrounding the film's preproduction has been all about the cast. Emma Stone, who worked with Chazelle previously in the female lead role opposite Ryan Gosling in the Academy mix-up movie that is La La Land, was once attached to play Clara Bow in Babylon. Bow was among the most famous silent stars of her era—Hollywood's first "it-girl," and a major figure in the development of the star system as a cultural mainstay. The film will also follow the exploits of other fictionalized characters as they navigate these very real tumultuous times in the industry, whether they be established professionals struggling to transition mediums or aspiring newcomers hoping to ride the winds of change.
After Emma Stone was forced to leave the Babylon cast due to scheduling conflicts, Margot Robbie was attached to play the lead role of Clara Bow. Robbie broke out in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) before ascending to the forefront of Hollywood's leading women. She is the current torchbearer of the Harley Quinn role in the DCEU, and she has leveraged her clout as an actress to help produce dramatic projects like I, Tonya (2017), Bombshell (2019), and Promising Young Woman (2020), the former two of which she also starred in, earning an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Tonya Harding. Robbie will also feature in a reboot of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise.
A star whose reputation needs no introduction, Pitt's most recent roles include that of actor/stuntman Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and Major Roy McBride in Ad Astra (2019). The former earned him his first Academy Award win after a long list of nominations, taking home Best Supporting Actor honors. Much like Rick Dalton, DiCaprio's character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Pitt's character in Babylon is rumored to be a fictional actor struggling to transition between eras in the movie business—real in spirit, if not exact name or likeness. He will reunite with fellow OUATIH co-star Margot Robbie.
An ascending talent, Diego Calva is a Mexican actor whose most prominent credit outside his Babylon attachment is playing a drug trafficker in Netflix's Narcos: Mexico. He will likely play the third lead, described in a report from Collider as "an ambitious young man, born in the U.S. to Mexican immigrants, who dreams of working in the movie industry."
Jovan Adepo got his breakout role in Fences (2016) as Cory Maxson before starring in the period action horror film Overlord (2018). He also had a small role in Mother! (2017), but has been otherwise relatively quiet on the big screen. More recently he played Will Reeves/Hooded Justice in the 2019 HBO series Watchmen. The British-American actor's role in Babylon is yet undisclosed.
A veteran of television programming, Li Jun Li is perhaps best known for her series regular role in Netflix's Wu Assassins. She is rumored to have been cast in the role of Anna May Wong, considered by many to be Hollywood's first Chinese American movie star.
Max Minghella is most recently known for his appearances in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale as Nick and Saw-spinoff Spiral (2021). He is the winner of several ensemble acting awards for his work in The Handmaid's Tale as well as The Social Network (2010), in which he played Divya Narendra. His role in Babylon is yet undisclosed.
Acting since the early 2000s, Katherine Waterson is perhaps best known as the female lead in the Fantastic Beasts films, as well as for her role in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice (2014). She is the daughter of veteran actor Sam Waterson, and her role in Babylon is unknown.
Often cited for her resemblance to both Margot Robbie and Emma Stone, Samara Weaving has built a television and movie career all her own, recently leading the critical and commercial success Ready or Not (2019) as well as appearing in Bill & Ted Face The Music (2020). Her similarity to Stone and Robbie could support speculation that her role is some kind of Clara Bow understudy or stand-in, but there's been no official word as of yet on who she will be playing.
On stage and screen since the 1980s, Lukas Haas has been in all manner of productions from 24 (2001-2010) to Inception (2010), to The Revenant (2015). He's the drummer and pianist for the band The Rogues and has composed several film soundtracks. He most recently collaborated with Damien Chazelle on First Man, in which he played the late Michael Collins, commander of the Apollo 11 mission which first placed a man on the moon.
The eccentric bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is among the more interesting popular musicians of his era, with collaborations ranging from Walk The Line's Johnny Cash to Radiohead, and a filmography stretching back to the 1980s. He's made appearances in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Big Lebowski (1998), and Baby Driver (2017) among a myriad of other projects and his roles are usually more cameo than substantive, which may inform guesses as to his yet-undisclosed part in Babylon.
Rory Scovel has played lead on several television shows, including Robbie as Robbie, and lent his vocal talent to the Harley Quinn animated TV series (in which Kaley Cuoco, not Margot Robbie, plays the titular role). The Robbie star will act alongside Margot Robbie in a yet-unknown role in Babylon.
Nominated for an Academy Award in 1985's Runaway Train, Eric Roberts has been acting since the 60s. A quick look at his IMDb page will return many, many projects in active stages of production as well as a wealth of completed material, including The Dark Knight (2008) and Inherent Vice. His role in Babylon has not been released.
While his most recent noteworthy work may well be the Amazon series The Boys, P.J. Byrne has collaborated twice already with Babylon lead Margot Robbie, sharing a project with her on The Wolf of Wall Street as well as Bombshell. His role in Babylon is yet unknown.
Having worked with Chazelle in a small role in his 2014 directorial breakout Whiplash, Damon Gupton went on to appear in the series Bates Motel as Dr. Gregg Edwards. He also worked on Criminal Minds before being cast in Babylon. His role is undisclosed.
from ScreenRant - Feed https://ift.tt/3A77NSP
No comments: