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Casting Tidbits: Cillian Murphy, Rachel Weisz & Saoirse Ronan

by Ethan Anderton
November 4, 2010

True love is hard to find, sometimes you think you have true love and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego and a couple of Casting Tidbits jump out of your bathroom blindfolded like a goddamn magic show ready to double team your girlfriend. First up, ShockTillYouDrop found some extra casting information on a promo poster for Buried director Rodrigo Cortes' new film Red Lights starring Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver. It looks like Cillian Murphy is also part of the cast in the story of a psychologist (Weaver), and her assistant, whose study of paranormal activity leads them to investigate a world-renowned psychic (De Niro).

Second, THR reports Rachel Weisz will star in The Deep Blue Sea, a period drama from director Terence Davies that will not have Samuel L. Jackson getting eaten by a shark. Tom Hiddleston (Thor) and Simon Russell Beale ("MI-5") also star in the story of a privileged housewife (Weisz) in 1950s London society who leaves her husband (Beale) for a young ex-Royal Air Force pilot (Hiddleston). The story is an adaptation of the 1952 stage play of the same name by Terrence Rattigan. This will likely be one of those dramas to keep an eye on when awards season comes around next year.

Next, Production Weekly updated via Twitter that Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones) has taken the title role in Effie, a biopic on Effie Gray, the wife of English art critic John Ruskin, who became entangled in a famous Victorian love triangle. The story has been adapted into several novels and plays because of the intriguing sexual relationship, or lack thereof, between Gray and Ruskin. Apparently the marriage was left without being, shall we say, consummated in the bedroom, so Gray had the marriage annulled only to marry Ruskin's protégé John Everett Millais. Emma Thompson wrote the script and her husband Greg Wise is playing Ruskin with Orlando Bloom attached to play Millais.

Also, Variety reports Imogen Poots (Centurion) and Felicity Jones (Cemetery Junction) have joined Trap for Cinderella, an adaptation of Sebastien Japrisot's book of the same name. The Skeleton Key director Iain Softley is directing and writing the story which follows two women, one wealthy and the other poor, who are trapped inside a beach house in a French resort when it is gutted by fire. Only one of them survives, burnt beyond recognition and in a state of total amnesia, unaware whether she is the heiress or penniless friend. Production is slated to begin shooting in the UK and France in February.

In addition, Deadline reports Gina Gershon (Love Ranch), Thomas Haden Church (Easy A) and Juno Temple (Greenberg) have joined the cast of William Friedkin's dark comedy Killer Joe. Matthew McConaughey is leading the film as a hybrid man of the law and contract killer who is hired by a guy (Emile Hirsch) who, along with his sister, plot the death of their mother for insurance money. The film is an adaptation of Tracy Letts play of the same name which the playright will adapt himself for the screen.

Finally, Variety reports Miley Cyrus will lead a silly little comedy called So Undercover. Tom Vaughan (What Happens in Vegas) is directing from a script by writer Allan Loeb (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) and Steven Pearl (producer of The Switch). The film will see Cyrus as a private investigator hired by the FBI to go undercover in the one place it can't infiltrate a college sorority. I hated this movie back when it was called Underclassmen and it starred Nick Cannon, so I have absolutely no interest in Cyrus doing the same story all over again. This is just one of several shitty movies that will emerge from The American Film Market this week.

Well, that's all for this edition of Casting Tidbits. Be sure to stay tuned for more casting updates on the way.

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