Casting Couch: A Tale of Two Joshes
In this edition of Casting Couch, Lost’s Josh Holloway is hoping to find some big-screen success and Josh Hartnett is heading to the stage to channel his inner Tom Cruise.
The 37-year-old Holloway, who plays badass con man Sawyer on ABC’s hit series, is climbing aboard the Polish brothers’ Stay Cool, touted as a “knowing-your-age comedy.”
Per the Hollywood Reporter, Holloway joins an ensemble that includes Winona Ryder, Sean Astin, Chevy Chase, Hilary Duff, Jon Cryer and Mark Polish, who cowrote the screenplay with twin brother Michael, who will direct.
The plot revolves around a writer (Polish) who returns to his hometown and has an unexpected reunion with a former high school classmate (Ryder), who still harbors an unrequited love for him. At the same time, the author must fend off a young student (Duff) with the hots for him.
Holloway plays a former high school jock and ex-beau of Ryder’s character.
Hartnett, meanwhile, will top the marquee in a stage version of the 1988 Best Picture winner, Rain Man.
The 29-year-old Sin City star plays Cruise’s character, Charlie Babbit, on London’s West End. British thespian Adam Godley takes on the role of his autistic savant of a brother, Raymond Babbit, played to Academy Award perfection onscreen by Dustin Hoffman.
Playwright Dan Gordon, whose film credits include The Hurricane and Wyatt Earp, is adapting Rain Man for the boards. The scribe previously penned a theatrical take on Terms of Endearment, which toured the U.K. Rain Man bows at the Apollo Theatre on Aug. 28 and runs through Dec. 20.
In other casting news:
- Val Kilmer has joined the indie drama Silver Cord, based on a true story about a man who’s successfully revived after being declared clinically dead on multiple occasions. It starts lensing in September.
- Tom McCarthy, best known for directing the indie hits The Station Agent and The Visitor, has signed on to play the boyfriend of Amanda Peet’s character in Roland Emmerich’s latest end-of-the-world extravangaza, 2012. The would-be Hollywood blockbuster follows a group of people who must survive a series of natural disasters, and costars John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Oliver Platt. Shooting starts in August in Vancouver.
- Young Jeezy is set to make his feature acting debut in fellow hip-hopster Ice Cube’s upcoming comedy, Janky Promoters, playing a young emcee who gets involved with a pair of crooked concert promoters.
- William Hurt has been tapped to star in The Rivery Why, a coming-of-age drama adapted from the 1983 Sierra Club novel of the same name. The Oscar winner plays the father of Gus (Zach Gilford), a young man on a mission to catch an elusive rainbow trout. Amber Heard plays Gus’ girlfriend, a tomboy fly-fisher.
- Upright Citizens Brigade comic Jason Mantzoukas has landed a starring role in Off Duty, a pilot for NBC about cops who can’t leave their job at the station.