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.
Casting Couch: Hurt, Spacey, ER and Hosers, Eh?
Welcome to the old-friends edition of the Casting Couch.
First up, a Big Chill reunion is brewing on FX’s Damages, as William Hurt has signed on for a plum role in the second season of the legal drama starring Glenn Close.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the 58-year-old Oscar winner plays the new client of tough-as-nails attorney Patty Hewes (Close). As it happens, the two have both a professional and personal history together.
Hurt’s Damages duty marks his first stint as a regular on a TV series. Production gets under way next week for an early 2009 premiere.
Speaking of reunions, go ahead and crack open some strange brew and don your tuque: The hosers at Fox are ready to bring the McKenzie brothers out of the mothballs, eh?
The network is teaming with Canada’s Global Television for The Animated Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie, a prime-time ’toon featuring SCTV vets Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas reprising their classic roles as the doofus siblings from maple leaf land. Global Television has ordered 13 episodes of Bob & Doug for 2009. No immediate word yet when or if the show will hit the U.S. airwaves.
In the day’s other major casting news:
- Per Variety, Kevin Spacey and Robin Williams are joining forces for the indie drama Shrink. Spacey plays a pot-smoking psychiatrist who, after suffering a recent tragedy, loses faith in his ability to treat his Tinseltown clients, including Williams, Saffron Burrows, Robert Loggia, Griffin Dunne and Gore Vidal. Filming’s under way in Los Angeles.
- D.B. Sweeney, best known for such early-’90s movies as Memphis Belle and The Cutting Edge, joins Nick Tarabay and Michael Fairman in the ensemble cast of Crash, the Starz original drama series based on the Oscar-winning flick.
- The foursome of Shiri Appleby, Julian Morris, Emily Rose and Victor Rasuk will be reporting for duty for the 15th and final season of NBC’s ER, mixing things up as interns at County General.
Chris Noth and His Girlfriend Expecting a Baby
Mr. Big is about to become Mr. Mom!
Chris Noth and long-time girlfriend Tara Wilson are expecting a child, reps for the actor confirm to PEOPLE.
“Chris and Tara are very happy and have always agreed to keep what is most personal in their lives private,” they said. The happy news was first reported in The New York Post’s Page Six.
Wilson met Noth, who turned 53 Tuesday, while working at his New York bar, The Cutting Room. The couple will soon appear on the big screen together as well, in the indie drama Frame of Mind. Noth plays a journalist in the film and Wilson has a supporting role in the movie, which was filmed in Carlstadt, N.J., last year.
Fred Durst’s The Longshots Movie Trailer
I bet when everyone first heard Fred Durst scream the chorus of his rendition of George Michael’s late ’80s hit “Faith”, they had no idea he would someday make a feature-length film, never-mind two. Yes, TWO - he also helmed a indie drama titled The Education of Charlie Banks, which won an award at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. The Limp Biscuit frontman’s second film, The Longshots, tells the true story of Jasmine Plummer who, at the age of eleven, became the first female to play in Pop Warner football tournament in its 56-year history. Written by the writers of Akeelah and the Bee and Prison Break, The Longshots stars Ice Cube and will hit theaters on July 25th 2008 from Dimension Films. It seems like the typical sports drama, but, who knew Fred Durst could direct a movie? Check out the trailer below and tell me what you think.
You can also watch the trailer in High Definition on Yahoo.