Casting News: Sacha Baron Cohen in Tarantino's Django Unchained, Steve Carell Is a Lunatic, Max Irons Enters The Host
Posted 11.12.11 by Ryan
Just days ago, writer-director Quentin Tarantino added four new cast members to his upcoming, anti-slavery "Southern" movie Django Unchained, and it doesn't look like he's done casting just yet.
THR reports Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) has been cast in a "minor but showy role" of a quirky gambler.
In the movie, a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) works to rescue his wife (Kerry Washington) from a sadistic slave owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). Cohen's character will purchase Washington much to his misfortune.
Deadline reports that Rex Linn (CSI: Miami, Appaloosa) has also been cast in the movie. Linn will play the role of "Tennessee Harry," though no other details on the character were revealed.
The pair join a cast that also includes Kurt Russell as brutal slave trainer Ace Woody; rapper-turned-actor RZA as Thaddeus, a violent slave who works on the Mississippi plantation; Laura Cayouette (Kill Bill, Vol. 2) as DiCaprio's widowed sister; Don Johnson as a wealthy plantation owner named Spencer Bennett; Samuel L. Jackson as Candie's valet, Stephen; Misty Upham (Frozen River) as a trading post-bar owner named Minnie, Tom Wopat (Dukes of Hazard) as Marshall Gill Tatum; Todd Allen (The Apostle)as plantation overseer Dollar Bill; James Remar (Warriors, Dexter) and James Russo (Public Enemies) as slave trading brothers Ace and Dicky Speck; and Christoph Waltz as the German bounty hunter that trains Django in the art of revenge.
Production on Django Unchained will start later this month and is scheduled for a Dec. 25, 2012, release date.
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Since leaving the office, actor Steve Carell has been lining up roles, including the magician comedy Burt Wonderstone, which Jim Carrey joined last month, and will eventually will reprise his voice role for the sequel Despicable Me 2, which already has a release date of July 3, 2013.
Another role Carell is lining up is Universal Pictures' adaptation of the Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel novel Lunatics. Deadline reports Carell is attached to play Philip Horkman, a New Jersey pet store owner and soccer dad who meets an irate soccer dad at their kids' soccer games. The two dads have a minor feud that escalates to the point of having worldwide consequences.
Zweibel and Barry will adapt their novel into a screenplay, which likely won't go into production for a while. Carell starts shooting Burt Wonderstone in January.
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After Jake Abel (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief) was cast in one of two male lead roles in the upcoming adaptation of The Host, Max Irons (Red Riding Hood) has won the second lead role over a small list of contenders.
Deadline reports Irons has been cast as Jerad, who is in love with Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), who has been taken over by the alien spirit Wanda (also Ronan), who is in love with Ian (Abel). Irons won the role over Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), Kit Harington (Silent Hill: Revelation 3D) and Jai Courtney (Spartacus: Blood and Sand).
If the storyline sounds a little bit like Twilight in the future with aliens, that's because the movie is based on a 2008 novel from Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. Meyer co-wrote the script with Andrew Niccol (In Time), who will also direct. The Host is scheduled to open on March 29, 2013.