casting (12 posts)

Paul Fenton/ZUMApress.com

Just when Taylor Hicks seemed to be in danger of being a public-eye dropout, along comes the favorite landing spot of many an American Idol refugee.

Broadway.

Starting June 6, the silvery haired season-five champ will jump into the role of Teen Angel, Frenchy's guardian angel and the singer of "Beauty School Dropout," in the current reality-show-fueled revival of Grease at the Brooks Atkinson Theater.

Hicks is slated to Soul Patrol the stage until Sept. 7.

The production, which hasn't gotten the greatest reviews but seems to be surviving based on sheer nostalgia, kicked off last August featuring Max Crumm and Laura Osnes—the winners of NBC's Grease: You're the One That I Want!—playing Danny and Sandy and, per the Internet Broadway Database, those two performers are still giving each other mixed signals and trying to act cool in front of their friends.

Hicks, who is no longer signed to Clive Davis' J-Records, joins Clay Aiken, Fantasia Barrino, Tamyra Gray, Frenchie Davis, Diana DeGarmo and Constantine Maroulis on the list of Idol winners, shoulda-wons and also-rans who have appeared on Broadway in the past several years.

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Nicolas Cage is headed to the dark side.

The City of Angels star is set to headline a remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992's pulp classic Bad Lieutenant, which will be helmed by famed German auteur Werner Herzog.

Per Variety, the 44-year-old Cage will slink into the role originated by Harvey Keitel, an NYPD detective who investigates the rape of a young nun all the while seeking forgiveness for a litany of his own sins, including heavy drug use, gambling and cavorting with prostitutes.

The original Lieutenant, directed by Ferrara from a screenplay he cowrote with Zoë Lund, was slapped with an NC-17 rating for its explicit language and hard-core sex scenes, like the one in which Keitel's lapsed Catholic copper masturbates in front of a teenage girl. The redo was written by Billy Finkelstein, a vet of small-screen police dramas like NYPD Blue and Law & Order.

Cage is currently in Australia shooting the time-capsule thriller Knowing with Rose Byrne. Cameras roll on Bad Lieutenant this summer.

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Natalie Portman can't make time for another torturous period romance after all.

Despite being an early champion of the project, the Other Boleyn Girl star has had to drop out of an upcoming adaption of Emily Brontë's haunting classic Wuthering Heights because of a scheduling conflict, a rep for Portman confirms to E! News.

There's no word on who might fill Cathy's headstrong shoes now, but German-born thesp Michael Fassbender is reportedly in final negotiations to play Heathcliff and cameras are still set to roll this fall, with Brit John Maybury directing.

The film keeping Portman from tromping around the moors is as yet unannounced, but we do know that the almost-27-year-old has the Jim Sheridan drama Brothers, costarring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, coming up, as well as the vignette-driven New York, I Love You, an American answer to last year's Paris, je t'aime.

Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMA Press

Ellen Page is jumping from Juno to Jane Eyre.

The Oscar-nominated actress is about to take an iconic role—starring as the title character in BBC Films' new big-screen version of Charlotte Brontë's classic 1847 novel.

For her first period piece, Page will put on an accent to play the orphaned English protagonist who, after being cruelly abused by her aunt, is sent to live in a charity school. She eventually lands a job as a governess and falls for her boss.

Since her career-making turn as a Juno's preggo teen, Page has starred in the dysfunctional family dramedy Smart People, which debuted at Sundance in January, and has two more films in the can for 2009: Whip It!, a roller-derby comedy directed by Drew Barrymore, and Peacock, a thriller with Cillian Murphy and Bill Pullman.

Jane Eyre gets its Gothic going before cameras this fall for a 2009 debut.

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Life just got a whole lot uglier for Lindsay Lohan.

The trouble-prone actress began work Saturday on an extended guest spot for ABC's hit series Ugly Betty, according to Daily Variety.

Everybody's favorite mean girl is playing a former classmate of America Ferrera's Betty Suarez character, who, natch, wasn't that nice to Betty back in their school days. However, when the two bump into each other again, Lohan's character is down on her luck.

LiLo makes her debut on the show's May 22 season finale and will appear in five episodes next season.

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Her baby bump may still be invisible to the naked eye, but Nicole Kidman has already lined up—and tuned up—for her first postbaby role.

The Aussie Oscar winner is set to star as iconic '60s British pop singer Dusty Springfield, whose less than stable private life was marred by mental illness, substance abuse and dalliances with the fairer sex before her death in 1999 from breast cancer.

According to Variety, Kidman will also produce the as yet untitled film for Fox 2000, and will reunite with her Hours writer Michael Cunningham for the project.

Unfortunately, as Hollywood isn't one for entirely new ideas, a second Springfield project is in the works at Universal, that one starring Kristin Chenoweth as the seminal songbird.

Paul Fenton/ZUMA Press

It's not just business as usual for Renée Zellweger's new small-screen foray. It's also pretty personal.

The Oscar winner is set to executive produce, though not appear in, Living Proof, an original TV movie for the newly revamped Lifetime network.

Harry Connick Jr. will star in the telepic, which in the typical Lifetime mold is based on a true story, this time of UCLA doctor Denny Slamon, the doc who helped develop the breast-cancer treatment drug Herceptin 2.

Zellweger jumped on board the project immediately, no doubt in part because Slamon is the same real-life M.D. who treated the actress' good friend and publicist, Nanci Ryder.

The film, which will be shot in Connick's hometown of New Orleans, will fittingly air in October as part of the network's 14th annual public awareness campaign, "Stop Breast Cancer for Life."

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It's one thing to drop out of a movie project. It's another to drop out of a movie project that your girlfriend is still attached to.

Javier Bardem has done just that, though, backing out of the long-gestating and oft-postponed Rob Marshall-directed musical Nine, blaming post-awards season exhaustion and leaving better half Penélope Cruz among the international A-list beauties still signed on.

Marion Cotillard and Sophia Loren are also on board, while Nicole Kidman and Judi Dench are reportedly in talks to join the musical spin on Federico Fellini's seminal film 8½.

But there are no hard feelings between Bardem and the Weinstein Co., which is producing the film.

"Javier personally asked me if we could move production to February, but we just couldn't do it," honcho Harvey Weinstein told Variety. "He is an amazing talent and I know we'll work together in the future, very soon."

We know they will, too. What Harvey wants, Harvey gets.

USA Networks, Robert Voets/CBS

Despite a tragic loss, Adrian Monk will still be able to get the help he needs this summer.

Hector Elizondo will be joining the cast of Monk's upcoming seventh season after signing on to play the finicky detective's therapist, a role unexpectedly left unfilled after the sudden death of veteran character actor Stanley Kamel from a heart attack earlier this month.

"Monk will always need a therapist—and it's a part that is pivotal to the central themes of the show," USA exec Jeff Wachtel said in a statement Wednesday. "When we lost Stanley, we knew we needed an actor who could bring warmth, intelligence and humor to the role. Hector was actually the first person that came to mind, and we are incredibly fortunate that he's agreed to do some episodes with us. Stanley can never be replaced, but we think he'd be very pleased with our choice."

Elizondo most recently starred in the short-lived CBS drama Cane. New episodes of Monk premiere July 18.

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America Ferrera's next project is shaping up to be a simple numbers game.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Ugly Betty star has signed on to topline the feature adaptation of Aimee Bender's quirky novel An Invisible Sign of My Own, revolving around Mona Gray, a twentysomething loner who found solace in math and geometry as an obsessive-compulsive child after her father fell ill.

Later in life, the loner becomes a math teacher to a group of young children and uses the subject to help her students through crises of their own.

Mad Hot Ballroom helmer Marilyn Adrelo directs the coming-of-age flick.

New Line Cinema

Sir Ian McKellen is going there and back again.

The acclaimed British thespian, who, as the wizard Gandalf the Grey, helped shepherd Frodo Baggins through a perilous journey in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has announced he will reprise his Academy Award-nominated role for the hugely anticipated Hobbit prequels.

"Yes, it's true," McKellen told Britain's Empire movie magazine. "It's not a part that you turn down. I love playing Gandalf."

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Chicago isn't Mýa's kind of town just yet.

The Grammy-winning R&B songstress had been scheduled to make her Broadway debut May 12, playing husband-offer Velma Kelly in the Bob Fosse production, but a broken left foot has forced her to lay her fishnets aside for the time being.

Mýa's run was set to last for nine weeks, but it's unclear when she'll end up joining the show. There's no word on who might take the stage in her absence.

"We are sometimes forced to deal with circumstances beyond our control," producer Barry Weissler said in a statement. "But speaking for the entire Chicago creative team, we all wish her a speedy recovery, and look forward to experiencing her portrayal of Velma Kelly as soon as possible."

The "Ghetto Supastar" harmonizer isn't completely new to the Chicago cellblock, however—she already sharpened her claws playing merry murderess Mona in Rob Marshall's 2003 Oscar-winning feature adaptation.