In the last week or so, directors Baz Luhrmann ('Moulin Rouge') and Tim Burton ('Alice in Wonderland') announced their latest projects -- an adaptation of the classic novel 'The Great Gatsby' and a big-screen remake of the gothic TV soap opera 'Dark Shadows,' respectively. We already know a lot about the male casts of these films; Luhrmann seems to have lined up Leonardo DiCaprio as his Gatsby, and Johnny Depp is already on board to play Barnabus Collins for Burton. But both of these films also feature a central female character, and neither director has cast his leading lady. After yet another year of lamenting the lack of substantial roles for actresses, two of the juiciest female parts to come along in some time may be simultaneously headed for the big screen. But who should play them?
Before diving too deeply into dreamland – i.e. who should play Victoria Winters in 'Shadows,' which Burton hasn't commented on – we'll start with something we already know: Luhrmann needs a Daisy for his expected-to-be-lavish 'Gatsby,' and he has a lengthy wish list of actresses he is seeing about the part.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, Daisy Buchanan is an "engaging and attractive, pampered and superficial" 23-year-old heiress with a young daughter she plays little attention to. She's a heartbreaker too, and she strings Jay Gatsby along until his untimely demise. Daisy is a contradiction; she's at once devious but also silly and almost childlike.
Luhrmann had 'The Town' actress Rebecca Hall read the part of Daisy at a table reading/workshop of his script alongside DiCaprio as Gatsby and Toby Maguire as Nick Carraway, the story's narrator. The 'Moulin Rouge' director has since reportedly met with both Blake Lively and Scarlett Johansson about the role. Lively was seen out for a business dinner with Luhrmann, DiCaprio and several others, according to US magazine, while Johansson is said to have auditioned for the part on Monday in NYC. The New York Daily News reports she is "very happy" with how the try-out went.
While Lively and Johansson are both fine actresses, neither seems right for the role. This is a major part in a major movie, and Lively, whose big screen resume is slender, simply doesn't have the gravitas to hold the screen opposite DiCaprio in a Luhrmann-directed film. She doesn't have enough on-screen presence to stand out from the opulent mis en scene the always-lavish Luhrmann no-doubt intends for his version of 'Gatsby'; she'd likely get all but lost in the expected sea of velvet drapes, bright lights and flapper costumes. As for Johansson, she's star enough to hold her own, but the actress radiates seduction and seriousness, traits not often ascribed to Daisy.
No, Daisy needs to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, simultaneously innocent and sly; she's alluring and silly but also treacherous and haughty. Luhrmann is "casting a wide net," according to Deadline, and beyond Hall, Lively and Johansson, he said to be considering Keira Knightley, Amanda Seyfried, Abbie Cornish and Michelle Williams. Each of these four actresses seem a better fit for the role than either Hall, Lively or Johansson, though two stand out from the pack: Seyfried and Williams.
Seyfried looks the part; there's something angelic and delicate about her appearance, while her eyes reveal a complexity that belies her childlike features. Seyfried is a star on the rise, and if she can hold her own opposite Meryl Streep, as she did in the box office smash 'Mama Mia!', she can certainly contend with DiCaprio's considerable screen presence. Getting cast in this film would represent a coup for the young actress, who despite good notices in several box office hits has yet to truly wow critics with her acting chops. So far, she's been the best thing about in a series of middlebrow films, so how she'd fair with material of this weight remains a bit of a mystery.
Williams, on the other hand, has time and time again proven herself to be a reliable dramatic actress. She received an Academy Award nomination for 'Brokeback Mountain,' and is currently earning early Oscar buzz for her role in the indie 'Blue Valentine,' co-starring Ryan Gosling. Williams is widely considered one of the strongest actresses of her generation and has proven onscreen chemistry with DiCaprio (the pair starred together earlier this year in Martin Scorsese's hit 'Shutter Island'). However, at 30, Williams comes across as preternaturally mature, which is at odds with the flighty nature of the 23-year-old Daisy.
So while neither actress is perfect for the part – and isn't this always a problem when adapting a beloved work like 'Gatsby,' no one can ever be perfect – either actress would likely pull it off with aplomb. Playing Luhrmann's Daisy in 'Gatsby' would provide Seyfried an opportunity to prove all the buzz about her true (or false), or it would give Williams an opportunity to showcase her proven talent in a major studio film as opposed to a little-seen indie. Pick your preference.
After years of talk and false starts, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton's next collaboration, 'Dark Shadows,' is officially slated to begin filming in April, according to EW. Burton and Depp are both fans of the macabre daytime soap, which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971 and tells the story of the mysterious and secretive Barnabus Collins, a 200-year old vampire. Burton has literally 1,225 episodes worth of plot to launch his film from, with many already suspecting that the almost-overwhelming amount of source material makes for a ready-made franchise. A central character early in the saga's run was Victoria Winters, who comes to Collinwood in the present day (though at one point in the series, a séance goes array and she travels back time to 1795, before Barnabus became a vampire) to take care of young David Collins and finds things at the estate to be out of the ordinary.
In 1991, the show was remade as a gothic primetime soap. In it, Victoria discovers that Barnabus is a vampire (a secret she never learned in the original series).
In both the original series and the remake, Winters is portrayed as a learned twentysomething brunette, and since this thing is looking like a possible franchise, it needs to secure a leading lady who viewers will not tire of should there end up being several 'Shadows' films. And as with whomever plays Daisy in 'Gatsby,' the actress who lands the role of Victoria Winters needs to be able to contend with a mega-famous co-star (Depp) and dramatic sets and costumes, which are as much a Burton signature as they are with Luhrmann. Luckily for moviegoers, 'Dark Shadows' also lends itself more to the dark, foggy, gothic world Burton used to create for flicks like 'Sleepy Hallow' than the over-the-top spectacle he envisioned for his bombastic take on 'Alice in Wonderland.' This is a project brimming with potential.
Burton's best leading ladies have been wide-eyed, wild and capable. He clearly prefers to work with legit, established actresses – like Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder and his real-life partner Helena Bonham Carter – who aren't afraid to play complex or conflicted characters. Which is why Anne Hathaway is the ideal candidate to play Victoria Winters in his adaptation of 'Dark Shadows.'
Hathaway and Burton have teamed up before (she appeared as the White Queen in 'Wonderland'), and reportedly established a healthy work relationship. With her big, expressive eyes (reminiscent of one-time Burton muse Ryder), the 'Devil Wears Prada' actress is the perfect Burton lead, and her ability to combine naïveté with intelligence and composure lends itself well to the character of Winters, an educated young woman whose young life was marred by abandonment (her parents left her at a foundling home in New York).
With 'Prada,' 'Wonderland' and 'Get Smart' behind her, Hathaway is an established box office star who also commands the attention of critics (she earned an Oscar nod for 'Rachel Getting Married'). 'Shadows' will no doubt end up with a sprawling cast – there are entire Wikipedia pages dedicated to the Collins family tree, as revealed on the series, alone, which don't even mention Winters, villainous Angelique or Willie Loomis, all major characters from the series – so it needs an established actress and not an unknown as its leading lady to anchor the project.
What say you, loyal PopEater readers? Who do you think should take on the part of Daisy in Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby'? And cab Anne Hathaway hold her own in a Johnny Depp-starring, Tim Burton-helmed remake of the campy TV classic 'Dark Shadows'? sound off in the comments!
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