While you already had us at Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace, director Michael Roskam is continuing to stack the cast for his North American debut with great talent. He’s lined up his “Bullhead” star Matthias Schoenaerts for a part, and now another always solid actor has come aboard as well.
The excellent “The Sopranos” star James Gandolfini — recently seen as Leon Panetta in “Zero Dark Thirty” — has joined the picture. Based on a short story by Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone“), the story follows a lonely New York bartender, caught in the midst of a bad heist and a killing, who rescues a puppy from a garbage can and becomes the target of the dog’s abusive and mentally unstable former owner. Rapace will play Nadia, who has a scar across her neck, who crosses paths with the bartender. No word yet on Gandolfini’s role. And also joining the picture is the young lead of “Animal Kingdom,” James Frecheville, also in an unspecified part.
Production on the movie will begin this spring in New York City, and afterward Hardy and Rapace will high five again on the set of the Cold War thriller “Child 44” this summer with director Daniel Espinosa. [Variety/Twitch]
Between this and Dead Man Down, she has the weird skin category sewn up.