Casting News -- June 19, 2009

Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Elijah Wood, and Cam Gigandet will star in The Experiment, a remake of the German film Das Experiment about a group of ordinary men recruited to take on the roles of guards and prisoners as part of a research study, examining how the effects of assigned roles, power and control affected the participants. Brody will star as the de facto leader of the prisoners, while Whitaker will play a guard who's corrupted by his new power.

Austrian actor Roland Kickinger is in talks to star in a "reboot" of Conan the Barbarian, taking over the title role made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like Ah-nuld, Kickinger is also a former bodybuilder-turned-actor, who has played a T-800 (in Terminator Savation) and even portrayed an '80s-era Schwarzenegger in the A&E TV biopic about the actor-turned-politican, See Arnold Run.

Common and Queen Latifah will co-star in Just Wright, a romantic comedy about a sports trainer who finds herself falling in love with a professional basketball player while rehabilitating him from a career-threatening injury. Paula Patton has also been cast.

Complete casting has been announced for the upcoming Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie. In addition to previously-announced cast members Nolan Gerard Funk, John Stamos, Gina Gershon, Bill Irwin, Dee Hoty, Jayne Houdyshell, Allie Trimm, Matt Doyle, Molly Ephraim, and Jake Evan Schwencke, the cast now also includes Deanna Cipolla, Paula Leggett Chase, Riley Costello, John Treacy Egan, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Todd Gearhart, Patty Goble, Suzanne Grodner, Robert Hager, Nina Hennessey, Natalie Hill, Julia Knitel, Jess Le Protto, David McDonald, Jillian Mueller, Paul Pilcz, Daniel Quadrino, Devin Richards, Emma Rowley, Tim Shew, Alison Strong, Jim Walton, Brynn Williams, and Branch Woodman. Previews for the Roundabout Theatre Company production begin  Sept. 10, for a limited engagement Oct. 15, 2009-Jan. 10, 2010 at the new Henry Miller's Theatre on Broadway.

Linda Hunt has joined the cast of NCIS: Los Angeles as a series regular. The Oscar-winning actress will play "an efficient and hard-nosed former film industry technician who now oversees the 'backroom' support staff -- the folks tasked with providing everything from micro surveillance cameras to cars for the team" in the upcoming NCIS spinoff.

-- Daniel Lehman