Casting Miscellany for You to Care About Briefly Before the Holidays

Did you know the day before Thanksgiving is the third-biggest drinking day of the year behind New Year’s Eve and Keith Richards’ birthday? It is. (It’s actually the second-biggest if you don’t count the amount that Keith Richards consumes personally on his birthday.) Everyone is off work the next day, and no one has to be anywhere until 4 p.m., when the only obligation is to stuff yourself with a meal tailor-made for a hangover, after which naps are practically encouraged. It’s great!

I tell you this not because it has anything to do with casting, but to give you, dear actor, a glimpse at where my mind is on the cusp of this holiday break. I assume that you, likewise, are preoccupied with such thoughts as “Why did the inventors of the Turducken stop at three birds?,” “Why does anyone settle for canned cranberry sauce when using fresh cranberries is so easy?,” and “Who the hell gives someone a Lexus for Christmas?” But casting is happening. And so I must proceed.

The holiday humbug award goes to Barden/Schnee, which refuses to do the American thing, which is coast through the next month pretending to work. It is casting two projects gearing up to shoot in the next few weeks: “The Iceman,” a biopic of Richard Kuklinski, a hit man who kept his job secret from his wife and kids (and the cops, obvs) for years, starts shooting in Shreveport, La., in mid-December; “Lovelace,” a biopic of the first real porn star, Linda Lovelace, star of “Deep Throat,” goes before cameras in January, presumably in L.A., although it is a Nu Image film, so we can’t count out Bulgaria or Azerbaijan, or wherever the hell Avi Lerner is shooting these days. (This is not the same Lovelace biopic that originally had Lindsay Lohan attached. This one stars Lohan’s “Mean Girls” co-star Amanda Seyfried in the lead.) So not only is it working hard, but it’s working on films about mafia hit men and X-rated cinema? Paging Fox News: When you get done with those evil rainbow candy-cane makers, don’t forget to address this new insidious threat to Christmas.

Another cool project that’s going to start shooting in January is “Sleight of Hand,” an action comedy about a thief who steals a rare coin belonging to a French gangster—I would say “ruthless” French gangster, but I think that’s implied. I mean, the stereotype of French people being completely without mercy or compassion didn’t just conjure itself out of thin air. Anyhow, lots of big names attached: Mel Gibson, Kiefer Sutherland, Gérard Depardieu, Thomas Jane. Since its shoot date has already been pushed back a few times, the sweet stench of “postponed indefinitely” hangs about the project. But out of naive hope, I will say that Ricki Maslar is casting it ahead of a January start in New Orleans.

Might be back tomorrow with a post on pilots, but if not, happy Thanksgiving.