She may still be best known for her brief run on Mad Men as one of the many women Jon Hamm’s Don Draper has seduced, but Abigail Spencer is forging ahead with a solid film career, adding a small role in Sam Raimi’s Oz, The Great and Powerful to her CV.
She’ll show up in the Kansas-set opening scenes of the film, where charming, conniving magician/showman (James Franco) is working the rubes as part of a travelling circus. He’s caught showing a customer’s wife some slightly more risqué tricks and has to make good his escape in a hot air balloon, only to be swept away to the mysterious land of Oz, where he tangles with three witches, played by Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz.
The cast also includes young actress Joey King as the China Girl and Garden State’s Zach Braff as Franco’s oft-overlooked assistant.
Spencer, meanwhile, has worked primarily in TV, though she’s got a few big roles coming up including an appearance in Cowboys And Aliens this summer and **This Means War **later in the year. She, along with the rest of the cast, will start shooting later this month in Michigan.
But there might need to be some careful treading on Disney’s part as, in a related story, as the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals across the pond has just awarded Warner Bros. the visual rights to many of the characters from the Wizard of Oz (the film, at least). While the new movie is a prequel and likely won’t have to worry about Dorothy and the rest of the Yellow Brick Road travellers, there’s always the chance that Glinda (Williams’ good witch character) could fall into that category. We doubt it’ll stop the Mouse House going ahead, but there could be a legal issue in the future…