You’ve gotta admire Adrien Brody. Most people, when they win Oscars, spend the rest of their careers chasing prestige pics and that second little gold fella to put on the mantelpiece. Not so with Brody who, deliberately you feel, hasn’t even come close to an Oscar-friendly role since winning for The Pianist in 2003.
First he pops up in King Kong, then he signs on for Wes Anderson quirkfest, The Darjeeling Limited, and now glorious, giddy word reaches us that he’s inked a deal to star in the latest horror thriller from Italian maestro, Dario Argento.
Yes. Dario Argento.
Brody will star in Giallo, a thriller about an American air hostess who teams up with an Italian detective, after her sister is abducted by a vicious serial killer known only as Yellow.
Italian speakers will, of course, know that Giallo means yellow in Italian, but Argento and horror buffs will be smiling smugly now, in recognition of the fact that Giallo also refers to the pulpy genre in which Argento has plied his trade for decades now, producing the classic likes of Suspiria, Deep Red and Inferno. So this could be a self-referential take on the genre – Argento’s Scream, perhaps?
One thing is clear, though: hand on heart, it’s been a while since Argento made a film worth screaming at, or about. The presence of Brody – by far the biggest star to appear in any of Argento’s work (a young Jennifer Connelly doesn’t count) - in Giallo indicates that this is a script that’s up to snuff, so fingers crossed that this one hits the operatic and frenzied heights of the 67 year-old’s earlier work.
Brody, we’re guessing, will play the Italian detective, Enzo Lavia, a role that had been rumoured to go to Ray Liotta. We would imagine that Seigner will play the air stewardess, while Snakes On A Plane actress Elsa Pataky will play the abducted sister. So that’s an American playing an Italian, and a Frenchwoman and a Spaniard playing Americans. Only in Darioworld…
Filming starts on May 12 in Torino. Bagsy that set visit!