The number of Oscar winners in the cast of Rob Marshall’s musical, Nine, has just dropped by one, with the news that Javier Bardem has pulled out of the lead role.
Bardem – who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar earlier this year for his bravura turn in No Country For Old Men – had been set to star in the adaptation of the Broadway hit (in turn based on Fellini’s 8 ½) as director Guido Contini, who experiences personal and professional problems as he tries to balance all the women in his life.
And there are a lot of women in his life, with Sophia Loren (Oscar), Marion Cotillard (Oscar), and Penelope Cruz (Oscar nom) already on board, and Nicole Kidman (Oscar) and Dame Judi Dench (yep, Oscar) in negotiations to join the cast.
Yet Bardem – who was one of the first actors to join the movie – has now bailed, citing exhaustion after a long year of work and working the awards circuit. Had the project not been postponed late last year because of the Writers’ Strike, Bardem would have been able to make the movie, but with the film set to start filming later in the year, this is no longer the case.
It’s a shame because, even though Marshall’s Chicago is one of those Best Picture winners that makes you scratch your head and go ‘huh?’ whenever you’re reminded that it did scoop the big prize, it’s hard to argue with the pedigree of this project, or indeed the cast that he has assembled. So let’s hope that he finds an actor of sufficient calibre to fill Bardem’s size Nine.
Suggestions are more than welcome, readers. Get to it!