Though almost all the primary roles have now been cast, RoboCop remake director Jose Padilha isn’t skimping when it comes to finding good actors for smaller parts. Take, for example, his hiring of Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Karen Dean, the Police Chief of Detroit.
Jean-Baptiste brings years of small-screen law enforcement to the role, having done sterling work for seven seasons on FBI crime procedural Without A Trace.
She joins a cast that includes Joel Kinnaman as the titular cyborg crime fighter built around murdered cop Alex Murphy; Abbie Cornish as his wife, Ellen; Samuel L Jackson as media mogul Pat Novak; Hugh Laurie as an Omnicorp PR man; Jay Baruchel as an executive; Jackie Earle Haley as army man Maddox; Jennifer Ehle as Omnicorp’s Liz Kline and Michael Kenneth Williams as Lewis, Murphy’s partner.
Padilha is getting set to start shooting next month, working from a script that has seen contributions by Josh Zetumer, James Vanderbilt and Nick Schenk. Jean-Baptiste can currently be seen on screen in 360 and will next crop up in Violet & Daisy, Breaking Waves and Won’t Back Down.