Editorials > Daniel Day-Lewis To Take Bardem's Role in "Nine"

Not long ago, I made a comment about Javier Bardem's fatigue-based decision to back out of "Tetro," "Killing Pablo," and most recently "Nine." My not-so-clever insult went like this:

The guy wins an Oscar and all of a sudden he wants to work like Daniel Day-Lewis.

Little did I know that in fact Daniel Day-Lewis' Oscar would make him want to work like Javier Bardem. It seems the vacancy in director Rob Marshall's cast may be filled by the sometimes reclusive British actor who recently took home the gold for "There Will Be Blood." According to Variety:

Day-Lewis would play the role of Guido Contini… a famous film director who experiences personal and creative crisis while trying to balance all the women in his life. Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, and Judi Dench will play the women.

Film fans will recognize that the musical is an adaptation of Federico Fellini's seminal Italian comedy "8 1/2" starring Marcello Mastroianni. Michael Tolkin ("The Player") wrote the adapted screenplay and Anthony Minghella did a rewrite before his untimely death. Would it be presumptuous to assume that Marshall got the idea for casting Day-Lewis from reading Filmwad? We may never know the truth.

-David Morgan