Guillermo del Toro‘s NIGHTMARE ALLEY is Filling Up Its Cast with Cate Blanchette, Michael Shannon, Ron Perlman, Willem Dafoe, and More
The next film project that Guillermo del Toro is directing is a new thriller called Nightmare Alley and he’s looking to fill it up with an all-star cast of actors!
Bradley Cooper was already cast in the film in the lead role and he will most likely be joined by Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Rooney Mara, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Willem Dafoe, and Mark Povinelli. According to Collider, all these actors are currently in talks. What an incredible cast that would be!
The film will be an adaptation of the 1946 novel about an “ambitious young con-man who hooks up with a female psychiatrist who is even more corrupt than he is. At first, they enjoy success fleecing people with their mentalist act, but then she turns the table on him, out-manipulating the manipulator.”
This is the synopsis from the book:
Nightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a freak-show geek—alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd’s gleeful disgust and derision—going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There’s no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him.
And since Stan is clever and ambitious and not without a useful streak of ruthlessness, soon enough he’s going places. Onstage he plays the mentalist with a cute bimbo (before long his harried wife), then he graduates to full-blown spiritualist, catering to the needs of the rich and gullible in their well-upholstered homes. It looks like the world is Stan’s for the taking. At least for now.
Cooper will take on the role of Stan the con artist. Collette would take on the role of Zeena Krumbein, who “works in a traveling carnival where she bills herself as a psychic known as Mademoiselle Zeena.” Mara is wanted for the role of Molly, “the younger woman who catches Stan’s eye.” Then there’s Blanchett who would play Stan’s psychologist, who “may or may not be trustworthy despite her oath of confidentiality.”
Dafoe is likely playing a character named Pete, “though it’s unclear whether that character will be changed from Zeena’s husband to her father in this new film, or whether del Toro will keep their relationship as is.”
Perlman would play Bruno, “the carnival’s strongman”; Jenkins would play one of Stan’s marks, while Shannon and Povinelli’s intended roles are being kept under wraps.
I hope that Del Toro is able to bring this impressive cast together for Nightmare Alley! I’m looking forward to seeing how the series plays out. What do you think of the cast that Del Toro is trying to get on board?
