Scarlett Johansson Gets Coveted Role of Janet Leigh as Marion Crane in Making of Psycho
Variety reports exclusively that Scarlett Johansson will play Janet Leigh in the Making of Psycho. Anthony Hopkins plays Hitch, Helen Mirren plays the wife, and James D’Arcy will play the young Anthony Perkins. These are some big shoes to fill. They’ve never really been attempted except when Anne Heche played the character in Gus Van Sant’s shot-by-shot recreation of Psycho.
Psycho is a flat out masterpiece that has never been topped. Hitchcock’s genius is in the way he shoots the thing, his outside-the-box thinking and the clever ways he got around censors. The Making of Psycho will tell the behind the scenes story of how hard it was to get that film made, based on the great book (that Ryan sent me) by Stephen Rebello.
I hope they get it close to the right. The Variety story says it has hopes to create a kind of My Week with Marilyn theme (which is itself a butchering of that original story, which was tongue-in-cheek). But they’re thinking more along the lines of Scarlett Johansson as an awards contender the way Michelle Williams was. Johansson, like Williams, is really too young and too fresh to play this character but hopefully acting will out.
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My Week with Marilyn was fine but it was so bloody tasteful that it lacked the barbed edge that would have made for a really involving watch. I love reading about movies getting made but I wonder what the narrative hook for this one would be. Is a comedic and light? Darker and warped? Scar-Jo’s a good choice, though.
Eh… do not want.
Anyhoo, Colin Farrell should play Perkins. I always said that. He looks like him. Maybe in a biopic someday.
“Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” is easily one of my favorite books — not just movie book, but overall.
I’ve been waiting for the film for, what, at least 8 years now? Casting so far sounds/looks great, so hopes are high.
But, for me, I always saw the book as a great mentor/mentee relationship between Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano with Janet Leigh not really playing much of part. By that, I mean to say that I don’t know if there’d be much of an awards campaign for Johansson.
Guess we’ll see in the next few years (hopefully…).
Sounds truly horrible. I hope this doesn’t encourage a wave of this type of film. I thought My Week with Marilyn was a terrible idea, and it was. Good performances, though.
Is it blasphemous to say that the Van Sant reshoot made me realize just how DATED Hitchcock’s movie is? Many of Hitchcock’s shots would never be used today. And Marion makes sense only in those 60s outfits — once we hit sexual liberation, her behavior is no longer so scandalous.
Dave with a different view: I liked My week with Marilyn – by no means a perfect film, but enjoyable, and its charms accumulated during the running time – i was quite bewitched by Williams’ portrayal by the end of the credits – and she captured the spirit really well. Some fun lines of dialogue and perky turns by the Dame (Dench) and Sir (Jacobi) and a truly hammy but effective Larry Olivier by Branagh. Julia Ormond was miscast in my view – not charismatic or pretty enough to be the iconic Vivien. Lots to enjoy, and i like watching films about films and processes too. Especially when they evoke another era. A great find in Eddie Redmayne. The camera just loved him. An old fashioned film, for an old fashioned guy!
Psycho is a fair dinkum classic! My favourite film director of all time. Another of his that i love is on cable tonight “Dial M for Murder” – so looking forward to it again! There is always so much texture in his films – details and character quirks, that need repeated viewings to discover and be reminded of. I don’t know about his shots or movies being dated. They are of their time, but he was a one-off, a genius his films continue to fascinate and percolate. Not many directors that can be confidently said of.
Michelle Williams would probably be really good in this too, but I like the idea of Johansson, because she seems like an actor Hitchcock would have loved.
Could be really fun, if it’s got a darker, funnier tone, like Ed Wood or Adaptation.
Michelle wasn’t too young to play Marilyn. She’s a woman in her early thirties playing a woman in her early thirties.
I do wonder if ScarJo is up to this. She’s a little younger than Janet Leigh was at the time, but I’m most curious to see if she can adapt her acting style to be able to accurately impersonate a real-life character. I don’t think she’ll manage it…but if she does, it could be brilliant.
How was Williams too young to play Marilyn? Marilyn was 30 when she made Prince and the Showgirl and Williams was 30 when she made the movie.
Leigh was 33 when she did Psycho and Johansson is 28 – not much of a difference. I think she’s got the range to pull it off, but she’ll have to really stretch to capture Leigh’s pinched edginess (Scarlett usually comes off anything but).
Hopkins as Hitch is a bit more concerning for me – anytime he plays a real character, his impressions look a bit hammy (Picasso, Nixon, etc). The director (Sasha Gervasi) actually looks like Hitchcock a bit.
Mirren and Darcy I have complete confidence in.
You’re on dangerous ground when tinkering with a classic or the “making of” a classic. Citizen Kane has escaped with some not bad “making of” attempts, but I don’t think it’s as beloved as Psycho. I’m totally with @Ryan B – go dark/funny, a la Ed Wood.
Ugh….this doesn’t sound good at all.
We shouldn’t forget that ScarJo doesn’t really know how to act. I saw her live on Broadway once with Liev Shreiber and he tore her apart. She’s gorgeous and all, but she is no Michelle Williams in terms of talent.
Hopkins as Hitchcock is probably the only reason I’ll see this. Much like My Week with Marilyn’s Brannagh stealing the whole show and making the made-for-TV movie more enjoyable, I have a feeling Hopkins can do the same here. Helen Mirren of course never disappoints (much like Judi Dench …. this is eerily similar to My Week..)
Anyway, ScarJo is a terrible choice.
Oh gush, I wanna see that shower scene!!
Oh Scarlett. The audacity of that woman to think the FBI who have much much greater concerns should stop an fix her stupid problem, like my god.
Anyways discussing the topic at hand. This is her first juicy role in quite a long time i think mainly due to the fact most people started to realize she has limitations with her acting ie meaning, she isn’t that good. I guess this director is willing to take a risk, i hope for his sake it turns out well because i have no confidence she will do anything even close to Janet leigh.
Julie Bowen from Modern Family looks more like Janet Leigh….
Scarlett’s breasts are not pointy enough.
Also, I’d cast Paul Giamatti as Hitch.
Timothy Spall as Hitch?
@Mattoc and daveinprogress:
Anthony Hopkins is playing Hitch. His casting has been a constant since January 2011:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/heat-vision/anthony-hopkins-talks-play-alfred-74514
That’s what feels kind of weird to me. You have the living legend Hopkins, Helen Mirren as his wife, the fascinating character of Hitchcock, and SCARLETT JOHANSSON as JANET LEIGH is the one the studios want to push for Oscar glory? I mean, I love Scarless Johnansson and Janet Leigh (I’ve thought she is close to the sexist actress ever on screen, albiet only in B&W) but Hopkins as Hitchcock is absolutley wonderful and the main reason I’m looking forward to this film.
Thanks Kevin. I read the exact same thing in this post. Something tells me Anthony Hopkins may be playing Hitch. Don’t quote me on it though…
There’s no doubting Hopkins is a first class thesp and able to play anything – my imagination went for who i would physically imagine would best inhabit Hitchcock – Spall is an amazingly versatile actor, for someone with his look and build – perhaps because of it – Secrets and Lies, Pierre point (a great lead role for him), Enchanted, The Damn United (a strong supporting role) and recently The King’s Speech.
The danger of using too well known and talked about actors – Hopkins, Mirren etc – it gets harder to accept them in the characters they are playing – the Jack Nicholson/Dustin Hoffman curse – larger than life actors, who have to really bury themselves within a role to avoid viewers being too aware that it is Dustin and Jack. Even more so, if they are playing other famous people. I would prefer less star studded casting, but i get that financing depends on the names. C’est la vie!
Timothy Spall would have been perfect as HItch.
And I’m in total agreement about casting very well-known actors in these things. It is almost impossible to separate a “star’s” persona from the famous character they are trying to sell you. Even Mirren in The Queen, she kept popping into view. I sit and marvel at the impersonation, and that takes me out of the film.
Leo/Hoover, Meryl/Thatcher, Williams/Monroe, good as they were, fell to this. More successful are lesser known actors (at the time) playing characters further removed from our immediate memory – Cotillard/Piaf, O’Toole/Lawrence, and even, on a lesser scale, Stoll/Hemingway. That’s when it works.
ScarJo can be a revelation when she wants to be. I still count her work in The Girl with the pearl earring as one of my favourite performances over the last two decades. However, she often relies on pretty. I think most of the directors that work with her are so enamored by her beauty that they let her do whatever she wants. Woody Allen for example, probably just drools as he watches her onscreen. I saw Match Point the other hand and I was so disappointed by Scarjo’s lazy acting. I could barely believe this was the same girl in lost in translation and Girl with a pearl earring. She can be great but she does not challenge herself often. Get it together Scarjo, I’m rooting for you girl.
Andrew Garfield should play Anthony Perkins. He’s a dead-on lookalike. Also, I would have preferred Spall as Hitchcock, and maybe someone like Charlize Theron (or maybe even Naomi Watts) as Leigh.
I’m not getting good vibes from this, but I could be wrong.
steve50 – thank you – i was thinking the same thing….i’d like to think we don’t change that much in 5 years….the grey hair in my beard may beg to differ, however.
I haven’t read the book so I’m asking for information: How much of a role could Hitchcock’s WIFE be in a film about the making of ‘Psycho’? Surely Mirren wouldn’t have taken it if there weren’t some meat in it somewhere.