Kristen Stewart has confirmed that she will play Marylou, a character in the Walter Sallas version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. ¬†From USA Today:
As she told USA TODAY’s Susan Wloszczyna today while in Chicago for an Oprah taping, “I am very much attached to a movie that has been trying to get made forever. Not that this is going to help it, but maybe I can just brag a little bit. I am super excited about it, too. I am about to play Marylou in¬†On the Road. So that’s a big deal.”
Filmmakers including Francis Ford Coppola and Gus Van Sant have struggled for years to bring Jack Kerouac’s classic 1957 tale of disaffected members of the Beat Generation to the big screen.¬†Tron: Legacy‘s Garrett Hedland will play the confused drifter Dean Moriarity with Stewart as his young wife and British actor Sam Riley (Control) as his traveling pal, Sal. Brazilian director Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) will direct. Filming is expected to start this summer.
So who is Marylou?  Described this way:
Marylou: First wife of Dean. Marylou is left by Dean for Camille, but when Dean leaves San Francisco he goes back to Denver and retrieves Marylou and brings her to Sal’s brother’s place in Virginia. For a while, it seems that Dean and Marylou are interested in Sal being Marylou’s ‘man’ once the group reaches San Francisco, but once there, it becomes apparent that Marylou is only really interested in Dean. After a while she becomes a sort of prostitute but ends up marrying a used-car salesman.
If memory serves, Dean’s is the best character in the book. ¬†He is the muse – the screwed up, romanticized icon of masculinity and sex appeal. ¬†There are certain characters from modern novels who protrude in the collective – Jay Gatsby is one, Dean Moriarty is another. ¬†It has been said that most young men coming up in the ’60s and ’70s fancied themselves either a Dean or a Sal. ¬†This is not unlike the “Marilyn or Jackie” comparison.
It’s nearly impossible for me to connect these young actors with those iconic characters. ¬†These are big shoes to fill and the casting isn’t just right the story will feel woefully thin.
