According to an interview with The New York Times, Julia Stiles is to produce and star in an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar.
Stiles and her co-producer Celine Rattray from Mandalay Vision chose Nicole Kassel (helmer of The Woodsman, starring Kevin Bacon; and the upcoming Earthbound, in which Whoopi Goldberg stars as God) to direct. The screenplay is being written by Tristine Skyler, a playwright who has researched Plath for the project by delving into archives with the help of prominent Plath scholars. That suggests that the film’s angle will be to model protagonist Esther Greenwood on Plath herself; in one sense, that’s a meaningful strategy since the novel is widely regarded as a thinly-veiled autobiography but it does not seem to display much faith in the novel’s worth as fiction, divorced from the turbulent existence of its author.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath’s only novel, is a coming-of-age story that closely mirrors a number of events in the writer’s early life. Set in the 1950s, it follows its protagonist Esther Greenwood as she takes her first steps in the adult world. She gets an apparently enviable internship on a glossy magazine in New York but finds the experience alienating, and the limited options for her future frightening. Sliding into a depression, she begins a series of ever-more serious suicide attempts as she struggles to see a future for herself in the confining atmosphere of her time and place.Stiles told the NYT: “One side of the book is fascinating to me because of the specific time period, the 1950s, but there’s also something that’s very timeless about it. What makes Sylvia Plath such a good writer is her ability to write imagery. If you could see this girl’s vivid imagination, it would help the audience understand the intense feelings that she has. It’s a different kind of depression that she suffers from. Instead of being numb to the world, seeing the world in black and white, she sees it almost in hypercolor, and to me that seemed perfect for a film.”
Stiles will take the role of Esther and Virginia Madsen has signed up for the role of kindly therapist Dr Nolan.
This will be the second filmic adaptation of Plath’s novel. Marilyn Hassett played the role of Esther Greenwood in the 1979 adaptation of the film, which was scripted by Marjorie Kellogg and directed by Larry Peerce. However, in recent years, Plath’s life has proven much more interesting than her work to cultural commentators (in fact, semi speculative books on Plath’s relationship with Hughes are almost a cottage industry), and in 2003, Gwyneth Paltrow starred as Plath in the quasi-autobiographical Sylvia opposite Daniel Craig as Ted Hughes.The film, which was directed by Sunshine Cleaning helmer Christine Jeffs eschewed chronicling her early life, or in fact much of her life outside of the unhappiest periods in her marriage. It instead displayed a prurient interest in Hughes’ affairs, Plath’s apparent jealousy of his success and her subsequent suicide. Hilariously, when the Hughes estate refused permission to include his poems in the film, Craig’s Hughes was compelled instead to thunderously declaim poetry by Yates. Undoubtedly there have been sillier films made about writers but it’s bloody hard to think of one right now. Hopefully, this new adaptation of The Bell Jar will focus, as Stiles suggests, on the imagery and observations of the novel, rather than trying to revive the tragic suicide of popular lore.
Stiles will next be appearing in the new series of serial killer comedy/drama Dexter.
Category: Career
Showtime has announced that Julia Stiles will be joining the cast of “Dexter” for 10 episodes of the series’ fifth season.
Showtime is keeping mum on the details behind her character, save that Stiles “will play a mysterious young woman who forms a unique relationship with Dexter (Michael C. Hall) in the wake of the death of his wife.”
Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello, who first reported the possibility of Stiles’ casting last month, asked new “Dexter” showrunner Chip Johannessen about what shape the fifth season might take after John Lithgow’s memorable fourth season turn as the Trinity Killer.
“We’re not going to have a single Big Bad this season,” Johannessen told Ausiello. “We don’t want to try and top John Lithgow, so we’re going to change up the forces that Dexter’s going to be dealing with.”
The Cry of the Owl will be released on DVD on June 8th.
I am sorry for not updating recently. I am very busy at the moment but I’ll be back soon!
Tickets for the first-ever Broadway production of David Mamet’s Oleanna, starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, areon sale to the general public.
Tony Award winner Doug Hughes (Doubt) directs the “gripping account of a power struggle between a male university professor and one of his female students.”
Produced by Jeffrey Finn, the Broadway production will begin previews Sept. 29 toward an Oct. 11 opening at The Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th Street.
For tickets visit www.telecharge.com or call (212) 239-6200. Tickets range from $116.50 to $76.50.
Tickets will also be available for purchase in person at The Golden Theatre box office at a future date to be announced.
The late 1990s saw a glut of mostly forgettable teen movies come and go at the multiplex, but 1999’s “10 Things I Hate About You” managed to stand out. Transplanting Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” to a modern-day high school setting, it launched the careers of Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger. And while those other teen flicks gather dust, “10 Things” has been granted new life as a TV series, with the chance to grab a new generation of fans.
The plot of the half-hour comedy, premiering at 7 p.m. Tuesday on ABC Family, is essentially unchanged: Sisters Kat and Bianca adjust to life at Padua High while living under the microscope of their loving but intrusive dad, played by Larry Miller, the lone holdover from the film. Lindsey Shaw stars as Kat, a rebel determined to show people she doesn’t care what they think, while Meaghan Martin is Bianca, who never met a popular person whose rump she didn’t kiss. The two would be content to just stay out of each other’s way, but their father has imposed the Shakespearean rule that Bianca cannot start dating until her older sister does.
This seems like a bad turn for Bianca until Kat finds herself drawn to a mysterious loner named Patrick Verona (Ethan Peck), who seems equally taken with her. Shaw (“Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide”) says that as Kat discovers new emotions within herself, she’s forced to re-examine her outlook on life.
“She runs into situations and people — especially with this boy — where she finds herself exposed more than she ever has been, and she realizes that those feelings that she never thought were there (are) surfacing,” Shaw says.
Calling herself a fan of the film, Shaw says she could always relate to Kat’s guardedness and the belief that she needed to put on a brave front. Slowly, she says, she has realized that revealing her vulnerability isn’t such a bad thing. On the flip side, she says co-star Martin (“Camp Rock”) is “an open book,” which makes her perfectly cast as Bianca.
Holding them together is Miller, who plays Walter Stratford much the same way he did in the film, as a single dad trying to come to grips with his daughters becoming young women.
“He’s a guy who just doesn’t understand why his life is changing,” Miller says. “He’s someone who cares deeply about his daughters, and he’s going to hold onto his life as rigidly as he can.”
