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EXCLUSIVE: In her first lead role since her Oscar-nominated turn in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Rooney Mara has just committed to starring in Side Effects, the Steven Soderbergh-directed thriller. Mara will replace Blake Lively in a film that also stars Jude Law, Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Mara plays Emily Hawkins, a sexy but unsettled young woman who is taking serious amounts of prescription drugs to deal with anxiety and depression surrounding the pending release of her husband from prison.
Scott Z. Burns wrote the script, and Open Road will distribute in the U.S. It looked like Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures would be financier, but I have been hearing that is a bit shaky. Greg Jacobs and Lorenzo di Bonaventura are producing with Burns. Shooting begins in April.
Since her breakout performance as Lisbeth Salander, Mara has been courted for several major roles, including the female lead in the Kathryn Bigelow film about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. That film clashed with her promotional schedule on Dragon Tattoo. Mara is currently in Tokyo promoting the film. She is repped by WME and attorney Neil Meyer.
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Awesome news. She was outstanding in GWTDT.
Will be interesting to see her pull of the ‘Side Effects’ role, as it seems like an extremely challenging one. I can only breathe a sigh of relief that Mara took Lively’s place. Lively, whilst pretty to look at, has nowhere near the acting ability to pull of a role that, by the sounds of it, clearly demands so much.
Congratulations, Rooney, and good luck with the shoot!
Poor Blake.
THE DOPENESS. Great news.
I know people are going to be all ‘poor blake’ etc. But these things happen all the time. This time, unfortunately and embarrassingly, word got out on the casting shuffle quite early.
Here’s hoping everything turns out for the best for all parties.
People will be saying upgrade. Only Gossip Girl fangirls will be saying poor Blake.
Now if they could just replace Channing Tatum…
where’s the “like” button on this thing!
classic – still time to cut the stripper
since ms. mara is already rich as hell it would be cool if her career slashed to death ‘female actress’ tropes like rom com, dumb historical biopic, ‘new years eve’ level bilge, adam sandler victim – just cutting edge stuff
Talk about upgrade.
No offense to Blake Lively, but this is a much better casting choice! CANNOT WAIT for this!
She’s an amazing actress.incredible Lisbeth Salander.
Rooney and Soderbergh is a great pairing…and somehow fitting to follow up working with Fincher with Steven. I hope she never has to do a rom com.
Annapurna should come back now that Blake Lively’s been dropped and a real actress with talent is in as lead.
Holding Megan Ellison’s attention long enough for her to finance a film is a small miracle. That said, I love Rooney and this project sounds bad ass!
I am very excited NOW that he has replaced Blake Lively, sorry lively fans but she is so overrated, talentless, plain Jane, there is no acting ability there and i do not see a pretty face either. With an amazing director comes amazing cast and Rooney Mara performed effortlessly in DWTDT,she will deliver!! I am pumped and now i will definitely go watch the filmed especially since Blake is replaced (sigh)… cant wait
This is great news. Lively killed in the The Town, but Mara is a better choice. Fincher and Soderbergh are also good friends, so it all kinda makes sense.
One of the smarter young actress working with one of the better filmmakers around.
Doesn’t the guy who used to rep Hilary Swank also manage Blake Lively. Rooney doesn’t have a manager…..hmmm
Rooney is talented, interesting and intelligent. How is this a substitute for Blake Lively?
A much more capable actress for this part. The idea of Blake Lively attempting to convincingly emote is laughable.
Unfortunately, Soderbergh doesn’t seem to make films anyone wants to watch. It is almost like he makes films for the sake of posterity. Sad really, I have liked almost all his films.
yeah? how about conatgion?
I’m just a Mickey Rooney guy in a Rooney Mara workd.
Why is Rooney Mara being overpraised for a performance that she stole from Noomi Rapace ? It wasn’t an original performance- we have seen this performance before . Why weren’t the original , memorable , and wonderful acting turns of Charlize Theron & Tilda Swinton not recognized ? Stop the hype people !
Did you actually see the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or are you set on believing that it is rubbish without seeing it? Rooney gave a much different performance than Noomi, which I felt was brilliant. She didn’t try to copy Rapace at all, she just became the Lisbeth in the book. This is coming from someone who was a fan of the Swedish movies before seeing the American version.
Her take on the role was much different than Rapace, more than expected at least and a lot more vulnerable.
See, I agree with both sides on this. I think Mara did inhabit Salander convincingly, but I somehow feel that this was more due to her being a better physical “fit” for the character and Fincher’s tight direction than the superb talent people are already praising her for. Of course, it does take capability to pull off the direction being given, and she did commit to the role, but I won’t be convinced that Mara is as amazing as she’s being made out to be until she has truly proven herself in more roles. I’ve seen every film performance of hers so far, from TGWTDT to TSN to NOES to Tanner Hall, and what I personally perceived was that she seems to play varying degrees of the same character: sorta dark, sorta cold, sorta bitchy, sorta angst-filled. Her persona seems guarded and awkward, and she herself has admitted to being reserved in real life, so it’s likely she’s channeling a lot of herself in her acting, too. I know I’m in the minority on this, but that’s just my spin. I’m still skeptical.
It’s not like Blake Lively can emote, Mara is a much better choice.
I like you, Rooney, but this is a very bad career move, especially this early in your career. How you pick directors and scripts now will determine your career path for years to come. Don’t pick directors based on what Hollywood thinks of them. The aura will last only until the movie is released … and bombs. And although Hollywood loves Steve Soderbergh, he doesn’t have much of a track record for generating excitement for his directorial ventures or for his actors. Witness: Haywire, Contagion, the Informant. You don’t need such a huge risk. And you need to learn to look past the Hollywood hoopla.
It is possible to like Soderbergh without being influenced by his “aura” in Hollywood. Maybe she’s less interested in making “career moves” and more interested in making good movies?
I recently saw Steven Soderbergh’s film “Haywire” and it is one of the worst films ever made in the history of film. He had all the tools to make a great film at his hands, and had Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas, even Bill Paxton, in the film…and yet created a mess of a movie, one complete witha terrible script, bad editing, a terrible score (one of the worst ever), and so I worry openly about Rooney Mara’s career in Soderbergh’s increasingly strange loss of focus as a filmmaker.
i feel bad for blake. i mean its good that she will be replaced by a better actress no less..but nobody deserves to be humiliated like that..annapurna handled it badly.they know blake was in before agreeing to finance.what they should have done was to not agree unless they replace her unlike now that they have then backed out..they just humiliated her..which is kind of sad.
Blake “replaced” Jennifer Lawrence in Savages replaced doesn’t necessarily mean fired the schedules might have just been too conflicting and Blake’s not just some pretty little Barbue watch her in The Town or The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Don’t criticize until you’re fully educated
>> Don’t criticize until you’re fully educated
Blake won the role originally in Side Effects until Megan Ellison ousted her when she came to the project as a producer. Blake was associated to it due to Steve before Megan showed up. Megan interfered due her dislike of the casting choice – she just didn’t voice it, she threatened that if Blake wasn’t replaced that Meg’s production company would no longer support it.
Meg basically created this drama. Who knew newbie producers could be such divas when they aren’t in front of the screen.