When Christopher Nolan or his associates call, you pick up the phone, and Rebecca Hall certainly did, joining Nolan Cohort Wally Pfister‘s directorial debut “Transcendence.” but that left Lynn Shelton with a bit of a problem. She needed a lead for her upcoming “Laggies,” which Hall had been circling, but the director soon landed Anne Hathaway. But again, the gravitational pull of the Nolan juggernaut meant that didn’t quite work out either, as she went on to do Nolan’s “Interstellar.“
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about it yet, ’cause it hasn’t happened yet, but there’s possibly been a cast change,” Shelton teased to us at Sundance London about “Laggies” recently. “Rebecca Hall was attached for a very long time, and then she got this studio movie, ‘Transcendence,’ and that was right when we were going to shoot, and we couldn’t push it again, ’cause we’d lose our incentive money. So it was very tragic, ’cause I adore her. So we got Anne, Sam Rockwell, Chloe Moretz and Mark Webber. But I shouldn’t talk about it, so we’ll say Anne’s in it for now.”
She was playing coy because it wasn’t firmed up, but EW confirms what we head heard: newly married Keira Knightley is in talks to replace Hathaway on “Laggies.” The rest of the cast are on board in the Andrea Seigel-scripted relationship tale that will follow the story of a woman — described as a 28-year-old living in permanent adolescence, eschewing adulthood and its rules — who responds to her boyfriend’s marriage proposal by pretending to go on a retreat, but spends a week hanging out with some new high-school age friends instead.
It’s a worthy replacement, and the rest of the cast is solid, so keep calm and carry on. Meanwhile, Shelton’s latest effort “Touchy Feely” — a dramedy about a masseuse who suddenly grows an aversion to touching people — will hit theaters and VOD on September 6th. It stars Ellen Page, Allison Janney, Ron Livingston, and Scoot McNairy. You can get a taste with the first clip below.