Indie starlet, Cat Power, (aka Chan Marshall) may have once vowed to never act onscreen, but in the new, clean and sober Cat Power world, the indie-rocker gone Nashville will give anything a try. In Wong-Kar Wai’s first-English language film,”My Blueberry Nights” (which debuts at Cannes next month), Marshall will play Jude Law’s Russian-born ex-girlfriend. According to Paper magazine’s cover story (not yet online), Marshall got to make out with Law in an unscripted on-set moment (CP’s not the only other musician in the movie, the film actually stars Nora Jones). The film is supposedly due stateside in October.
Director Wai (who also did the amazing, “In the Mood For Love“), who was known to play Cat Power’s The Greatest on repeat during filming to get the crew and camera people into the right mood, had high praise for her.
Remember when “I Found A Reason” (from The Covers Record) was used in the Natalie Portman flick, “V for Vendetta“? Apparently, she was around Karl Lagerfeld when she scored a nice, $7,400 check for the song residuals (we can imagine that’s probably only the beginning of that nice cash surplus; that same song was also used in “The Secret Lives Of Dentists”).
For her next album (another covers record), she’s considering re-tweaking songs by Dylan again, Otis Redding, Duke Ellington, Hank Williams, Aretha Franklin, ’50s country star Kitty Wells and ’60s proto-freak folks Fairport Convention (she also recorded covers of Sandy Denny and the Animals for an ITunes-only EP, not to mention there’s a Peel cover of a Mary J. Blige’s “Deep Inside” floating around online; look for possible inclusion of any of those songs.) She’s also trying to get Keith Richards to play on some of the tracks with her, nutty.
The record after that, apparently already titled Sun, will comprise new material and sounds like it’s already written and ready to go.
That’s not all. Aside from being a Chanel girl, she’s gonna have her own art show for her paintings at Max Fish in June and you’ll remember she already filmed an experimental short for Doug Aitken (“Sleepwalkers“) for MOMA a few months back. Being sober apparently means being incredibly productive, who knew?