It's always fun to see an actor challenge themselves by taking on a project that requires them to play more than one role, but now Noomi Rapace is taking that idea to some pretty extreme levels. The Swedish star has signed a deal to star in the upcoming indie sci-fi movie What Ever Happened To Monday?, a film that will require the actress to play seven different parts.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the casting news, the film will be directed by Tommy Wirkola, who is best known for his Nazi zombie movie Dead Snow and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which was released earlier this year. The movie will be based on a screenplay by Max Botkin and is set in a futuristic world that has been damaged by dangerous overpopulation. In order to stop society from growing too large, a "one-child only" policy is created. Rapace will star as a group of septuplet sisters who are forced to try and live separate lives while also remain hidden from the government. When one of their own goes missing, the sisters have to work together - very much at their own risk - to find her.
Interestingly enough, the lead role was originally planned as a part for a male actor, but Wirkola decided to have this detail of the script changed after he met with Rapace and was impressed by her presence. Said the director in a statement, "Although the role was originally written for a male, I was struck by the complexities of having an actor portray seven characters and immediately knew Noomi was the ideal actor -- male or female -- to bring them to life." The trade report doesn't mention when cameras are going to start rolling on the production or when they are targeting the film for release.
After starring in Dead Man Down with Colin Farrell and Terrence Howard earlier this year, Rapce has been keeping very busy - and strangely has been working quite a bit with Tom Hardy. In 2014 the actors are set to appear together in two separate films, though neither title has a release date just yet. The first, titled Animal Rescue, is based on a Dennis Lehane story and script and is a crime drama that tells a complicated story sparked by a lost pit bull. The second, Child 44, is an adaptation of Tom Rob Smith's novel of the same name and follows a disgraced cop as he works to try and solve a string of child murders in Soviet Russia. Rapace is also expected to reprise her role as Elizabeth Shaw in Ridley Scott's Prometheus 2, whenever that project ends up getting off the ground.
I can't personally think of any movie that had an actor playing seven lead roles in the same story, but I'll admit that the first movie that popped into my head when I was first reading about this film was Multiplicity with Michael Keaton. Enjoy some '90s nostalgia below:
