Three days ago, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman barely seemed real due to the left field aspect of its ensemble comedy notion being worlds away from the trauma-filled drama of his earlier films (such as Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Blutiful). But the influx of an amazing cast has catapulted the film back into everyone’s consciousness this week.
The latest name on Birdman’s roster, according to Deadline, is U.K. actress Andrew Riseborough, perhaps best known to U.S. audiences for her work in Mike Leigh’s 2007 dramedy Happy-Go-Lucky or Mark Romanek’s 2010 love triangle romance Never Let Me Go. She’ll soon be appearing with Tom Cruise in the sci-fi epic Oblivion; and in the horror Hidden with Alexander Skarsgåard, whom she’ll also co-star with in Henry Alex Rubin’s Disconnect. Somewhere in all that is the crime story Welcome to the Punch with James McAvoy and Mark Strong. It’s safe to say if she’s not already a household name, she’ll be well on her way by the end of 2013.
Riseborough joins a cast that already boasted Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts and Emma Stone, as we reported earlier this week, before it added Edward Norton yesterday. If Sam Rockwell were to somehow get involved, the film would collapse beneath the weight of its own talent.
In Birdman Keaton will play an aging actor famous for playing a superhero many years before. His career totally dead, he decides to rebrand himself with a Broadway play, but has extreme difficulty with the lead actor. Stone will play his daughter and assistant, Galifianakis will star as the play’s ruthless producer, and Watts and Norton will be leads in the play. The only information given about Riseborough is that she’ll play Laura, though previous reports suggest that she could be Keaton's ex-wife.
