Quentin Tarantino is known to draw an eclectic cast whenever he rolls out a film. Up and comers, A-Listers, and B-Legends all wind up intersecting, speaking the same rat-a-tat language of profanity and pop culture that's given the infamous director a voice all his own. In the 22-years he's been making films, Tarantino's been able to bring each film in with at least a couple of notable cast members that not only sell his dialogue, but also bring some free press to each premiere. This latest casting news for QT's latest, The Hateful Eight, comes from the A-List category, as Jennifer Lawrence is supposedly in talks to flips some birds and shoot some bullets in the wild west.
Collider broke the story late today, which names Lawrence as a hotly tipped, late game pick to star in what will probably a pivotal role. No specific role has been named for the Academy Award winning actress, though at the time of this writing the script does contain two female roles: Daisy Domergue and Six Horse Judy. Not much is known about the latter, but the former seems to be the more pivotal female role that Amber Tamblyn read in the live read held earlier this spring.
Seeing as The Hateful Eight that the live read crowd got is supposedly going to be much different from the version we'll be seeing on the screen, Daisy and Judy's parts could drastically be re-written in order to accommodate someone of Jennifer Lawrence's popularity. After all, if Quentin Tarantino is looking to cast a hot young actress in his movie, he wouldn't just put her in a background role. Then again, Amber Tamblyn and Zoe Bell are both QT certified background players, and we know how much he loves to elevate them at the right time as well. There's still plenty of time for things to get moved around and shifted, much like the work that was done on Django Unchained when cast members like Sacha Baron Cohen and Jonah Hill dropped out of (and in Hill's case, came back to) the film's cast.
My money is that Jennifer Lawrence is either going to be Daisy "the prisoner" of the piece, or she'll have a new role entirely written for her. That out of the way, it is incredibly exciting to see Lawrence already being tipped for a Tarantino movie. She's definitely got the attitude to play a Tarantino character, and with her experiences working for David O. Russell, she's got the credibility (and the patience) to work with another rather particular director. However, should she not work out for some sort of scheduling/unknown reason, might I suggest Hallie Steinfeld? True Grit alone is enough of an audition to bring her into the fold, and back into the spotlight.
The Hateful Eight will be running a teaser with Sin City: A Dame To Kill For this weekend, and will be going into production at the beginning of 2015.
