With 30 Rock’s absence from Thursday nights still fresh on the brain, it’s still difficult not to immediately associate Tina Fey with her Liz Lemon character. But her looming Hollywood takeover – starting with Paul Weitz’s Admission on March 22 - is looking to change that.
For a comedic one-two punch, Fey is entering negotiations to join Jason Bateman in director Shawn Levy’s This is Where I Leave You, the upcoming adaptation of the dysfunctional family novel by author Jonathan Tropper, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. According to The Hollywood Reporter, If all goes according to plan, Fey will play Bateman’s older sister, a married woman who finds out her first love now has brain cancer.
Levy and Bateman are trying to fill the other female roles as well, having recently sat down for readings for the female romantic lead with actresses Ari Graynor (The Guilt Trip), Isla Fisher (Bachelorette), Zoe Saldana (The Words), and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (A Good Day to Die Hard). No final decisions have been made, however. Though it isn’t official, it is likely that comedic actress Kathryn Hahn (Afternoon Delight) will play Bateman’s sister-in-law.
This is Where I Leave You is about a family who all come together for the first time in many years, at the last request of their recently deceased father to sit shiva for the week following his death. Presumably, familial conflict and uncomfortable hilarity ensue. Films like this, including The Family Stone and Eulogy put a lot of pressure on the actors to believably pull off the complex relationships that the hectic plots will call for, and this is shaping up to be a rock solid project.
There’s no word on when the film will begin production, but it’s assumed that casting will be completed before Fey finishes filming The Muppets…Again! in Europe.
