I don’t get to say this very often, but it’s good news that Ben Affleck is in talks for an acting role. While there’s only limited roles where Affleck’s vague smug-ness fit, he would seem a good match for Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, and indeed that’s the part Deadline reports Ben is in talks for.
While Affleck is busy prepping his next directorial project, Argo (about the 1979 Iran hostage crisis), it seems he trying to ensure there’s space in his diary for Gatsby, which would see him join a cast including Leo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire. The film, which is written by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, follows the lives of a bunch of rich folks in 1920s Long Island.
Tom Buchanan is a rich dilettante, whose sporting glory days are behind him and who now spends his time being very please with himself and conducting an affair with a woman called Myrtle. However the main thrust of the plot concerns Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio) and his all-cosuming love for Tom’s wife, Daisy (Mulligan). She’s a rather shallow woman but Jay simply cannot get over her, having loved her since he was stationed near her hometown while in the army, and only buying a Long Island mansion to be near her (indeed it’s suggested his entire drive to get rich was all about her). All of this is narrated (in the book at least) by Nick Carraway (Maguire), Daisy’s cousin who acts as an observor and commentator on the events that transpire amongst these wealthy people one summer.
Although Luhrmann has enjoyed playing will-he/won’t he over making Gatsby and spreading rumours he may ditch or delay it, it appears it’s currently set to start shooting later this year.