While he’s known as something of a macho director, Michael Mann has a talent of writing and casting female leads, from Tuesday Weld’s character in THIEF to Madeline Stowe’s Cora Munro, all the way to Marion Cotillard’s turn in PUBLIC ENEMIES (which was her first big follow-up to her Oscar win for LA VIE EN ROSE). Now, he’s got another excellent female to bolster down his ENZO FERRARI biopic: Noomi Rapace.
Rapace is in talks to play Ferrari’s wife of 55+ years, Laura Dominica Garello. She, like Bale, would be aged accordingly over the 20-something-year timespan of the story.
And she, like Bale, will probably pull it off, no problem. I’ve been a fan of Rapace, who doesn’t look, sound, or act like pretty much anyone else in the industry right now, since her breakout in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, and I thought she brought something special to her leads in PROMETHEUS, DEAD MAN DOWN, PASSION, and THE DROP. She, again like Bale, has these great, expressive eyes and an ability to convey personality even in a big-budget studio setting. She hasn’t been in a hit film since PROMETHEUS three summers ago, so I’m glad to see that big directors like Mann haven’t lost sight of her talent.
Romantic couples in Mann’s films have those great moments of elongated silence and SUPER-IMPORTANT eye-contact, and aside from the car stuff and the period, European settings, watching Bale and Rapace have one of his mega-intense love affairs is another thing to look forward to.
Any Ferrari junkies think they should’ve gone with someone else for Laura Dominica?
