Welcome back to the All-New Multiversity NOW! edition of Casting Couch. An article we’ve always enjoyed doing but can admittedly get lax about doing (or just plain forget about), Casting Couch is a column we always mean to have around. So now we do. Or, we will.
And to kick it all off, it only seemed appropriate to put Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s “Sex Criminals” on our casting couch. They’re just lucky this isn’t the one Multiversity keeps in the backroom.
Also: if you’d like to see more Casting Couch (I assume you do), please leave suggestions of what should be cast below. I’ll generally take just about any challenge, provided I’ve read (or have some mild knowledge of) the series/book. You can see all the previous Casting Couches right here.
Directors: Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky
Matt has directorial experience, albeit perhaps on a smaller scale, and Chip has “acting” experience. It only makes sense that they take this weird, sexy, sweet, funny baby and bring it to life on their own terms on the big screen. I’m not sure what (living) director could accurately translate it, to be honest; at least not the pool hall scene.
The obvious directorial pick would’ve been Billy Wilder, though.
Suzie: Cristin Milioti
There were a few names up in the air for the starring (and most important) role of Suzie. Suzie is very much the heart of the book, our anchor into its weird world; we see it through her eyes, and we accept the strangeness of this world both due to her honesty, her slight naivety and the intimacy to which we share her life. And while Cristin Milioti may be a relative newcomer to the scene, despite great smaller performances in Wolf of Wall Street or Sleepwalk with Me, her role as the eponymous Mother from How I Met Your Mother has shown already that Milioti is capable of a great range in a high pressure role. It would be interesting to see what else she could do in a more adult landscape.
(True story: it was actually this past week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, “How Your Mother Met Me,” that swung the casting pendulum in Milioti’s direction and gave her the win. One of the best episodes in years.)
Young Suzie: Isabelle Fuhrman
The role of Young Suzie is just as important as the role of Adult Suzie, as with all the characters. However, casting younger actors and actresses is rather hard, particularly because only the few notable young actors and actresses usually appear in very defined performances. Then there’s Isabelle Fuhrman, who starred in Orphan — one of the most ridiculous films of the past five years. Yet she was great in it! Really, as silly as that ending is, Fuhrman makes it easier to watch because of her performance. And now that she’s older, I think she could fit quite well into the role of Young Suzie.
Jon: Adam Driver
When Girls first started airing, Adam Driver was kind of the odd man out. His character was off-putting, even relatively repugnant, and he really made it easy to dislike how he acted around Lena Dunham’s character. But as time went on, Driver’s character clearly evolved, and so did he. So whether it be his continued performance on Girls (as, really, the most stable character on the show now) or his bit performances in Inside Llewyn Davis, Frances Ha or Lincoln (I know! I was surprised to see him too!), Driver is definitely the kind of actor who can play a goofy yet lovable character like Jon with a strong amount of sincerity and honesty.
Plus, the height differential between Driver and Milioti clearly fits with Jon and Suzie. So that’s a plus.
Young Jon: Kier Gilchrist
Kier Gilchrist is more of an unknown than Fuhrman I’d wager, but for those who saw It’s Kind of a Funny Story, I think it’s pretty clear that Gilchrist is a very talented young actor. In fact, it’s his role as Craig that makes it easy to see him as Young Jon: a young, confused man who has a lot to learn about the world, but seems to be discovering it in the most unconventional way possible. That Gilchrist was able to match and outshine Zach Galifianakis (who, at the time, was known by comedy fans but still “coming up” as an actor thanks to the Hangover) just speaks volume about what he’s capable of. It also definitely helps that Kier sort of looks like Young Jon from the comic.
Continued below
Rachel: Kate Mara
When I think about House of Cards (the US version), there’s only one thing about it that I really liked: Kate Mara. Everyone else on that show is pretty good, sure, but they all gave performances that were expected of them, that sort of matched their known talents. Mara, though, was a relative unknown, only being really acknowledged as “the sister of Rooney,” whose star was on the rise very quickly. So in comes Kate, outshining everyone on the show with the most interesting and nuanced performance of anyone involved; she was smart and sassy, but at other times furious, devious and a wonderful foil to Kevin Spacey’s manipulative character. While Rachel is at the moment a side-character (at least, compared to her younger self), I can only assume Rachel’s role will grow — and we’ll have Kate Mara, ready and willing to knock it all out of the park.
Young Rachel: Kara Hayward
The young version of Rachel is pretty important to the entire “Sex Criminals” story, as fans of issue #1 will remember her rather famous bathroom scene (I still can’t get over “brimping”). While the other young roles are important for obvious reasons, Young Rachel is a rather pivotal character. As such, Young Rachel definitely needs an extremely talented younger actress to pull off the role, and for that we look to Kara Hayward of Moonrise Kingdom. I have mixed thoughts on Moonrise Kingdom as a whole, but but it’s impossible to deny that Hayward and co-star Jared Gilman weren’t amazing in it — and in terms of who we’ve seen the young version of Rachel to be, I think Hayward fits the bill down to the T.
“Kegelface”: Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton kind of always has kegelface, doesn’t she?
I mean, she’s an extremely talented actress too. But just in terms of sheer kegelface, Tilda certainly fits the kegelmold.
