THR‘s Borys Kit reports Paramount has been looking for a seasoned non-A-list actress to star opposite Tom Cruise in the crime thriller One Shot and the studio has narrowed their list to three names: Hayley Atwell, Rosamund Pike and Alexa Davalos.
Atwell is probably the most recognizable of the three at the moment thanks to her recent starring role in Captain America: The First Avenger. However, I’m not sure that film displays her true talent as I was far more impressed when I first noticed her several years ago in Woody Allen’s little-seen Cassandra’s Dream.
Fellow British actress Pike has garnered featured roles in everything from An Education and Barney’s Version to Surrogates in recent years and coincidentally will take over the role of Andromeda in Clash of the Titans 2, a role previously portrayed by Alexa Davalos.
Davalos, on the other hand, is a Parisian actress who has also appeared in Defiance and The Chronicles of Riddick. Another Earth‘s Brit Marling was an early front-runner but bowed out due to schedule conflicts.
I suppose it should be noted that all of these actresses are around 20 years younger than Cruise. Is this an example of Hollywood’s fear of recognizing when its biggest stars are aging? Or is it actually vital to the story?
The adaptation of Lee Child’s 2005 novel marks the second go-round in the director’s chair for veteran screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie) after the underappreciated The Way of the Gun. It centers on an ex-Army cop (Cruise) who gets sucked into a case involving a military sniper who killed five random people in a shooting. The lead female role in question is that of a tough lawyer and daughter of the district attorney.
One Shot goes into production this fall and has set a February 8, 2013 release date.
