Two quick updates today starting with Bourne’s old girl, that was until she took a bullet to the dome, as Franka Potente is set to take a bit of a different role from playing Marie, this time it is Johanna von Ingelheim in the film adaptation of Donna Woolfolk Cross’ best-selling novel “Pope Joan.” Potente will play von Ingelheim, a 9th century woman of English extraction born in the German city of Mainz who disguises herself as a man and rises through the Vatican ranks. When her older brother dies in a Viking attack, the brilliant young Joan assumes his identity and enters a Benedictine monastery where, as Brother John Anglicus, she distinguishes herself as a scholar and healer. Eventually drawn to Rome, she soon becomes enmeshed in a dangerous mix of powerful passion and explosive politics that threatens her life even as it elevates her to the highest throne in the Western world. Volker Schloendorff is directing with filming expected to begin May 2007. [Production Weekly]
Patricia Clarkson has been cast in Lars and the Real Girl for director Craig Gillespie. Clarkson joins Ryan Gosling and Emily Mortimer in the indie pic telling the story of a timid man whose life changes dramatically when an Internet friend comes to visit. The beautiful, religious missionary is in fact an inanimate replica of a woman. [Variety]
