Grace Kelly Biopic Already a Trainwreck Thanks to Casting Misfire.

Warning! This post has more opinion than my usual ones do.

According to a recent issue of Variety and verified by US Weekly, a biopic titled Grace of Monaco is in pre-production yet the final cut has already been bulldozed like an abandoned paper-mill, thank to the bad casting that’s made Hollywood famous over the years.

Nicole Kidman is set to play Princess Grace, Tim Roth opposite her as Prince Rainier III. Before I go off on my rant, yes brace yourselves, I want EVERYONE’S OPINION ON THIS ONE. ARE THESE GOOD CASTING CHOICES?

Yes, heaven help us. Shake your head from side-to-side in you-should-have-known-better disappointment. Wave a fist at on-coming traffic. No traffic? Just punch through the drywall. Think I’m over-reacting? Go ahead, watch Cold Mountain again. Oh Lord deliver us from her abhorrent, muddled, non-specific “Southern” accent. Don’t stick your head in the oven, just turn the DVD off. There are easier ways!

(I don’t blame you for contemplating it. Getting double-teamed by Kidman and Jude Law as they try to find their Carolina accent is the aural equivalent of Guantanamo Bay.)

If you asked me ten days ago who my favorite princess was, I’d have said Grace, simply because she was the only American one. (<-That, right there, is the most patriotic you will EVER see me get. Save the occasional Canada jibe at a Leafs’ Game.) Now I am just scratching my head.

Kidman is 45 years old and is starting to look like Marcia Cross from Desperate Housewives (To quote Family Guy: Like somebody stretched Silly Putty over their knee.) Kidman is set to play Princess Grace around age 26. Let’s imagine a 35 year-old nailed the audition, they’d send her packing for being too old. But Kidman is not too old at 45 because she’s an “A-Lister.” Really? Still?

nicole does not age…

Kidman’s Academy Award-winning prosthetic nose was so ten years ago, Hollywood overlords. Most of us feeble-minded public can’t recall the last movie she was in…oh wait. I forgot what blockbusters The Stepford Wives and Bewitched were. (Do not get me started on what a calamity that screenplay was…you think I’m ranting now?)

as Grace did. Too much botox & juvederm

Nicole Kidman has been out of the public eye for awhile, so the old we-need-a-household-name-as-a-headliner argument is a wash. For as much as I adore Tim Roth’s work–both inside and outside Tarantino’s stuff–he is not a Prince Rainier.

Kidman can’t act; we know from Moulin Rouge that she can’t sing. She’s tall and looking Audrey Hepburn-lung cancer skinny. To top that off, she’ll bring her off-keel down-under rendition of a refined Philadelphia accent to the screen. You’d think I have some kind of caddy-girl hatred towards her. Nope. Just two words.

Grace Kelly (left) and January Jones (right)

January Jones.

She’s perfect. Good actress, same body type, the right accent, not to mention she looks just like Princess Grace and is currently on one of the most lauded shows on TV. I’ve run out of words. Nicole Kidman pressed hard to guarantee that she’d get this part and work with this director. It’s nothing short of a crime against cinematography.

What is wrong with you people? Obviously Kidman cost you more. Did she sign with CAA? They get everyone, everywhere. Some more interesting cast members include: Roger Ashton-Griffiths to play Alfred Hitchcock (fun!) and Frank Langella (yeah now you recognize him) is rumored to play Father Francis Tucker. (Tucker was the priest who apparently introduced Rainier and Grace and acted as marriage counselor to the couple later in life.)

Perhaps the most exciting is sweet españolita Paz Vega (below) who is set to play opera singer Maria Callas, close friend of Princess Grace’s and Aristotle Onassis‘ girlfriend, famous for both her voice and temper. (Naturally I’m dying to know who is playing Aristotle Onassis…)