Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine
May 15, 2008

One Oscar winner is in talks to replace another one as Variety reports today that Daniel Day-Lewis may fill the part in Nine that was recently vacated by Javier Bardem. Day-Lewis acts so rarely that any part he considers taking should be looked at as a big story. Variety reports today that the man who just won an Oscar for There Will Be Blood is in talks to star in the Weinstein Company's Nine, which is based on the award-winning stage musical. Yep, the man who can do anything is going to prove it by singing and dancing in the role of Guido Contini, a famous film director trying to balance all of the women in his life.

Who will play the women? Hold on tight. Penelope Cruz, fellow Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, and Judi Dench will play the women in the Michael Tolkin-adapted screenplay (with a tinker by the recently passed Anthony Minghella). Nine was inspired by Fellini's 8 1/2. Isn't that cast amazing. Every single star is an Oscar nominee with several winners in the bunch. And Weinstein darling, Rob Marshall, who turned Chicago into a massive award-winner and hit for the brothers, is helming the movie. It's got Oscar bait written all over it. Bardem left the project due to exhaustion and production will begin this Fall.

The 50-year-old Daniel Day-Lewis has won two Oscars already for My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood and chooses his parts very carefully. He had a small role in Gandhi and then went on to start in The Bounty, My Beautiful Laundrette, A Room with a View (his breakthrough role), The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Last of the Mohicans, The Age of Innocence, In the Name of the Father, The Crucible, The Boxer, Gangs of New York, and The Ballad of Jack and Rose. He's only starred in three movies in the '00s (and was nominated for two) and five movies in the '90s, all of which were critically acclaimed. He's one of the very, very few actors who could take a project with a cast as lauded as Nine already had and make it even better.