Like Lee Harvey Oswald in the grassy knoll, Damien Chazelle doesn’t miss. From Whiplash to La La Land to First Man – even Netflix’s The Eddy – the writer/director phenomenon’s love letters to cinema consistently attract all the right kinds of attention. And Babylon, his forthcoming exploration of Hollywood during the Jazz Age, promises to be no different.
Featuring a wildly impressive ensemble cast led by Brad Pitt and our very own Margot Robbie, who reunite for the first time since Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, the story will be set in the 1920s, right as the film industry transitioned from silent films to “talkies.”
“Everything is shifting underneath people’s feet… I became really fascinated by the human cost of disruption at that magnitude, at a time when there was no road map, when everything was just new and wild,” explained Damien Chazelle.
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According to Vanity Fair, Brad Pitt is taking on the role of Jack Conrad — a hard-partying über-movie star inspired by the likes of classic Hollywood stars such as John Gilbert, Clark Gable, and Douglas Fairbanks. In other words, not exactly a stretch for a thespian of his calibre.
“He’s reaching a point in his life in his career where he’s starting to look back and starting to wonder what’s ahead,” said Damien Chazelle; which mirrors the very sentiments expressed by Pitt himself earlier this year.
Margot Robbie, on the other hand, will portray Nellie LaRoy — an aspiring actress who’s apparently an amalgamation of Clara Bow, Jeanne Eagels, Joan Crawford, and Alma Rubens. Within the context of Babylon, Nellie is a fresh Hollywood transplant who suddenly finds herself in the spotlight. Not entirely unlike Robbie’s own rapid rise to fame post-Martin Scorsese’s Wolf of Wall Street
“Margot as a person has this – it’s a very Australian sort of thing – brash, bold, hungry kind of edge to her that she was really able to tap into and do a lot of really fun things with,” added Chazelle.
“Part of what was magical about working with [Brad and Margot] in these roles is that each of them felt like they were really able to make the performance the most personal thing they had done.”
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The glamorous A-lister duo have been joined by the following:
- Diego Calva as Manny Torres
- Tobey Maguire as James McKay
- Samara Weaving as [undisclosed]
- Olivia Wilde as [undisclosed]
- Spike Jonze as [undisclosed]
- Jean Smart as Elinor St John
- Max Minghella as Irving Thalberg
- Katherine Waterston as Ruth Arzner
- Flea as [undisclosed]
- Lukas Haas as George Munn
- Rory Scovel as [undisclosed]
- Eric Roberts as [undisclosed]
- Li Jun Li as Lady Fay Zhu
- Jovan Adepo as Sidney Palmer
- P.J. Byrne as [undisclosed]
- Damon Gupton as [undisclosed]
- Phoebe Tonkin as [undisclosed]
- Chloe Fineman as [undisclosed]
- Jeff Garlin as [undisclosed]
- Troy Metcalf as [undisclosed]
- Telvin Griffin as [undisclosed]
As Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie’s roads have crossed once again, so too have Damien Chazelle and two of his key collaborators: Academy Award-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren and Academy Award-winning composer Justin Hurwitz (both of La La Land fame). If you ever needed to know what the recipe for theatrical success looks like, simply refer to the above.
Damien Chazelle’s Babylon starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie has locked in a limited release date of December 25th, 2022 (wider release date: January 6th, 2023) – check out the trailer above.
First-look images courtesy of Vanity Fair.
