Everywhere a Star, Star: Sam Mendes’ cast additions for ‘This Must Be the Place’

Usually, you wouldn’t want to put a pregnant woman in a car and drive her across the country looking for the perfect place to raise your unborn child. But, that’s exactly what Dave Eggers’ and Vendela Vida’s screenplay wants from lead actors John Krasinski (“The Office”) and Maya Rudolph (“Saturday Night Live”).

The work, tentatively titled This Must Be the
Place, just added more fabulous cast choices, which now makes it seem like director Sam Mendes wants to do something wildly different – maybe stepping in the mileu of other funky ensemble directors like Wes Anderson. With Jeff Daniels (‘Good Night and Good Luck”, Catherine O’Hara (“For Your Consideration”), Allison Janney (“Juno”), Cheryl Hines (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Toni Collette (Little Miss Sunshine), Jim Gaffigan (“Law and Order: Criminal Intent”) and Paul Schneider (“Lars and the Real Girl”) popping out of corners and cameo-ing all over the place, one thing about this vaguely described endeavor is–definitely not “American Beauty”.

After working with George Clooney in the recently released “Leatherheads”, Krasinski is continuing to up his feature cred by working with Mendes on the working title This Must Be the
Place. Same with Rudolph, the longest-running cast member of SNL. She was last seen, apart from cartoon turns on “The Simpsons” and “Shrek the Third”, in “Idiocracy”, a Mike Judge vehicle. Both are established stars on their respective programs, and both itching, and succeeding, in making the leap to features.

Now that Mendes has finished rounding out the cast for his project, hopefully the Hollywood eyes will focus on Mendes’ upcoming Revolutionary
Road—and maybe Oscar glory.