Jesse Peretz’s upcoming Paul Rudd-led family-comedy, “My Idiot Brother,” has added much needed excitement with the inclusion of Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Rashida Jones and Emily Mortimer to its cast.
The quartet will play the band of women in the life of Rudd’s protagonist, an idealist who crashes at the homes of his three ambitious sisters and brings truth, happiness and a sunny disposition into their lives while also wreaking havoc.
Banks will play a career-driven single about to get her big break in journalism; Mortimer a Park Slope mom too worried about having the perfect life and children to notice that her marriage is falling apart; while Deschanel will play a bisexual whose flakiness and lies are getting in the way of moving forward with her caring, responsible girlfriend, played by Jones.
It’s a great cast to complement Rudd’s much needed gear-change with Banks, Deschanel and Jones being three of the more interesting comedy actresses in recent times. The ever-reliable Mortimer is no slouch either having starred in the Craig Gillespie’s “Lars And The Real Girl” as well as the first season of “30 Rock.” Definitely a project to keep an eye on for 2011.
Lensing is set to begin next month in New York from a screenplay by David Schisgall and Vanity Fair writer Evgenia Peretz, who is evidently the director’s sister but also recently wrote the cover story on Hollywood’s new IT girls — she’d surely be proud of the cast her brother has conjured up here.