In what amounts to a kind of career-defining reunion, Jessica Chastain and Al Pacino will star alongside each other in “Lear, Rex,” a new big-screen Shakespeare adaptation of “King Lear” for filmmaker Bernard Rose (“Immortal Beloved”).
Rose will write and direct, Pacino will star as the title character, and Chastain will star as Goneril, the eldest of King Lear’s three daughters. More cast names are expected to be announced first.
Pacino gave Chastain her start in a stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s tragedy “Salomé.” It also became the first film she ever shot, directed by Pacino, circa 2008, that didn’t end up coming out until 2014, several years after she had already made a name for herself (a more experimental companion piece and docudrama, “Wilde Salomé,” also directed by Pacino came out in 2011).
According to Deadline, In “Lear Rex,” an aging King divides his land between his three daughters to prevent future strife. But he rejects the young daughter who loves him and places his trust in her malevolent sisters, who strip him of his power and condemn him to a wretched wasteland of horror and insanity.
Listen to any long-form Chastain interview where she gets into her biography, and two seminal figures always come up: Robin Williams, who paid for her Julliard degree with his scholarship fund, and Pacino, who saw something in her very early on.
“I was actually in Australia, and I got a call from my agent saying, ‘We have a call for you to audition for the lead in ‘Salomé’ opposite Al Pacino.’ I thought, ‘How did this happen?’ because I wasn’t getting great auditions, and they said, ‘He requested you,’” Chastain recalled in a 2017 Daily Beast interview.
“It was one of the great moments of my life; it completely changed my career,” she continued. “As I was auditioning, I could hear out in the audience, ‘Oh, wow… what am I seeing?’ I could hear [Pacino] loving whatever I was doing, which made me even more confident.”
Chastain is a three-time Oscar-nominated and won for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (2021). Pacino has been nominated for Academy Awards nine times, winning only once for “Scent Of A Woman” in 1993.
Watch the “Salomé” and “Wild Salomé” trailers below for a blast from the past in case you’ve forgotten.