9 - Bardem = ?

Javier Bardem, too tired to sing and dance for Rob Marshall. Must be Penelope Cruz’s fault.

Variety is reporting that Javier Bardem has dropped out of the film version of the Broadway musical Nine. The newly-minted Oscar winner’s reason for leaving the Rob Marshall production was exhaustion and a need for time off after working on a lot of films and surviving awards season.

Bardem was supposed to play the lead role of Guido Contini, a director who’s trying to manage a creative crisis while juggling the numerous women in his life, including wife, mistress, mother, producer, and “muse.” Supposedly Bardem asked if they could push the shoot back to February, but the film is already behind schedule after the writers’ strike held up the rewrite of the Michael Tolkin adaptation.

Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and Sophia Loren have already signed on for the film; Nicole Kidman and Judi Dench are in talks to join the cast. So who can replace Bardem?

As I’ve noted many times, you don’t have to be a great singer to sing for a movie. You can have a little tiny voice, sing shyly into the microphone and let the recording engineers do the rest. This also isn’t the toughest score in the world either. So you don’t have to be a singer to handle this role. You do need someone who’s European, preferably Italian, Spanish, Greek (the role is supposed to be Fellini, after all). You need someone at least over 40. You need someone who projects “ladies man” (alas, character actors need not apply!). So what are our options?

The easiest choice, especially if they  want to keep things moving would be to go with Antonio Banderas, who played the part in the recent Broadway revival and received rave reviews. Other than that, I’m not sure. There probably is some European actor who’s not known to US audiences who might be right, though I’m sure the producers would prefer a name to help sell the musical. I liked Mathieu Amalric in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, don’t know (obviously) how he would handle even minimal singing, but he might be a little young. Could it be reshaped to get away with an Irish guy like Pierce Brosnan? I really don’t know. And I may well be the only one who is interested in this puzzle.