If James Gandolfini Isn’t In the Loop, Then Who Is?

James Gandolfini playing a general…yeah, I guess I’d listen to him. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Gandolfini is set to star in In the Loop, along with Anna Chlumsky and David Rasche. BBC Films is producing.

The film, described as a “parody of the inner workings of U.S. and British government agencies and their international relations” is an “unofficial adaptation” of the BBC series The Thick of It. I have no idea what would make it official. Perhaps some kind of sticker. Nevertheless, Armando Iannucci, one of the series’ writers, is directing from his screenplay. Gandolfini will play a general, Rasche an undersecretary of state, and Chlumsky a State Department assistant.

Anna Chlumsky, you may remember did some acting as a child, most notably in My Girl, with Macaulay Culkin. When she hit the rocky time between being a child and teen actor, she pulled back, went to the University of Chicago and studied international relations. She moved to New York and did some fact checking and editorial work, then realized that she really did want to act after all, and started working off-Broadway, climbing her way back up the ladder. Good for her. Too many child actors who got started in the business either on their own hobby of the moment whim or because of a pushy parent, stay in it because they just don’t think they can try anything else. The result often is terribly shallow and not very interesting actors (or people) who aren’t knowledgeable about real life or history or the world or anything. They end up kind of hanging around the fringes of Hollywood trying to fit in and running on their name from something they did when they were about nine. Chlumsky got a glimpse of normal life and other things and then discovered that acting is something she wanted to do. And you shouldn’t be in acting if you don’t really want to do it. I suspect sometimes that too many people go into acting not because they love it, but because it’s a job that they think will get them into the right club, get them swag at awards shows, and some kind of name recognition. And that’s wrong.

Anna Chlumsky now.