James Corden gets noticed.
Think the Tony Awards only matter to a tiny group of theater-loving idiots in New York? Maybe not–James Corden scored a big upset by winning the Best Actor in a Play award for his role in “One Man, Two Guv’nors” over heavy favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman and now has parlayed that into two big movie roles. Deadline reports that he’s joined the cast of “Can a Song Save Your Life?” which also stars Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Hailee Steinfeld, and Adam Levine. Ruffalo and Knightley play a couple who move to New York to break into the music business, but when he makes it, he dumps her. Corden will play Knightley’s best friend.
That’s a nice supporting role. But Corden has also won the starring role in “One Chance,” the biopic of Paul Potts, the cell phone salesman who wowed the judges on “Britain’s Got Talent” when he turned out to have the voice of a professional opera singer. David Frankel will direct that.
Corden’s been acting since he was a teenager. He spent a lot of time touring in Alan Bennett’s great play “The History Boys,” then had a success on British TV with the sitcom “Gavin and Stacey.” He’s done a lot of TV, some voice work, and a few minor movie roles, but these will be his first major parts. Good for him.
