Who the hell knows if Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit is going to be any good (actually, I might have an inkling if I ever get around to reading the script that’s been sitting on my living room table for the past week)? All that matters is this: Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson (good enough for Cherry Jones is good enough for me) and, now, Jamie King and Paz Vega. I haven’t flipped through the SAG bylaws lately, but I’m pretty sure Miller has just invoked the Linda Hunt Proviso of 1982. The exact wording of the codicil eludes me, but I do know it ends in the casting of the diminutive Best Supporting Actress winner as a "tangibly sensual being". And tears. Lots of tears.
Vega will play Plaster of Paris, a chick who digs knives (dangerous, but worth it if you’ve any kind of pain threshold and don’t mind the sight of your own blood), while King will entrance as the mesmeric chanteuse Lorelei Rox. As you’ll recall, the dreamy Gabriel Macht has been cast in the title role. The role of The Spirit’s arch-enemy, The Octopus, has gone to Samuel L. Jackson.
Shooting on The Spirit is scheduled to begin this week in Albuquerque. I have a friend who’s going to be working most of it, and he is under strict orders to punch himself in the nuts every hour on the hour.