The Return of Jezebel James

A new interview with Lauren Ambrose was posted on MeeVee today.

Thanks, Lauren, for doing these. I know you’re probably like me; don’t enjoy basking in the limelight.

-TimK

I’ve been waiting for this independent film, starring Lauren Ambrose, Frank Langella, and Lili Taylor, about a grad student who reinvigorates the hopes and dreams of an old novelist.

The movie premiered at January’s Sundance Film Festival, where critics liked it. It’s based on the 1999 novel by Brian Morton, the story of a New York novelist, Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella). His books were once acclaimed, but now are out of print. He is close to his daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), but otherwise keeps to himself in a structured, joyless existence… until grad student Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) decides to write her Master’s thesis on him and his work. In the process, she grows close to him, challenging him to accept that he’s “using his age to mask a deeper conflict.” Then she starts trudging through his life’s scars, including that of his long-deceased wife.

The film is coming to theaters—finally!—starting Friday, November 23.

Here’s the official trailer: Click to continue »

Today, New York magazine posted an article about Lauren Ambrose… playing Juliet in Central Park and nursing her 4-month-old son on the side. It begins:

This article is giving Lauren Ambrose nightmares…

How can you walk away from an opening like that?!

But the article also goes into other things: other projects she’s doing, including Jezebel James and her reasons for doing it:

Her most curious move, though, was shooting a pilot for an old-fashioned sitcom that Fox picked up for mid-season, The Return of Jezebel James (a working title, thank goodness), written by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and co-starring Parker Posey. (Curiosity No. 2: Parker Posey is doing a sitcom.) Ambrose plays “this hippie disaster living in grungy, like … I’d say the East Village, but that’s not really grungy … whatever the new grungy neighborhood is now,” who agrees to move in with her type A sister and act as her surrogate. Why a sitcom? Credit [her son] Orson again. It shoots in Astoria. “To work where I live, isn’t that the whole idea?”

Check out the full article at New York magazine’s site.

-TimK