Mainers, here’s your big chance to be part of the beloved saga “Little Women.”
A Hollywood movie based on the Louisa May Alcott novel, starring Meryl Streep and Emma Watson, will be filmed this fall in the Boston area. And the filmmakers need people to play extras.
Cape Elizabeth native Kendall Cooper, the film’s extras casting director, said this week she’s looking for men, women and children of all types to play various 1860s New England townsfolk. But she’s especially interested in men with barbershop phobia – those who have beards, other facial hair and shaggy locks up to 5 inches long. For women, the hair requirements are simply that it be “natural” with no coloring or highlights. And she needs children aged 1 to 17.
Filming will take place from October through December in towns around Boston, Cooper said, but people from Maine are welcome to apply to be extras. They just need to know they will probably have to drive to Boston and back a few times, for costume fittings and then for filming days that start very early.
People who think they have the look, the time and the passion to be in the film can send three pictures of themselves (two body shots, one facial) along with detailed personal information to Cooper at LittleWomen@KendallCooperCasting.com.
To find out what sort of information you need to submit and to find more about the extras casting, go to Facebook: Kendall Cooper Casting – New England.
Some of the personal info you’ll need to share includes bust, waist and hip sizes, plus the location and size of any tattoos. Body art was not a big thing in 1860s Massachusetts.
The novel is about the March family – four teenage sisters and their mother – living in genteel poverty in a Massachusetts town based on Concord, while the father is away during the Civil War. Scenes will be shot in Boston, Concord, Ipswich, Lawrence and the Lexington/Burlington area, Cooper said.
Cooper has been working in the field of extras casting for the past several years, including on the Showtime spy thriller series “Homeland.” She also worked on the PBS drama “Mercy Street” and the 2016 film “Loving.”
Cooper said she couldn’t discuss the movie itself in any detail. But publications such as Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter have said the cast includes Streep, Watson, Timothee Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan and Laura Dern. It’s being directed by Greta Gerwig, whose film “Lady Bird” was nominated for five awards at this year’s Oscars.
Not all the roles have been formally announced, but entertainment publications have reported some of the likely portrayals: Watson as Meg, Ronan as Jo, Chalamet as Laurie Laurence and Streep as Aunt March. The movie is tentatively due to come out late in 2019.
The novel has been adapted for film several times, notably in 1933 with Katharine Hepburn and in 1949 with Elizabeth Taylor. A 1994 version starred Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon and Kirsten Dunst. A British television film starring Emily Watson, Maya Hawke and Angela Lansbury aired on PBS stations in the U.S. earlier this year.
Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
rrouthier@pressherald.com
Twitter: @RayRouthier
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