No one’s had a better career in the last year than Scarlett Johansson. She earned enthusiastic praise (and some Oscar consideration) for a vocal performance in Her, followed up with crowd-pleasing action roles in Lucy and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and received her best reviews yet for playing an extraterrestrial seductress in the experimental thriller Under the Skin.
But Johansson’s not done impressing yet.
In a move comparable to Matthew McConaughey’s continued artistic reinvention on HBO’s True Detective, Johansson is heading to the small screen — her first foray into a starring role on TV.
She has signed on to a miniseries adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country with Sony, though it’s yet unknown on which network it will air. The 1913 novel, like many of Wharton’s works, features a grasping anti-heroine you can’t help rooting for. The Custom of the Country follows its Midwestern rich girl, Undine Spragg, through the high societies of New York and Paris, where she is determined to find a husband worthy of her material and social ambitions. She leaves behind a trail of divorce, tragedy, and her very young son.
It will be, in other words, an excellent opportunity for Johansson to showcase her skills and play the kind of complicated female character that is able to be elaborated through eight episodes and several years of narrative. Let the bidding for the project begin!
[via Variety]
