Pfeiffer + Aronofsky = !!!!!!!!!!!
Friday, April 15, 2016 at 11:59PM 
Pfeiffer in Beat-Up Little SeagullJust so everyone knows, I am indeed still alive. After briefly passing out. I was on a flight when news broke that Michelle Pfeiffer had signed on to the cast of the new untitled Darren Aronofsky film due in 2017 with filming to start this June.
La Pfeiffer has been MIA from the movies in a significant way since White Oleander (2002) her last Oscar worthy performance (she has famously never won despite multiple breathtaking star turns) and the last onscreen appearance without significant breaks thereafter. She flirted with a comeback in a brief flurry of activity around 2007-2008 (Stardust & Cheri being the highlights) but it's been relatively quiet since then. But no more?...
This year we'll see her in as a co-lead in HBO film Wizard of Lies about the Bernie Madoff scandal, and as the lead of Beat-Up Little Seagull about a "fragile, sensitive woman" (yup, that sounds up her alley) reeling from her mother's death and a new romantic relationship. Signing on with a real auteur after both of those, is a good sign that maybe with her two kids off to college she's FINALLY ready to work again.
This is very exciting though we can't possibly know what to expect...
There's little info about the film just yet other than that it involves a couple's relationship tested & disrupted when uninvited guests arrive so it could be anywhere from a Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf mental dramedy to a Carnage satire to a Funny Games thriller. The other cast members announced are Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, and Domhnall Gleeson, with Ed Harris and Domhnall's brother Brian Gleeson in talks as well. One can assume that JLaw is the lead, given her current stature in the industry but who is her man? Javier Bardem or Domnhall Gleeson (age appropriate)? Is Pfeiffer JLaw or Gleeson's mom or someone else entirely?
Aronofsky's filmography isn't female driven per se (only 2 of his 6 pictures have female leads) but it's not not female driven, either, with a good track record of exciting female roles.
ARONOFSKY'S FEMALE ROLES RANKED
UNASSAILABLY CLASSIC ROLES
Your opinions of the performances might vary but if this were the theater they'd be roles everyone aspired to and wanted to prove themselves with in revivals...
01 "Sara Goldfarb" in Requiem for a Dream (2000)
02 "Nina Sayer" in Black Swan (2010)
MEATY OPPORTUNITIES FOR ANY ACTRESS
Roles with depth but it's partially what the actress can bring to them, of course
03 "Cassidy" in The Wrestler (2008)
04 "Marion Silver" in Requiem for a Dream (2000)
05 "Lily" in Black Swan (2010)
06 "Erica Sayers" in Black Swan (2010)
07 "Stefanie" in The Wrestler (2008)
YOU'LL HAVE TO WORK TO ELEVATE IT
Not a lot to work with but with the right actress...
08 "Isabelle" / "Izzy Creo" in The Fountain (2006)
09 "Naameh" in Noah (2014)
10 "Beth McIntyre" in Black Swan (2010)
11 "Ila" in Noah (2014)
NOT MUCH TO WORK WITH
filler, bit parts
12 "Ada" in Requiem for a Dream (2000)
13 "Dr Lillian Guzetti" in The Fountain (2006)
14 "Na'el" in Noah (2014)
Do have any strong feelings about this character gallery or high hopes for where Jennifer Lawrence and Michelle Pfeiffer might land in this list?
Reader Comments (31)
The neighbor across the street who wears glasses and a shawl?
*SQUEE*
Probably JLaw's mother
This really is thrilling news. After Cheri bombed, I had honestly lost all hope for a true resurgence.
Either she finally "got it" and started pursuing better projects vigorously, or she owes Bruno Mars and Vance Joy a ton of thanks for keeping her name out there and reminding people how great she is, lol.
With the way JLaw rolls maybe she's playing Pfieffer's mother?
A psychic who wears a turban and solves crimes?
Be awesome if Michelle and Bardem rocked up playing the uninvited guests.
Ed Harris as well!!!
I am in love with this cast except from JLaw. Mia Wasikowska or Rooney Mara would have been better
I hope Pfeiffer is getting a key supporting role!
Do I not see Barbara Hershey's role in Black Swan? Nathaniel!
Edit - I do, all is forgiven :P
Something to look forward to; I still want recounts for 1988 and 1992.
Makes me sad that Mila Kunis isn't an Oscar nominee simply because that was nearly one of the most interesting "who'd'a thunk" moments in recent Oscar noms. Plus, I thought she was great. I was happy Jacki Weaver got in though. Bump Hailee Steinfeld.
I'm happy that Pfeiffer is doing 3 projects, that's the good news.
But since "Noah" was Aronofsky's last film, I'm not convinced that this is going to be a big breakthrough. A role as JLaw's mother is quite probable.
I'm not as big on Aronofsky or JLaw as you are, but I'm happy to see Pfeiffer making a comeback.
Sara Goldfarb and Nina Sayer, man that's a one-two gut-punch of full-on actressing right there. I know people's mileage varies on the performances, especially Natalie Portman's, but I'll tae the bat for either of those ladies at any time.
I am hoping the new role can give Michelle Pfeiffer a career renaissance. She's 57 now, so she is nearing her Lioness in Winter years, when Hollywood sort of rediscovers actresses they thought had died in their 40s.
YOU deserve this
I hopes omeone showed her The Family and told her she was wasting her gifts,I am an 80's child and Pfeiffer was at that time considered the most beautiful movie star of that decade,Welcome Back Chelle.
Nat have you evr done your TOP 10 Pfeiffer performances.
I love how Aronofsky writes meaty, complex parts for actresses who are often forgotten and/or wasted by Hollywood. Burstyn, Hershey, Tomei, and now Pfeiffer. I am very, very excited for this film. The cast is superb. And it will be good for both Pfeiffer AND Lawrence to work with a genuine auteur again.
Amazing casting with Pfeiffer, Gleeson, Ed Harris, Javier Bardem, Jennifer Lawrence!!!...Tha's the biggest star power cast in an Aronofsky movie ever. Pfeiffer is probably playing JLaw's mother and Gleeson her love interest, Bardem probably the one who she falls in love with or the villain, Harris not sure. I can't wait to see what Aronofsky and Jennifer Lawrence have in store!
Harris maybe the father.Remember when he was an Oscar perennial.
I'm most excited about Ed Harris's potential casting, I love him and think he is underused today. I definitely think he and Pfeiffer could be cast as JLaw's parents.
I hope it's not as small as The Winona and Hershey roles in Black Swan. Those roles were tiny! But with a cast this big, I can definitely see some of these roles being tiny. Aronofsky projects also tend to focus heavily on the lead in a lot of cases.
Any Pfeiffer news is good news. I see her 4th nomination for the Seagull movie.
The unexpected guests are aliens - and Pfeiffer plays the EmPfress of the Universe on our planet to meet the Queen of Humans (JLaw plays herself).
Whatever Michelle's role is here, I hope it has an edge. She is wispy and thin, often forgettable, in her recent work. In Cheri she was quite awful.
Well I hoped Black Swan would relaunch Winona's career, and I guess it did to a degree, but not to the degree I wanted. So let's hope it actually takes with Pfeiffer.
And I know the JLAW hatefest is still in full force, but I am beyond excited to watch her with an auteur other than David O Russell. I think we have not even scratched the surface with what she can bring to the screen.
Man, that still of Connelly reminds me how great she was in Requiem. It's such a bummer that she followed that with a bum Oscar for a bad movie, and then career struggles. I miss the promise of year-2000 J-Conn.
Also, all his great female roles come from three movies, but that's half his filmography, so his batting average isn't terrible. If Pfeiffer gets a role as good as Hershey in Black Swan, we can all be grateful.
I was so happy reading the news until I read "Jennifer Lawrence". I am sorry; I know she is talented (and really liked her in "Winter's Bone" but she has become some kind of annoyingly overrated actress to me.
Anyway, I really hope this can be a Pfeiffer huge comeback and think she is in the right position for Oscar traction if her role in the Aronofsky's film is baity. Although, on another unpopular note, I must say that Ellen Burstyn's performance in "Requiem for a dream" is in my opinion one of the most overrated (and overacted) ones in Oscar history...
Already love this movie with La Pfeiffer and J-Law!
I sort of get and don't get the Jennifer Lawrence hate. I think she's talented but it didn't help that for 3 or four years now her career has basically been a Hunger Games movie and then a David O. Rusell movie, repeat. With an X-men movie thrown in between. So it's exciting that now that she's going to be done with her franchises, it seems she's going to be branching out a bit.
It took me all my strength to write that just so that now I can go MICHELLE PFEIFFER IN AN ARONOFSKY MOVIE!! SQUEEE!!!
I think the best we can hope for from this collaboration is they mutually like each other in the end. Darren and Michelle. Because it would inspire him to write something more substantial for them to do. This is a getting to know you vehicle.
What if Jennifer Lawrence and Michelle Pfeiffer are "the couple"?!