UPDATE: Stellan Skarsgard has now confirmed his involvement in The Nymphomaniac. He told The Playlist: "Lars called me a couple of months ago and said 'Stellan, I just want to book you for next summer, so don’t take anything else. I’m going to make a porno film and I want you to play the male lead. But you will not get to fuck in the film. But you will show your dick at the end, and it will be very floppy.' Okay, Lars. I will be there if that's what you're doing..."
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Lars Von Trier is not one for giving his lead actresses an easy time, but he seems to have found a muse and a kindred spirit in Charlotte Gainsbourg, who's in serious talks to star for the Danish loon a third time, in **The Nymphomaniac. Can we just say we totally called that back in March?
Following her turns in Antichrist and Melancholia, The Nymphomaniac would see Gainsbourg undergoing what Von Trier has called an "erotic birth". It's a tale of sexual awakening then, although what that means in Von Trier's head is anyone's guess.
The film was one of two that Von Trier had been musing on, but the director's business partner Peter Aalbaek Jensen apparently suggested that The Nymphomaniac might be more saleable than something called Dirt In Bedsores. We can only imagine what Dirt In Bedsores might be, but Jensen's notion of The Nymphomaniac's saleability may be shaken by the news that Von Trier is planning a censor-baiting "hardcore cut" of the film. But then Jensen can relax again, since there'll also be a more palatable "softcore" version for the mainstream.
All we know otherwise is that the film will be divided into eight chapters, and that Von Trier is also hoping to cast Stellan Skarsgard (another returning player from Melancholia). The Nymphomaniac is currently still at the script stage, with shooting pencilled in for late next year. So if hardcore Gainsbourg / Skarsgard action is your thing, you've some time to wait yet. We might have speculated that the film would debut at Cannes in 2013, but given this year's shenanigans... perhaps not, eh?