Vera Farmiga – who excelled as the only female character of any note in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed – has just signed on to star opposite George Clooney in Up In The Air, Jason Reitman’s follow-up to Juno.
The movie, based on the book by Walter Kirn, will follow Clooney’s career transition counsellor (basically, a fancy name for a guy who lays people off), Ryan Bingham, a frequent flier who has come to value and even love the experience of travelling in what he calls Airworld. With his own life falling apart, Bingham begins to focus on one goal: accruing a million frequent flier miles…
Farmiga will play a businesswoman who embarks on a romance with the peripatetic Clooney in a series of hotel room dalliances.
She joins Anna Kendrick, a young actress who last week beat out a who’s who of Hollywood, including Reitman’s Juno leading lady, Ellen Page, to play the movie’s nominal female lead, a young woman who also finds herself constantly drawn to Bingham.
Sounds like it could be interesting, and should give Farmiga – who’s worked steadily since The Departed – the profile bump she deserves and that we thought she would get after that movie.
Filming will start in February in Miami, Las Vegas and St. Louis.