Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin has offered two-time Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain the lead in his directorial debut, “Molly’s Game,” multiple individuals familiar with the Sony project have told TheWrap.
Chastain recently launched her own production company, Freckle Films, so she is still figuring out her schedule and has not accepted or declined the offer yet. Negotiations have yet to begin, though insiders suggest that Chastain is eager to fit “Molly’s Game” into her busy schedule, given the project’s pedigree.
Sony had no comment.
Set in the world of high-stakes poker, the film is based on the memoir by Molly Bloom that Sorkin adapted himself.
Bloom was a world-class skier who, after failing to make the Olympics, took a year off before law school and accepted a job as a waitress in Los Angeles. She put her entrepreneurial skills to good use and eventually found her way into running high-stakes poker games for Hollywood’s elite for eight years before the FBI brought her down.
Sorkin’s “Steve Jobs” collaborator Mark Gordon will produce with Amy Pascal, the former Sony executive who distributed Chastain’s acclaimed drama “Zero Dark Thirty.” Leopoldo Gout is also a producer on the high-profile project.
Chastain earned two Oscar nominations herself thanks to her work in “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Help.” The actress recently starred in “The Martian” and “Crimson Peak,” and she’ll soon begin filming the gun control movie “Miss Sloane” and Xavier Dolan‘s indie drama “The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.”
Chastain next stars alongside Chris Hemsworth in “The Huntsman Winter’s War” and could find herself in the awards race again this fall with Niki Caro’s Focus Features release “The Zookeeper’s Wife.” She’s represented CAA, Mosaic and Hansen, Jacobson.