Little known actor Frank Grillo has joined the exciting cast of Stephen Frears next directorial effort, an adaptation of Beth Raymer’s Vegas-set coming-of-age tale “Lay The Favorite.”
Grillo will play a member of a gambling racket led by Bruce Willis, who stars along side Rebecca Hall,Joshua Jackson and Catherine Zeta-Jones in a story that explores the rise of internet gambling through the eyes of a cocktail waitress in Vegas (Hall) who becomes one of the world’s top professional gamblers before rethinking her lifestyle after falling in love. Willis plays a bookmaker from New York who takes the waitress under his wing with Jackson presumably playing her love interest. No word just yet on what role Zeta-Jones will play.
Despite his relative anonymity, Grillo’s name is one audiences may get use to seeing on screen with the actor having broke out leading ABC‘s supernatural crime drama “The Gates.” More importantly, though, he’ll also soon be seen in Gavin O’Connor‘s “Warrior” next to Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy and Joe Carnahan‘s ‘man vs. wolves’ tale “The Grey” along side Liam Neeson.
Raymer’s novel was adapted for the screen by D.V. DeVincentis, who previously worked with Frears on “High Fidelity” and “Grosse Point Blank.” Hopefully their reunion can bring out the best in the helmer whose last film “Tamara Drewe” was kind of abysmal.
