Clint Eastwood casts Christopher Walken for Jersey Boys

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f there’s anyone left out there who still thought that singing and dancing was just for girls, think again! Tough-guy icon Clint Eastwood has cast the ever-so slightly menacing Christopher Walken for his adaptation of the hit musical Jersey Boys.

With a string of gritty roles to his name, this foray into seemingly new territory may come as a shock to those who have known Walken in The Deer Hunter, True Romance, etc. However, this is far from a case of ‘as you’ve never seen him before’. The 70-year-old is a trained dancer and was a star of West Side Story before becoming an actor. An appearance in Hairspray, as well as a memorable turn in the Fatboy Slim video Weapon of Choice, is testament to his singing and dancing abilities respectively.

So with such a dynamic duo on board for a film version of a Broadway and West End smash, what could possibly go wrong? The simple answer is nothing, in all likelihood, but it wasn’t always this way (is it ever?). Back in 2010, Iron Man director Jon Favreau was all set to take the chair, that was until he and Warner Bros failed to agree on a budget. But Clint, well, he’s nothing if not Hollywood’s Mr Reliable, so it came to pass in May of this year that he should take the reins.

Like so many of his spaghetti western personas, Clint’s an uncompromising, decisive sort, which has probably contributed to much of his success as a director. His first decision in order to get things moving the right way was to cast lead actors from various productions of Jersey Boys, but it’s surely the choice of Walken to play gangster Angelo ‘Gyp’ DeCarlo that will prove to be the masterstroke – I can almost hear them singing Can’t Take My Eyes Off You as I’m writing this now!

Shooting is due to start in September, for what promises to be a film musical like no other.