The Showgirl

Tony Award winner Nina Arianda, one of the women who has tried or may still be trying to play Janis Joplin on screen, is going to play with Meryl for now.

See, girlfriend has joined the cast of the Meryl Streep-fronted Florence Foster Jenkins, the Stephen Frears-directed story of the titular New York heiress who had dreams of becoming a famous opera singer, this in spite of being woefully untalented.

Hugh Grant is also already on board, as St. Clair Bayfield, Jenkins’ English actor-live-in partner/manager.

Arianda will play a sexy showgirl trying to ingratiate herself into FFJ’s circle.

Photo: Movie-List.com.

Janis Lives

Something told me Nina Arianda would be doing big things when I first saw a picture of her in character for her Tony Award-winning turn in Venus in Fur....

Glad I wa’n’t imagining things.

The actress has signed on to star as Janis Joplin in Joplin, a biopic covering the final six months of the legendary ’60s singer to be directed by Martha Marcy May Marlene’s Sean Durkin.

Given the fact that the project has exclusive rights to more than 20 of Joplin’s songs, Arianda is fully expected to use her own instrument to bring the woman to life for the big screen at last.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

What Goes Into Mounting a Show

Broadway’s abuzz with the return of Hugh Jackman to the New York stage this fall, but there’s another Hugh a-comin’, and he goes by the last name Dancy.

The Brit (pictured here with costar Nina Arianda) will be starring in Venus in Fur starting on Nov. 11, as a frustrated playwright who has been unsuccessfully trying to cast the female lead in his adaptation of the 19th century German erotic novella Venus in Furs.

Until he meets Arianda’s engrossing, and irritating, actress character.

What follows then is an intense, 90-minute backstage power struggle between the two.

And from what I can see in this first-look-see it looks like the pair will make for a fun and sexy time during the show, which I know audiences will enjoy (I would – these two are pretty gorge to look at).

Photo: EW.com.

The Final Janis?

Janis Joplin sure has proven to be one tough nut to crack for Hollywood.

If memory serves, at one point or another, everyone from the late Brittany Muphy to Oscar winner Renée Zellweger to Amy Adams to Tony winner Nina Arianda (Florence Foster Jenkins) tried to star in a life story of the legendary ’60s singer without anything to show for it.

Perhaps, then, three-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams will succeed where they could not?

The Manchester by the Sea actress is circling Sean (Martha Marcy May Marlene) Durkin’s long-gestating Janis, a biopic based on Love, Janis, a biography by Joplin’s sister, Laura, to which Arianda was attached four years ago, btw.

The tome used letters from the singer to family and friends to chronicle her rise to fame, how she dealt (or not) with it, as well as her battles with alcohol and heroin (Joplin joined the 27 Club in 1970).

Here’s to hoping this one takes.

I mean, it really is time La Joplin be introduced to a younger generation in a meaningful manner, no?

Photo: TomAndLorenzo.com.

The Director’s Love

W.E. star Abbie Cornish is going period once again for her next project.

The actress is set to star as a veterinarian with whom Federico Fellini falls in love in Fellini Black and White.

The 1957-set film also will features William H. Macy, Terrence Howard, Peter Dinklage, Tony winner Nina Arianda, and Brazilian actor Wagner Maura as the legendary Italian director.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

FFJ to the Mic, Please...FFJ to the Mic

Music was her life.

All she wanted to do was hold 3,000 people in the cup of her hand.

Too bad she couldn’t really sing.

I’m talking about Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who had dreams of becoming a famous opera singer, this in spite of being woefully untalented, and the subject of Stephen Frears’ Meryl Streep-starring upcoming offering, the aptly titled Florence Foster Jenkins.

The film – which co-stars Hugh Grant as St. Clair Bayfield, Jenkins’ English actor-live-in partner/manager, Simon Helberg (TV’s The Big Bang Theory), and Tony winner Nina Arianda – is due out in the U.K. on May 6.

No word of an American opening date yet, but you know it’s coming. This, after all, is a Meryl vehicle. You know they’ll factor it into this year’s awards season in one way or another.

Photo: RamaScreen.com.