Taylor out, Adria in

Deadline broke the news a couple of days ago that Taylor Russell has exited the new version of The Thomas Crown Affair that Michael B Jordan is directing in London. If you recall, they were seen together back in March shortly after her casting was confirmed. At the time, it was reported that there was an extensive casting search and Taylor ultimately won the part. 

They just started filming, it’s about ten days in, and now she’s left over “creative differences”. Creative differences could mean anything and it does happen on occasion. Maybe whatever chemistry they had in the screen test couldn’t be replicated when they actually started rolling. Maybe there were recent changes to the story that Taylor wasn’t into. The timeline, though, is what’s raising eyebrows because, again, they’ve been shooting already so this is far from ideal. The rumour mill, as you can imagine, is already running wild but so far there’s been no serious reporting as to the real reason she dipped. 

Meanwhile, they’ve now announced the updated casting. Variety was the first to report that Adria Arjona will star in the role originally made famous by Faye Dunaway and then Rene Russo. Adria was most recently seen doing great work in Andor and she was just in Hawaii with Jason Momoa for the premiere of his new series, Chief of War, this weekend. So this deal is freshhhhhh. Because she would have had to be on a plane to England already if they’d already had it locked. Clearly not, at least not yet on Friday. 

As for what she’ll bring to the role – if you’ve seen Glen Powell’s Hit Man you might have a sense of how she might pull off a part that requires cunning and duplicity and flirting and vulnerability. Plus she can handle an action scene. So while I’m definitely disappointed that Taylor’s no longer part of this and of course so f-cking curious about what happened, I can also very much see Adria in the role based on previous performances.