And you thought a 5-hour movie was odd...

Ever since Steven Soderbergh directed his breakthrough film "sex, lies, and videotape" (1989) 20 years ago, he has specialized in telling stories about free-spirited characters who get themselves into trouble, one way or another, and then struggle to get out.

He made, among others, "Erin Brokovich" (2000), in which a flighty small-town lawyer takes on a big time corporation; "Traffic" (2000), in which law makers, breakers and enforcers all discover that drugs pose a much bigger problem than they'd previously realized; and "Che" (2008), in which a humble Argentinian doctor morphs into the leader of a revolution.

Consdering all this, perhaps people shouldn't be that surprised to learn that the star of Soderbergh's next film is not Julia Roberts or Benicio Del Toro (the two actors who won Oscars for their work under him), but one Sasha Grey.

Unless you spend a lot of time surfing the outer reaches of the Internet, or happened to catch this episode of "The Tyra Banks Show," you're probably wondering, "Who is this actress that will now be working with one of Hollywood's A-list directors, and what will the film on which they are collaborating be about?" Well, I'll allow the World Entertainment News Network to take over the story from here....

"Grey — whose previous credits include 'Anal Acrobats 3' and ... — will play the protagonist in 'The Girlfriend Experience,' about a high class call girl whose life unravels."

Explaining the project to Interview magazine, the Oscar-winning director says, "[It's] about someone who feels as though she is in absolute control of the way that her life works and, over the course of a week, comes to realize that's not true.

"It's a subject I've been totally interested in since the beginning of my career. This is just a milieu that I've never explored before."

So yeah.

It briefly occurred to me that Soderbergh could have asked his old pal Roberts to play the part, but I guess there's been a fair amount of water under the bridge — as in roughly 18 years, 36 films, $400 million and an Oscar — since "Pretty Woman" (1990), so chances are she'd be a little reluctant to throw back on the lace and garters.

Besides, why cast a woman who merely played a prostitute-turned-lady when, not unlike Rex Harrison's Professor Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" (1964), you can make one for yourself!

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Photos, from left: Sasha Grey, HollyRandall; Steven Soderbergh, Enfemenino.com

Comments

[Dean Treadway]

It was only a matter of time til a full-fledged porn star made their way over to an A-list directors cast list. The mainstreaming of porn--from Tracy Lords to Paris Hilton to Sasha Grey--is now complete. And what's so bad about that?

[Francezca]

Not just yet, mate! But soon! ;)

xx