I still say we are a few weeks away from
Ron Howard being in a place to seriously consider casting his ambitious t.v. & film adaptation of Stephen King's fantasy, sci-fi, western
The Dark Tower series but anyway, we'll play ball, mainly because this proposed hiring is an interesting one.
NY Post says Brit actress
Naomi Harris is being considered for the duel role of Susannah - who is the product of two wildly different women trapped within the same body. Originally Odetta Holmes, a serious brain drama inflicted the African-American whose damaged mind created Detta Walker, a violent, almost uncontrollable and murderous racist. The character doesn't appear in the novels until book number two,
The Drawing of the Three, and would probably only appear at the end of Universal and NBC's first film,
The Gunslinger, if at all in that one. Susannah is one of the major characters in King's series and I kinda like the idea of Harris taking it on. Physically she's perfect, and she's played a whole bunch of different characters previously to suggest she has the range do this, including two wild performances in the
Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. She would only need to channel her energy over from camp/over-the-top to deadly serious and threatening and she will nail it. The first movie I saw Harris in was
28 Days Later... and I've liked her ever since. Her last big movie was
Ninja Assassin last year.
I've always liked the idea of
Rosario Dawson taking on this goldmine role for an ambitious actress who wants to really run with it but Howard would never be able to secure her commitment for such a long, unprecedented schedule. Harris, who is more at the level of fame/frequency of work to be attracted for this, might actually be circling this project more than I initially made out. The more I think about it - who would start the rumour she was closing in on The Dark Tower? Whose radar is she actually on to make up stories?