Rooney Mara Joins ‘Carol’, Will Star Alongside Cate Blanchett

Currently in cinemas in David Lowry’s art house crime drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and soon the seen in Spike Jonze’s eagerly anticipated Her, Rooney Mara has attached herself to yet another intriguing film.  Deadline announces that the Academy Award-nominated actress will join Cate Blanchett in Todd Haynes’ Carol, an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novella The Price of Salt.

Set in the 1950s, Carol revolves around a wife (Blanchett) stuck in a loveless marriage of convenience who strikes a relationship with a young department store worker (Mara) who yearns for a better life.  The subject reads well within director Haynes’s wheelhouse.  His previous Far From Heaven and the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce both examined breakdowns of the idyllic post-WWII nuclear family.  Phyllis Nagy (HBO’s Mrs. Harris) penned the screenplay.  Highsmith’s novels has previously been adapted for the screen by the likes of Alfred Hitchcock (Strangers on a Train), Anthony Minghella (The Talented Mr. Ripley) and Hossein Amini (the upcoming The Two Faces of January.)

The nearly ubiquitous Mara, who along with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Her also appeared in Steven Soderbergh’s final theatrical release Side Effects earlier this year, has the still Untitled Terrence Malick Project alongside Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender, as well as Stephen Daldry’s Dirt to continue her productivity well into 2014.  There’s also the ever looming question of the whether the sequel to her Oscar-nominated turn as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl Who Played With Fire will ever come into fruition.

Carol was first announced as a vehicle for Blanchett (who is currently shining in cinemas in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine) and reunion for with her I’m Not There director to be produced by Killer Films and distributed by The Weinstein Company.  Originally Mia Wasikowska (Stoker) was co-star in the role that Mara; it is still undetermined as to why she dropped out.

The attitude from the production was uniformly positive. Haynes commented on his excitement over having Mara, saying, “We’re over the moon to have Rooney on board. I’ve been a tremendous admirer of her work from the beginning, so the thought of bringing her together with Cate onscreen is thrilling to say the least.”

Shooting should begin in spring 2014.

Haynes has commented on his excitement over having Mara take part, saying, “We’re over the moon to have Rooney on board. I’ve been a tremendous admirer of her work from the beginning, so the thought of bringing her together with Cate onscreen is thrilling to say the least.”

Shooting should begin in spring 2014.

Janelle De La Cruz contributed to this article.