Carey Mulligan, star of Emerald Fennell’s BAFTA-winning Promising Young Woman has joined Uncut Gems star Adam Sandler in Netflix’s Spaceman.
According to Deadline, the Oscar nominee will be playing Sandler’s wife in the film, which is based on Jaroslav Kalfar’s novel Spaceman of Bohemia. The novel follows an astronaut (played by Sandler in the adaptation) sent on a mission to the edge of the galaxy to retrieve some strange ancient dust. As his life back on Earth begins to fall apart, he turns to the only thing that can help him piece it back together – which, obviously, is a mysterious creature from the beginning of time that’s been hiding on his ship.
Channing Tatum is on board as producer, while Chernobyl’s Emmy-winning Johan Renck will be directing from a screenplay by Colby Day.
Based on Deadline’s scoop, Mulligan seems to be playing the ‘Worried Earthbound Wife’ character popularised by Claire Foy in Damien Chazelle’s (otherwise excellent) First Man. It’s a strange move for the actor, who recently made huge waves with her stellar turn in the ferocious Promising Young Woman.
In that film, Mulligan plays a woman who punishes predatory men who wish to take advantage of her. It’s a very angry film that does its best to tackle rape culture in the 21st century, and to go from that to this seems like an odd choice for her.
There’s also the age gap to consider: Mulligan is 35, and on-screen husband Sandler is 54. That’s a gap of 19 years between the two – hasn’t Hollywood realised that huge age gaps like this are quite uncomfortable for audiences to watch?
Still, maybe Spaceman will do something different and buck the trend entirely. Or maybe it won’t. We’ll have to wait and see when it arrives on Netflix at some point in the future.
