Jean Smart joins Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Flea in Damien Chazelle's Babylon

Oh, you thought the cast of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon was already good enough? You thought Chazelle was fine with stopping at Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Katherine Waterston, Max Minghella, Lukas Haas, Flea, Rory Scovel, Samara Weaving, Eric Roberts, P.J. Byrne, Damon Gupton, Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, Phoebe Tonkin, and the long-awaited return of Tobey Maguire? Well, that’s not nearly enough famous actors for this movie. It needs at least… one more actor, preferably an actor who has been on a real hot streak for the last few years and is coming off of an acclaimed HBO Max original series. Maybe even someone who might want to start clearing off some shelf space for tomorrow morning when the Emmy nominations are announced? (It’s probably too early for anyone to actually finish clearing off shelf space, but there’s no harm in starting the process.)

Somehow, Chazelle has found the perfect actor in Jean Smart (via The Hollywood Reporter), who has now signed onto the project that already features every other actor—though it should just be a matter of time before Jesse Plemons shows up. Babylon is some kind of Old Hollywood saga that Chazelle wrote (if you can believe that the director of La La Land would have some fondness for tinsel town’s “golden age”), and it’s being referred to as “The Great Gatsby on steroids.” Jean Smart is reportedly playing a “Hollywood journalist/critic who can make or break careers,” but specific character details, like whether or not anyone is playing a real person or if these are all fictional Old Hollywood characters, have not been released. We might not know for a while either way, because Babylon isn’t getting a wide release until January 6, 2023, shortly after getting a limited release (presumably in ol’ La La Land) on December 25, 2022.