{"id":24680,"date":"2014-12-02T21:43:19","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T05:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=24680"},"modified":"2014-12-02T21:43:19","modified_gmt":"2014-12-03T05:43:19","slug":"ben-hur-finds-its-leading-lady-starts-casting-extras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/12\/ben-hur-finds-its-leading-lady-starts-casting-extras.html","title":{"rendered":"Ben-Hur<\/i> finds its leading lady, starts casting extras"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"nazaninboniadi\"<\/a>The new version of Ben-Hur<\/a><\/i> has found its Esther.<\/p>\n

Deadline<\/a> reports that the part, which was going to be played by Gal Gadot until her Wonder Woman commitments got in the way<\/a>, will now be played by Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-British actress who currently co-stars on the TV series Homeland<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Deadline reports that other actresses who were up for the part included: Sofia Boutella, who is Algerian; Moran Atias, who is Israeli; and Natalia Warner, about whose background I currently know nothing.<\/p>\n

Boniadi made the news a few years ago when Vanity Fair<\/a><\/i> reported that she briefly dated Tom Cruise between November 2004 and January 2005, after the Church of Scientology conducted some sort of \u201cwife-auditioning process\u201d for him. She no longer belongs to the Church.<\/p>\n

In other news, the Italian news site The Local<\/a> reported last week that over 2,000 people lined up at a shopping centre in Matera to audition for parts as \u201cRoman soldiers and other characters of ancient times\u201d. The filmmakers are also looking for extras from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The film starts shooting in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homeland<\/i> co-star Nazanin Boniadi will play the part that almost went to Gal Gadot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[411,2202,2662,2663,2660,2661,1019],"class_list":["post-24680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-ben-hur","tag-ben-hur-2016","tag-moran-atias","tag-natalia-warner","tag-nazanin-boniadi","tag-sofia-boutella","tag-tom-cruise"],"yoast_head":"\nBen-Hur finds its leading lady, starts casting extras<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Homeland co-star Nazanin Boniadi will play the part that almost went to Gal Gadot.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/12\/ben-hur-finds-its-leading-lady-starts-casting-extras.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ben-Hur finds its leading lady, starts casting extras\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Homeland co-star Nazanin Boniadi will play the part that almost went to Gal Gadot.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/12\/ben-hur-finds-its-leading-lady-starts-casting-extras.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-03T05:43:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/files\/2014\/12\/nazaninboniadi-199x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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