'Noah' Adds Ray Winstone as Arch-Enemy of Ark-Building
British all-around tough guy Ray Winstone has been offered the chance to star opposite Russell Crowe in Noah, Darren Aronofsky's adaptation of the popular nursery mural in which two giraffes and and a couple elephants are getting on a boat with a bearded man.
According to Deadline, Winstone would play "Noah's nemesis," which I take to mean his character would be an outlandishly-caricatured fur tycoon who will stop at nothing to make sure all the world's animals die in the impending flood, thus making his collection of valuable fur coats all the more recherché. But that's probably only if Aronofsky decides to send this film straight to a VHS clamshell. In actuality, the confrontation between Noah and this villain will probably get more physical, as Aronofsky is said to have wanted someone with "grit and size to be convincing as he goes head to head against Crowe's Noah character." Liam Neeson and Val Kilmer--who, if you haven't seen him lately, has definitely bloated to a convincingly-imposing size--had previously been considered for the part, but had never reached the point of negotiations Winstone is in. The casting is expected to work out, so now Noah's foe will be more like this:
