Vincent Gallo Swings Both Ways for ‘The Legend of Kaspar Hauser’

By  · Published on April 7th, 2011

Davide Manuli’s forthcoming The Legend of Kaspar Hauser will take on the strange historical case of Kaspar Hauser – which was tackled previously, and brilliantly by Werner Herzog – and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Vincent Gallo has just been cast in two roles.

For the first, called The Pusher, he’ll be speaking Italian. For the second, called The Sheriff, he’ll be speaking English.

The names are an odd indication of how arthouse this project might be, but the story of Hauser isn’t exactly a mainstream one. It’s essentially a real-life, 19th century European version of Blast From the Past, where a man named Kaspar Hauser came to Nuremberg claiming that he was raised in a dungeon that he’s never left.

The cast also features Claudia Gerini (The Passion of the Christ), Fabrizio Gifuni, Elisa Sednaoui, and Silvia Calderoni. It sounds like a fascinating project that will hopefully steer away from Herzog but still deliver the core elements of the tale. Vincent Gallo is an adventurous actor, but that doesn’t always yield results, but at its base level, this thing looks like it will be interesting to watch even if it makes the audience want to disappear back into a dungeon.

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