My favorite character in The Great Gatsby
has always been Jordan Baker, Daisy Buchanan's risque best friend and sorta love interest for Nick Carraway. Really she was more of a gossip queen than anything else, spilling the beans of Jay Gatsby and Daisy's scandalous past. Part of the reason I love her so much is how she's never quite the center of attention, but still right in the middle of the action. Plus Lois Chiles did such a great job portraying her in the 1974 film. With Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic due to kick off in just a couple of months, Jordan still hadn't been cast, and since everybody else involved is firmly established on the A-list, I expected that to be the case here as well. I couldn't have been more wrong, as newcomer Elizabeth Debicki has been chosen for the role. This will be Debicki's feature debut, and what a cast she'll have to work with! Leonardo DiCaprio is the mysterious Gatsby; Tobey Maguire is Nick Carraway; Carey Mulligan as socialite Daisy Buchanan, and Isla Fisher as Myrtle Wilson.
Debicki, who attended the Victorian College of the Arts and has already been featured in performances at the Melbourne Theater Company, obviously struck a chord with Luhrmann...
Luhrmann: “It was a surprising result, but Elizabeth’s grasp of the material and her chemical connectivity to Tobey Maguire, in addition to her striking, athletic appearance, had us in a place where we were fully confident and ready to take the leap of giving the role of Jordan Baker to what, I guess, people would term ‘a discovery"
So it sounds like she's got the goods, and I can scarcely think of a better group to help school her up a little bit.
