When it came to casting the movie musical version of the hit Broadway show Jersey Boys, director Clint Eastwood was reportedly favoring stage performers familiar with the show over big name stars. This proved great news for Erica Piccininni, who THR reveals will be reprising her role from the jukebox musical in its movie interpretation.
Featuring such popular songs as "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Grease" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You,"Jersey Boys tells the story of the rise and fall of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Piccininni has been on Broadway in the show since 2005, playing Lorraine, a pretty Detroit journalist whose interview with Frankie leads to a torrid affair. She joins John Lloyd Young, who will be reprising his role as Valli, Jeremy Luke, who appears in Joseph Gordan-Levitt’s directorial debut Don Jon, Boardwalk Empire’s Vincent Piazza, and the one and only Christopher Walken, who will play Angelo 'Gyp' DeCarlo, a Mafioso and loan shark…who we assume has the opportunity to do a mean soft-shoe. Otherwise, Eastwood will have failed us all.
While an eight-year streak on Broadway is nothing to sneeze at, Piccininni has little of note on her résumé in the realm of TV and film. She made her screen debut in 2008 in a short film called “Wilderness,” then landed a string of one-off roles on television shows, including Tim Roth’s Lie to Me, the Kyra Sedgwick-fronted drama The Closer, the short-lived sex-centered sitcom Friends With Benefits, and the Golden Globe-winning mystery series The Good Wife. Her only feature film credit to date is for a little-known comedy called My Uncle Rafael, which boasts second-tier comedy talent Rachel Blanchard, John Michael Higgins and Missi Pyle. You can see the trailer for that below:
Basically, the Jersey Boys movie is a major opportunity for Piccininni. With Eastwood as a director, it will be a musical that the industry will definitely be watching. So frankly, whether it flies or fails, it’s an extraordinary chance for this actress to be seen. The real question for her is just if her acting and singing chops will translate to the big screen. Check her out in action from this clip of The Colony Theatre Company’s production of No Way to Treat a Lady, where she sings “So Much in Common.”
Jersey Boys is now in production. No release date has yet been set.
