Ever since Bridesmaids came out and proved Kristen Wiig to be a solid lead actress, her career has gone through a Saturday Night Live departure, an unneeded cameo role in the fourth season of Arrested Development, and voiceover work for both Despicable Me 2 and The Looney Tunes Show. Weirdly, the only leading role she’s seen was in the dramedy Girl Most Likely, which hasn’t been getting many positive reviews, here or elsewhere. She does, however, have a solid string of films on the way, and TheWrap reports one of those projects might be the next effort from Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Silva - a surrogacy drama titled Nasty Baby. They are still early in negotiations, so she isn’t a lock for it just yet. But she has expressed interest in the role, so I can’t imagine anything but a scheduling issue keeping this from happening.
In the Brooklyn-based Nasty Baby, Wiig would play Anna, a family practitioner whose interest in family is centered more on a baby than a husband. She is best friends with artist Freddy (Silva) and Mo (TV and the Radio lead singer Tunde Adebimpe), a gay couple who are interested in having a child of their own, and Anna agrees to help them out. When Mo’s sperm doesn’t take, though, it’s up to Freddy to be the donor, which puts a strain on the couple’s relationship.
The story will focus on the eccentricities of this trio trying to have a baby together in a neighborhood full of mixed cultures. One of the people in the neighborhood is a possibly threatening man who goes by the name The Bishop, played by the already cast Reg E. Cathey (The Wire). I assume when he’s called “potentially dangerous” that means he doesn’t like gay people, but will help them in the end. Everybody in Brooklyn has a heart of gold, right?
Silva and producers are also looking to fill supporting roles with familiar faces like Mark Margolis (Breaking Bad), Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) and Denis O’Hare (True Blood). Nasty Baby will follow Silva’s Michael Cera double shot, having made both the psychological thriller Magic Magic and the trippy comedy Crystal Fairy with the actor (both are now available on VOD).
In addition to playing Steve Carell's love interest in the upcoming Anchorman: The Legend Continues, Wiig is filling out the next year or so with roles in Ben Stiller’s highly anticipated revision of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; Craig Johnson’s estranged twin dramedy The Skeleton Twins opposite Bill Hader; Shira Piven’s fame-obsessed comedy Welcome to Me with Will Ferrell; and Dreamworks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon 2, reprising her role as as Ruffnut.
You can check out her performance on the most recent episode of Drunk History below, where she plays Patty Hearst. Good times.
