In an unusual move, Nancy Meyers has cast her former assistant in a key role in The Intern, the Anne Hathaway-Robert De Niro workplace comedy she is directing for Warner Bros.
The movie began shooting Monday in New York, and the script sees De Niro playing a 70-year-old widower who discovers that retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Wanting to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site run by Hathaway’s character.
The movie has a small cadre of actors playing interns — Pitch Perfect’s Adam DeVine is one — but one role proved elusive. After a series of readings and tests failed to turn up suitable candidates (one actor is said to have met with Meyers more than 10 times, according to sources), Meyers turned to her former assistant Jason Orley to fill the part.
Orley worked for Meyers when the writer-director made her 2009 film It’s Complicated. After that stint, he also worked as an assistant to Modern Family director Jason Winer. This will be his first acting role, but it wasn't a slam dunk. Orley put himself on tape and ended up meeting with the notoriously picky Meyers five times before landing the gig.
But it doesn’t look like in-front-of-the-camera work is the end goal for the 25-year-old, who is repped by UTA and Mosaic. The L.A.-based Orley also just had his script Big Time Adolescence optioned by financier StarStream Entertainment (Lee Daniels’ The Butler), which will fully finance the project. The script is a comedy about a 16-year-old who slowly gets corrupted by his older sister's ex-boyfriend.
The Intern is being produced by Meyers with Scott Rudin and Suzanne Farwell.