Reese Witherspoon is to reunite with director Alexander Payne for the first time since her Golden Globe-nominated turn in Payne’s 1999 film Election. The actor, who is currently in US cinemas playing Cheryl Strayed in an adaptation of the bestselling memoir Wild, has joined the cast of Downsizing, alongside Matt Damon.
Downsizing is described as a social satire in which a man “realises he would have a better life if he were to shrink himself”. Payne is writing the script with regular collaborator Jim Taylor (who had a hand in the screenplays for previous Payne projects Sideways, About Schmidt and Election, as well as Jurassic Park III); the pair are also producing, with another Payne regular, Jim Burke.
Payne has been working on Downsizing for some time, and ascribes the seven-year gap between Sideways and The Descendants to his failure to get the film off the ground. Witherspoon had been attached to the previous incarnation of the film, opposite Paul Giamatti and Sacha Baron Cohen. Damon’s casting in November 2014 revived the project, but it means production will have to wait until he has finished shooting the fifth Bourne film, later this year.
