blueneumann at 2015-04-15 21:33:59:

I was definitely thinking female as well... something about it screamed Erin Brokovitch to me... actually, my initial thought was that the woman who buys the handbag is Rachel Greene type character, who would have NO idea what to do in the situation. That gives her a higher mountain to climb, and would probably add some lightness to the whole thing (the premise sounds rather bleak and depressing). Now I'm trying to think who the prisoner would be.

Scott at 2015-04-16 00:01:12:

I was thinking female myself. More powerful to sell that point: Here I am living my 1st world life by virtue of my birth, and here she is living in virtual slavery largely as a result of her birth circumstances. And yes, there could be a theme re labor practices abroad as well as here.

blueneumann at 2015-04-16 00:23:28:

I was thinking Rinko Kinkuchi because hey, we need parts for her, but then you'd have a big chunk of the movie in a Chinese prison (I know Rinko is Japanese, but our minds immediately go to China), and that's not gonna help get Chinese funding AND we'd have a huge chunk of the movie either being subtitled or in thick accents. But we also have a pretty strong forced prison labour thing going on in the states as well, I refer you to this clip from QI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiaqgFDwOjs It does seem like it would be a good way to shine a light on this issue (because we know about sweatshops and shit in other countries and apparently we decided that we really don't care), this is more local (we won't be accused to trying to fix other country's problems, plus we don't have to go out of country to shoot)... Oh, you know who would be interesting? Mary Elizabeth Winstead for the prisoner. I can totally picture her hardened by life on the inside but still vulnerable... she's survived this long but she doesn't want to a second longer than she has to, you can imagine her working her butt off to try and get out and then be crushed for her when it doesn't work out. I know I should pick someone "appropriately ethnic' or whatever but I can see MEW having at least led close to a 1st world life, or being aware of it, before getting that taken away by the system, so she sees both sides of it, as opposed to someone from a shitty upbringing, where the rich lifestyle is more intangible.