Angles on actresses

A quartet of features centered around this year's Oscar caliber actresses greets us in Variety this morning, starting with Bob Verini's piece on literary icons taking the screen:

Kristen Stewart was first dazzled by "On the Road" as a high school freshman, and later "slapped that thing on my car dashboard, I was so into it." For all that, getting cast as the pic's complex, flamboyant Marylou -- the love interest of both Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty -- led her right back to Jack Kerouac's now canonical text.

They aren't the only actresses with recent occasion to catch up on Great Books required reading. With Barks, Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried passing around Hugo's weighty tome between "Les Mis" takes, Helena Bonham Carter would have had time to switch to Dickens in anticipation of Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations." And soon, scores of Oprah's Book Club fans will decide whether Keira Knightley meets their image of "Anna Karenina." ...

Read the rest of Verini's piece here, then check out the rest of the coverage:

Eye on the Oscar: Actress Preview
Better-half roles balance support with strength | A will to live when the odds prove overwhelming | Sundance ripple effect pays off