Zeta-Jones Battles Houdini, Re-Teams With ‘Chicago’ Director

Elisha CuthbertWith all the projects she’s rumored to be in over the next few years, we could use a clairvoyant to divine which Catherine Zeta-Jones roles will actually get made. Luckily, the 37-year-old Oscar winner has us covered.

“I play a psychic,” she said of her role in the upcoming “Death Defying Acts,” which pits her telepathic skills against the greatest magician of all-time. “Houdini was desperate to contact his mother from the other side and he never could. [So he became] obsessed with outing these psychics as fakes [which] happens to be me, a Scottish lass. It’s the last few months of his life.”

Catherine used her new skills and looked into her crystal ball to give us the latest scoops on some of her rumored projects. Read on after the jump to see her future.

“Nine”

Inspired by Fellini’s autobiographical feature “8 1/2,” the Tony Award-winning musical follows a director facing a mid-life crisis and his romantic entanglements. The movie adaptation is being helmed by Rob Marshall, who directed Catherine to an Oscar win as Velma Kelly in “Chicago.”

“I’d read the phone book with Rob Marshall. To put a musical in a director’s hands, for me it can only be [him],” Zeta-Jones enthused. “I have no idea who he’s thinking of casting. If I had to do it today I’d be in trouble, but it’d be great. They’re re-writing the script [now] and writing additional songs.”

“Stompanato”

Zeta-Jones was linked to “Stompanato,” the story of an L.A. mobster (supposedly Keanu Reeves) killed by the 14-year-old daughter of his girlfriend, Lana Turner (Zeta-Jones). That’s not the only way she’s linked to the classic Hollywood beauty, she grinned.

“[My father-in-law] Kirk [Douglas] of course worked with her, so he tells me great stories. [Including] some that I don’t want to know!” she laughed. “I’m like let’s get this movie done. I know way too much about Lana Turner.”