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Midway through Sundance Film Festival premiere The Gallerist, a fabulously coiffed Catherine Zeta-Jones breezes into an art gallery and takes charge as only she can. Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega, as curators with an alarming secret to keep from her, can barely keep up.
“It was a dance, like a choreography piece that kept moving,” Zeta-Jones, 56, tells PEOPLE exclusively of the Cathy Yan-directed comedy, set in the bizarro-yet-real world of modern art. “And that was great because I come from a background of choreography.”
As with many Sundance-bound indies, The Gallerist had a “very fast shoot,” so the cast “jumped in,” says the Chicago Oscar winner. “When I walk in, you kind of know who this woman is, because I don’t have 90 minutes to slowly meander through and for you to get to know me.”
Zeta-Jones plays art consultant Marianne, who joins an Art Basel Miami gallerist (Portman) and the gallerist’s assistant (Ortega) in a scheme so diabolical it just might work. As an official Sundance synopsis states, the movie follows “a desperate gallerist [who] conspires to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami.”
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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“It was such a great, fun, dark comedy with characters that were flawed and making their way and dealing with consequences — in a world where probably men would get away with things more than they would,” points out the Welsh actress, who has thorny scenes opposite Portman, Ortega and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as the gallery’s featured artist. The movie, co-written by Yan and James Pedersen, also stars Charli xcx, Sterling K. Brown, Daniel Brühl and Zach Galifianakis.
“I know what a joy it is working with Jenna,” Zeta-Jones adds of her Wednesday costar, who plays her on-screen niece in The Gallerist, instead of her daughter as in the hit Netflix series. “I have been a huge fan of Natalie, and she was everything that I wanted her to be. Sometimes you want to work with somebody, you admire somebody and you just hope they’re everything that you imagined them to be. It’d be so depressing if they weren’t! And she was just extraordinary.”
How familiar is Zeta-Jones with the art industry The Gallerist satirizes? “I’m a bit of an eclectic collector myself,” she admits. “And I’ve been dipping my toes in that world, and I kind of know how it works.”
For her shared birthday with husband Michael Douglas, says the actress, he bought her a piece by Marc Quinn, her favorite artist.
“I like sculpture,” says Zeta-Jones. “I have a Henry Moore, which I’m very proud of that Kirk, my father-in-law, gave Michael and I for one of our joint birthdays, and we love it very much.”
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The Ocean’s Twelve star also frequents flea markets to find things “that just catch my eye,” she says, and collects art on her travels. “I always like to buy a little something from everywhere I go, just as a reminder.”
Although she didn’t get to do so at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival due to travel difficulties — “with it being the last time it’s going to be in Utah, I was really bummed about it,” the actress says — she cheered on Yan, Portman and the rest from afar.
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“This movie was a collaboration from the moment I arrived until I’m talking to you,” says Zeta-Jones. “I want to do more of that.”
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival runs from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, the final iteration of the fest to be held there ahead of a move to Boulder, Colo., in 2027. Fest founder Robert Redford died in September 2025.
