Eiza González to Star in Gael Garcia Bernal & Diego Luna’s Hulu Originals Series “La Máquina”

Eiza González is a machine

The 32-year-old Mexican actress and singer will star opposite Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal in the Hulu Originals limited series La Máquina.

Eiza GonzálezLa Máquina follows an aging boxer (Bernal) whose crafty manager (Luna) secures him one last shot at a title. But to make it to fight night, they must navigate a mysterious underworld force.

Gonzalez will portray Irasema, an aspiring sports journalist who approaches boxing as more of an art form. She’s the ex-wife of Esteban (Bernal), who she still deeply cares for, and mother to their two children. She’s known Esteban and Andy (Luna) since they were teenagers.

La Máquina is produced by Searchlight Television, Bernal and Luna’s banner La Corriente del Golfo. It will stream on Disney’s DTC platforms as a Hulu Original in the U.S.

Marco Ramirez serves as executive producer and showrunner, with Bernal, Luna, Gerardo Gatica, Leandro Halperín, Adam Fishbach, and Kyzza Terrazas onboard as executive producers. Gabriel Ripstein will direct.

González most recently wrapped filming The Three-Body Problem for Netflix, and Apple TV+’s anthology series Extrapolations with Meryl Streep, Forest Whitaker and Marion Cotillard.

González can also be seen in Michael Bay’s Ambulance opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen.

Eiza Gonzalez to Star in Apple TV+’s Climate Change Anthology Drama Series “Extrapolations”

Eiza Gonzalez is taking a look at the effects of climate change

The 31-year-old Mexican actress and singer will be part of Apple TV+’s climate change anthology drama series Extrapolations.

Eiza González

In addition to Gonzalez, other stars set to join the series include Forest WhitakerMarion Cotillard and Tobey Maguire.

The series hails from Scott Z. Burns.

They join the likes of Meryl StreepSienna MillerKit HaringtonTahar RahimMatthew RhysDaveed DiggsGemma ChanDavid Schwimmer and Adarsh Gourav in the project.

The series, currently in production, tells stories of how the upcoming changes to the planet will affect love, faith, work and family on a personal and human scale. Told over a season of eight interconnected episodes, each story in the scripted series will track the worldwide battle for our mutual survival spanning the 21st century.

Whitaker plays small-time investor August Bolo, Cotillard plays art dealer Sylvie Bolo, Maguire plays kelp farmer Nic and Gonzalez plays artist and influencer Elodie.

It comes from Michael Ellenberg’s Media Res with Burns as writer, director and exec producer.

Gonzalez, who starred in Baby Driver, is set to star in Netflix’s The Three Body Problem from the Game of Thrones showrunners.

Natalie Mendoza to Star as Satine in Broadway’s “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”

Natalie Mendoza is seeing rouge

The 42-year-old part-Spanish Australian actress/singer has been cast as the lead role of Broadway’s Moulin Rouge! The Musical, filling the vacancy left when the Tony Award-nominated Karen Olivo resigned in April.

Natalie Mendoza

With the casting of Mendoza, the full Moulin Rouge! cast is in place for the resumption of performances on Friday, September 24, at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.

The musical originally opened on July 25, 2019, but performances were suspended in March 2020 when Broadway went dark due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.

Mendoza joins a principal cast that also includes Aaron Tveit, Danny Burstein, Sahr Ngaujah, Tam Mutu, Ricky Rojas and Robyn Hurder.

The casting is a bit of a homecoming for Mendoza, who portrayed a can-can dancer named China Doll in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film Moulin Rouge!

“From the moment Natalie was cast as China Doll in Moulin Rouge! the film, we knew we had discovered a major young talent,” Luhrmann said in a statement. “That young talent has now blossomed into the lead in our Broadway production. I could not be more thrilled that Natalie will be lowered in that glorious swing as Broadway’s Sparkling Diamond.”

Said Mendoza, “Having been involved with the film from its early conception, the role of Satine has always been close to my heart. This rare jewel of an opportunity to play a character like her on Broadway feels like a full circle moment. With this stunning group of bohemian artists and this uniquely conscious creative team I couldn’t be in better care.”

Mendoza, raised in Australia, previously worked with the Broadway musical’s director Alex Timbers when she appeared as Imelda Marcos in Here Lies Love at London’s Royal National Theatre.

 

He starred on the BBC One drama series Hotel Babylon and The Descent horror film franchise.

On the film side, she’ll next be seen in the buzzy Cannes Film Festival film Annette, directed by Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard.

Mendoza’s other credits include Michael Winterbottom’s futuristic thriller Code 46, Miramax’s The Great Raid and, on television, ABC’s production of South Pacific, ITV’s McDonald & Dodds, CBS’ Blue Bloods and in upcoming episodes of Amazon Prime’s Jack Ryan.

On stage, additional credits include Miss Saigon, Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark and Ghost.

Bardem to Star in AMC’s “The Son”

Carlos Bardem has landed his first American role…

The 53-year-old Spanish actor has joined the cast of AMC’s The Son

Carlos Bardem  

Based on Philipp Meyer’s acclaimed novel, the film is a multi-generational epic telling of the story of America’s birth as a superpower through the bloody rise and fall of one Texas family.

Production will begin in Austin, Texas in June and the 10 one-hour episodes are set to premiere in 2017.

British director Tom Harper is helming the pilot.

He’ll play the patriarch whose family is the last of the wealthy Spanish aristocracy in South Texas. He’s a proud American, but must walk a careful line between his fellow ranchers and the Mexican radicals who employ terrorist tactics in an effort to drive the Anglos out of the Rio Grande Valley.

Bardem, the brother of Javier Bardem, recently completed work on New Regency’s Assassin’s Creed alongside Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, out later this year.

His past credits include Escobar: Paradise Lost opposite Benicio del Toro and Josh Hutcherson, Che: Part 2 for director Steven Soderbergh, and Scorpion In Love, which he wrote and starred in.

Meyer, Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy wrote the adaptation.

Escalante Named to This Year’s Marrakech Film Festival Jury

It’s jury time for Amat Escalante

The 34-year-old Mexican filmmaker will join Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson and president Martin Scorsese on this year’s jury for the 13th annual Marrakech Film Festival.

Amat Escalante

Academy Awards aside, the jury is stacked with Cannes Film Festival winners and regulars.

Escalante, this year’s best director winner, was named Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival.

South Korean director Park Chan-wook (Stoker, Oldboy), Turkish director Fatih Akin (New York, I Love You) and Moroccan writer-director Narjiss Nejjar, who took home the best screenplay award at Marrakech in 2003 for Les Yeux Secs, will round out the star-studded jury.

The jury votes on the festival’s top prize, the Golden Star, for best film, as well as the jury prize, best actor and best actress. The festival’s slate of 15 films is expected to be announced next week. The festival will pay tribute to Scandinavian cinema in an evening program Dec. 4.

The festival runs Nov. 29-Dec. 7.

Trailer Released for Vazquez’s New Film with Tom Hanks “Captain Phillips”

Yul Vazquez will soon be hitting the high seas with Tom Hanks

The Cuban American actor, who currently appears on Starz’s Magic City, is starring as Captain Frank Castellano in the Hanks-headlined film Captain Phillips, which has been named the opening-night film at the prestigious New York Film Festival next month.

Yul Vazquez

Directed by Paul Greengrass, the Sony Pictures film tells the true story of Captain Richard Phillips (portrayed by Hanks) and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama.

Phillips was eventually rescued in a dangerous mission by a Navy SEAL team.

Along with Hanks and Vazquez, the film also stars Catherine Keener, Max Martini, Michael Chernus, Chris Mulkey, John Magaro and Angus MacInnes.

Captain Phillips is set to hit theaters on October 11.

Vazquez’s other upcoming projects include Runner Runner with Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake, Blood Ties with Mila Kunis, Clive Owen and Marion Cotillard and Kill The Messenger directed by Michael Cuesta opposite Jeremy Renner.

 

Bejo to Star in Asghar Farhadi’s Next Film

She wowed audiences in her Academy Award-nominated performance in The Artist… And, Bérénice Bejo could have another date with Oscar in the near future.

The 36-year-old Argentinean actress, who was recently invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will replace Marion Cotillard in A Separation director Asghar Farhadi’s next film, according to Deadline.com.

Berenice Bejo

Scheduling conflicts reportedly forced the lead actress switch.

Shooting on the hush-hush project, a yet-to-be titled French-language picture, is expected to start in October in and around Paris.

Details on the film, which stars A Prophet’s Tahar Rahim, are being kept under wraps. But it’s being called a picture in the vein of A Separation with an element of suspense.

The film is expected to be completed in spring 2013 – just in time for the Cannes Film Festival.

Vega to Portray Maria Callas in “Grace of Monaco”

Paz Vega will soon be having an operatic Hollywood moment…

The 36-year-old Spanish actress will appear as the tempestuous opera singer Maria Callas in Grace of Monaco, who stars Nicole Kidman as Hollywood-actress-turned-princess Grace Kelly.

Paz Vega

Directed by Olivier Dahan—who helmed the Edith Piaf biopic La vie en rose, which earned Marion Cotillard an Oscar the film focuses on a six-month period in 1962 when Monaco was in a dispute with France and Princess Grace worked behind the scenes to prevent a coup. At the time, Grace came to know Callas, who was having an affair with Greek millionaire Aristotle Onassis.

It’s Vega’s latest high-profile film project. She’s also set to appear in Pedro Almodovar’s upcoming, re-titled comedy, I’m So Excited.

 

Saldaña May Star Opposite Megan Fox in Swindle

Zoë Saldaña could soon be sharing the screen with Megan Fox

Paramount Pictures has acquired the action-heist spec script Swindle as a starring vehicle for the 33-year-old half-Dominican/half-Puerto Rican American actress and Fox.

Zoe Saldana

The actresses will reportedly produce the film with Moneyball producer Michael De Luca, who is developing the project.

Paramount is remaining tight-lipped about the storyline for the project, which came out of a desire by Saldaña and Fox to do a movie together.

Saldana is currently shooting the J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek sequel and will next star in the Guillaume Canet-directed Blood Ties, opposite Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, and Marion Cotillard.