The 41-year-old Puerto Rican and Cuban American actress and activist has been cast as a series regular on Dopesick, Hulu’s eight-episode limited series based on Beth Macy’s best-selling book.
Written by Danny Strong and directed by Barry Levinson, Dopesick is described as an ambitious, harrowing and compelling look into the epicenter of America’s struggle with opioid addiction. It takes viewers from a distressed Virginia mining community to the hallways of the DEA and the opulence of “one percenter” Big Pharma Manhattan. The unsparing yet deeply human portraits of the various affected families and their intersecting stories hold up a mirror to where America is right now, while shining a hopeful light on the heroes battling the worst drug epidemic in American history.
Dawson will play Bridget Meyer, a tough DEA agent who fights to curtail the use of OxyContin.
She joins previously announced Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, Kaitlyn Dever, Will Poulter, John Hoogenakker, Philippa Soo and Jake McDorman.
The project hails from The Handmaid’s Taleexecutive producer Warren Littlefield and Touchstone Television.
Dawson most recently fronted the drama series Briarpatch, which aired for one season on USA Network. She also stars in the HBO Max/DC Comics pilotDMZ, which is being directed and EP’ed by Ava DuVernay and showrunner/writer Roberto Patino.
And she’ll soon appear on season two of Disney+’s The Mandalorian.
The 54-year-old Colombian actor has been cast in Harry Haft, the Barry Levinson-directed film based on the novel Harry Haft: Survivor of Auschwitz, Challenger of Rocky Marciano by Alan Scott Haft.
Leguizamo joins a cast that includes Danny DeVito, Vicky Krieps, Peter Sarsgaard, Saro Emirzeand Dar Zuzovsky.
The group joins previously announced titular star Ben Foster as production is currently underway with plans to shoot on location in Hungary and New York.
Justine Juel Gillmer penned the screenplay. It’s based on the true story of a man (Foster) who is driven by his love of a woman to survive the unimaginable horrors of the German concentration camps. An SS Officer (Billy Magnussen) forces Harry to fight to the death against fellow prisoners in gruesome gladiatorial boxing matches. Harry finally escapes and makes it to New York. Haunted by his memories and guilt over his survival, he fights boxing legends, like Rocky Marciano, in the hopes that his name will get noticed and he will find his first love again.
Leguizamo next co-stars in Ava DuVernay’s Netflix miniseries about the 1989 Central Parkjogger case, which was just re-titled When They See Us.
Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are sharing the Loving…
The 43-year-old Spanish actress and her 48-year-old actor-husband have shared the first clip of their latest film, Loving Pablo.
Directed and written by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, the story is based on the book Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar by Virginia Vallejo, the Colombian journalist who had a volatile affair with drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Bardem and Cruz play the lovers.
It’s a reteam for Bardem and De Aranoa after 2002’s Goya-winning Mondays In The Sun. Bardem says it took him quite a while to get Loving Pablo together. “I was attracted to playing Pablo Escobar, for many years now. It was around 1998 that I started to be intrigued by this character as a person. And since then I’ve been offered other Escobar roles, but I always refused them because there wasn’t any feeling beyond a stereotype.”
The story chronicles the rise and fall of Escobar and his relationship with Vallejo throughout a reign of terror that tore a country apart. Peter Sarsgaard also stars.
Bardem elaborates, “I think one of the themes that we are working with is what the word ‘enough’ means. Enough of wanting to get some place, wanting to have more, wanting to be better, bigger, stronger, and what kind of effect it has on a person’s mind when there is never enough. For Pablo, nothing was ever enough, he always wanted more and he had all of the resources and the tools to become stronger and more powerful. That will eventually destroy a person’s mind.”
The unravelling of Escobar’s relationship to the people in his life is key to the film. “That’s why it’s called Loving Pablo,” says Bardem, “because this movie is through Virginia’s eyes but also it’s through all the eyes of all of those who loved Pablo Escobar on a personal level and envied and admired him also as a savior. Our movie is about what happened when they ultimately discover what kind of a person he really is and the world that will leave behind.”
Although Cruz says she’s never met Vallejo, she has “studied about 800 hours of various interviews and shows that she did as a journalist and TV presenter. She is the one that trained Escobar and taught him how to use the media to communicate, how to deal with the press, how to address the public. In his political career, she became a significant figure.”
Cruz adds: “When you portray a character like Virginia, I can’t judge her or justify her. I have the feeling she didn’t know quite what she was getting into. As an actor, I just have to try to understand what was going through her mind when she made some of those decisions. After a while, when she wanted to get out of that relationship, she couldn’t, and that affected her life in so many different ways. There were some scenes that were very hard-core, very hard to play because you had to go to those places. And for me, it was important that this movie was not glamorizing the world of the Narco. I feel like some of those scenes have to leave you with pain in your stomach. It cannot be a gratuitous violence. I think that our film has accomplished that.”
Loving Pablo will have its world premiere next week at the Venice Film Festival. It will also screen at the San Sebastian Film Festival where it’s the closing-night pic.
Pablo Larraín’s latest film will get the AFI Fest treatment…
The 40-year-old Chilean director’s latest film Jackie has joined the American Film Institute’s slate of AFI Centerpiece Galas at this year’s AFI Fest.
From Fox Searchlight and starring Oscar winner Natalie Portman, the film will screen on Monday, November 14, at the TCL Chinese Theatre.
Jackie, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival, is an intimate portrait of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, which takes us into the iconic First Lady’s world during the difficult days immediately following her husband’s assassination.
Noah Oppenheim penned the screenplay.
In addition to Portman, the film stars Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup and Oscar nominee John Hurt.
Jackie joins previously announced Mike Mills-directed20th Century Women; Elledirected by Paul Verhoeven; and Damien Chazelle-helmedLa La Land starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
The 45-year-old half-Mexican American actor, comedian and Emmy-winning writer and director is starring in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, which will debut in New York and Los Angeles on July 26.
Sony Pictures Classics describes Blue Jasmine as “the story of the final stages of an acute crisis and a life of a fashionable New York housewife.”
Along with Louis C.K., in his first feature film since 2009’s The Invention of Lying, the film stars Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard and Andrew Dice Clay.
The film was shot in New York City and San Francisco last year.
Bobby Cannavale is leaving Boardwalk Empire and heading to Park City, Utah…
The 42-year-old half-Cuban American’s latest film Lovelace has just been added to the out-of-competition Premieres section of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
Starring Amanda Seyfried, the biopic shines a spotlight on the life of adult film star Linda Lovelace. Deep Throat, the first pornographic feature to be a mainstream success, was an international sensation in 1972 and made its star, Lovelace, a media darling. Years later the “poster girl for the sexual revolution” revealed a darker side to her story.
Cannavale plays film financier Butchie Peraino in the film, which also stars Peter Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria, Adam Brody, James Franco and Sharon Stone.
Meanwhile, Eduardo Noriega will also be seeing his latest film premiere atthe Sundance Film Festival.
Sweetwater, starring the 39-year-old Spanish actor, has been added to the festival’s lineup.
Set in the late 1800s, the film centers on a fanatical religious leader, a renegade Sheriff and a former prostitute as they collide in a blood triangle on the rugged plains of the New Mexico Territory.
Along with Noriega, the film stars Ed Harris, January Jones, Jason Isaacs and Amy Madigan.
Louis C.K. will be returning to the big screen in a big way…
The 44-year-old half-Mexican American actor/comedian, who last acted on film in 2009’s The Invention of Lying, has been added to the all-star cast of Woody Allen’s latest untitled film.
Allen’s new film will be shot in New York and San Francisco this summer. This marks the noted director’s second time directing in San Francisco — his directorial debut, 1969’s Take the Money and Run, was also set there.
Allen recently won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Midnight In Paris. His upcoming film, To Rome With Love—starring Penelope Cruz—will hit theaters on June 22.
