EXCLUSIVE: StudioCanal is returning to the UK television production investment scene as it finalizes a deal with an outfit co-founded by a Vigil and Downton Abbey director.
14.01.2023 - 21:23 / deadline.com
Based on the director’s childhood, James Gray’s Armageddon Time tells the story of 12-year-old Paul (newcomer Banks Repeta), and how his Jewish family reacts to his friendship with a Black student, Johnny (Jaylin Webb), in early ’80s New York. Both boys share a love of space flight, and their pre-teen dreams take their imaginations light years away from their mundane lives. But the backdrop is a moment of tension, as Ronald Reagan, seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for president, stirs up civil unrest in the country. Paul’s father, Irving, played by Succession’s Jeremy Strong, despises Reagan’s dog-whistle provocations and screams at his image when he appears on television. But, he wonders, being from a vulnerable minority himself, is it wise for him to allow his son’s friendship to continue?
Gray was looking for an actor who could imprint his father with an almost Willy Loman-like stamp, though the role has also been likened to a Jewish Stanley Kowalski with a PhD, definitely not hagiography.
Strong knew that Gray had met with other actors. He desperately wanted to work with the man who’d made seven pictures, four of them with Joaquin Phoenix. There was also Gray’s screenplay which Strong likens to a “musical score in terms of its level of precision. “But Strong says he experienced a “profound doubt” as to whether he was capable “of what the role required.” “And at the same time, there was just a counter force that feels a need to move toward that feeling,” Strong says.
Gray says he picked Strong because he could see the actor’s commitment to digging deep to play Irving. “But I couldn’t help him. He had to find Irving himself,” he says. That was not helpful, says Strong. The actor says that there was an
EXCLUSIVE: StudioCanal is returning to the UK television production investment scene as it finalizes a deal with an outfit co-founded by a Vigil and Downton Abbey director.
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