EXCLUSIVE: Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games franchise), Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Tony nominee Sarah Pidgeon (Stereophonic on Broadway) and two-time Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest (Hannah and Her Sisters) have signed on to star in Oscar nominee Paul Schrader‘s next film, the erotic thriller Non Compos Mentis.
Kicking off production in New York this spring, Non Compos Mentis (translation: not of sound mind) centers on two privileged brothers confronting their mother’s decline into dementia: one, a polished New York defense attorney; the other, a hard-edged corporate heir. Their uneasy dynamic fractures when the attorney embarks on a consuming affair with a younger woman, igniting a volatile love triangle that unleashes obsession, betrayal and a ruthless battle for control of the family fortune.
For auteur Schrader, the thriller comes on the heels of his acclaimed “man in a room” trilogy — First Reformed, Focus Features’ The Card Counter and Magnolia’s Master Gardener — as well as Oh, Canada, starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman and Jacob Elordi, which premiered in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
Noting that his films “are often about men testing the limits of their own control,” Schrader said that “here, control becomes an illusion, and the consequences are intimate, erotic, and finally destructive.”
David Gonzales (Master Gardener, Oh, Canada), Schrader’s manager and collaborator, is producing. He told us, “Paul is returning to the erotic thriller to examine how desire can destabilize power within a family. With this exceptional cast, we’re building a film that is both intimate and explosive.”
Nadine de Barros will exec produce Non Compos Mentis on behalf of Fortitude Films, which is introducing the project to buyers at the upcoming European Film Market.
Perhaps best known for his starring role as Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games franchise, through 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, Hemsworth has more recently been seen starring in The Witcher and the Susannah Grant film Lonely Planet, both for Netflix. He is represented by UTA and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.
A Cannes Best Actor winner who can currently be seen tackling an iconic monster character in Luc Besson’s Dracula, Jones is represented by UTA, Authentic, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.
Pidgeon earned a Tony nomination for her work in the David Adjmi play Stereophonic, which marked her Broadway debut. Upcoming, she’ll be seen headlining FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, from executive producer Ryan Murphy, opposite Paul Kelly. She is repped by Gersh and Anonymous Content.
Recently appearing on shows like Elsbeth, Only Murders in the Building and Mayor of Kingstown, with additional roles in films like Apartment 7A, Wiest’s upcoming slate also includes Warner Bros’ Practical Magic 2 and the Cody Fern family drama Mother Courage. She is repped by WME.
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