LOS ANGELES, Aug 31 — The Baby Driver and Wolf of Wall Street actor Jon Bernthal is teaming up with Damien Chazelle for First Man, the Oscar-winning director’s Neil Armstrong biopic.
With Ryan Gosling (La La Land), Kyle Chandler (Manchester by the Sea), Claire Foy (The Crown), Jason Clarke (Everest) and Corey Stall (House of Cards) already on board, Damien Chazelle is well on the way to assembling a cast of award-winning actors for 2018 film First Man.
Jon Bernthal, who appeared with Chandler in Martin Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street is to play a Nasa astronaut and test pilot who walks on the moon, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Gosling will play first man on the moon Neil Armstrong, Stoll becomes Buzz Aldrin, and Chandler is enrolled as another test pilot, Deke Slayton.
Produced by Universal Pictures, the feature film concentrates on the period between 1961 and 1969 and, most notably, NASA's Apollo 11 space mission, which allowed Armstrong to make those defining first steps on the surface of the Earth’s moon.
Based on the James R. Hansen biography First Man: A Life of Neil A. Armstrong, with screenplay work from Guardians of the Galaxy scribe Nicole Perlman and Spotlight and The West Wing writer Josh Singer, the film is expected October 2018.
Chazelle shot to fame with 2014’s intense drumming prodigy drama Whiplash, which resulted in three Oscar wins for its cast and crew, plus an Oscar nomination for the writer-director himself.
Musical comedy La La Land followed in 2016, and made Chazelle the youngest ever winner of the Academy Awards’ Best Director Oscar.
Jon Bernthal is to appear as Marvel vigilante hero The Punisher in a 2017 series of the same name, as well as punk band road trip Viena and the Fantomes, Steve McQueen’s heist thriller Widows, and crime drama Stingray in 2018. — AFP-Relaxnews
