Co-Editor-in-Chief, Film
Al Pacino & Jessica Chastain's King Lear portrayal of King Rex has completed its cast
EXCLUSIVE: Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose (West Side Story), Emmy winners Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah), Chris Messina (Argo), Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs), Danny Huston (The Constant Gardener), Matthew Jacobs (Bar America), Rhys Coiro (Entourage) and Stephen Dorff (Blade) have joined Academy Award winners Al Pacino and Jessica Chastain in Bernard Rose's Lear Rex, a film adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear.
Barry Navidi is producing, marking his fifth collaboration with Pacino following The Merchant of Venice, Wilde Salomé, Salomé and this year’s Johnny Depp-directed Modi. Sharon Howard-Field, the film’s casting director, shares a long history of working with Navidi, whose financial partners include Mattias Westman of Westman Films, Eco Entertainment, Dali Films and World Vision. CAA Media Finance is representing North American rights, while Goodfellas is handling international sales. Principal photography begins August 12 in Los Angeles.
In Lear Rex, an aging King Lear (Pacino) divides his lands among his three daughters to prevent future conflict. But he rejects the young daughter who loves him and places his trust in her evil sisters, who strip him of his power and condemn him to a miserable wasteland of horror and madness. Chastain will play Goneril, DeBose will star as Cordelia, Brosnahan as Regan, Dinklage as the Fool, Huston as Albany, Messina as Cornwall, Stanfield as Edmund, Levine as Kent, Jacobs as Gloucester, Coiro as Oswald and Dorff as Poor Tom.
