Rebecca ferguson

Source: Goldcrest Films

Rebecca Ferguson

Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The Girl On The Train) is in talks to join Hugh Bonneville in director John Hay’s currently untitled feature about the relationship between author Roald Dahl and Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal.

UK-based Goldcrest Films is financing, co-producing and handling global sales on the project, which was originally introduced to the market in Cannes.

It will be produced by Elliot Jenkins for Atticus Pictures and by Pascal Degove for Goldcrest. Written by director Hay with David Logan, the screenplay is based on Stephen Michael Shearer’s novel An Unquiet Life.

The story will be set between New York, England and Los Angeles at the beginning of the 1960s. It will follow Dahl’s struggles with his writing work, while Neal returns to acting with Hud, the role for which she would win an Oscar.

It will shoot in and around London with principal photography slated for late January 2018.

Goldcrest Post (Murder On The Orient Express) under MD Patrick Malone will be providing picture and sound post-production services.

Pascal Degove, managing director Goldcrest Films said: “Distributors everywhere should be excited by the attachment of such exceptional talent to the project; in Rebecca we have been lucky to find someone who, like us, is committed to giving our story the widest possible appeal having consistently brought global audiences to cinemas in a string of high-profile box office successes.”

Director John Hay added: “This is a sophisticated, complex, multi-layered, love story and I can’t think of anyone better than Rebecca to draw the emotion out of every scene without ever giving an audience the impression that is what she is doing”.

Ferguson is represented by Tavistock Wood, ICM and Actors Scandinavia.