Actors Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod and Ben Whishaw will join Frances McDormand in writer/director Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, the feature adaptation of author Miriam Toews’s bestselling novel.Women Talking follows a group of woman from an isolated religious colony who struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults that were committed by the men of the colony. The 2018 novel was named as the Best Book of the Year By The New York Times Book Review, NPR.Org, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, Publishers Weekly and Time, among many others.
The latest additions will join debutant actors August Winter, Liv McNeil and Kate Hallett. The project comes under Plan B Entertainment’s second-look deal with MGM. Plan B will produce Women Talking alongside McDormand through her Hear/Say Productions.Mara, best known for Her, The Social Network, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo among others, will be seen next in Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley.
Foy (First Man, The Crown) has a number of projects bowing over the next year including Louis Wain, A Very English Scandal and Migrations. Buckley was recently seen in Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things and will next be seen in Alex Garland’s Men and in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Lost Daughter. Ivey is known for her two-time Tony Award wins for the plays Steaming and Hurlyburly, and an Emmy nominee for What the Deaf Man Heard. McCarthy’s credits include The Umbrella Academy, The Good Doctor, The Broken Hearts Gallery, and director Helen Shaver’s award-winning feature Happy Place. McLeod is known for starring in the titular role of the film Don’t Talk To Irene.
Her other credits include Honey Bee, My Spy, Tin Star and Creeped Out. Whishaw is known for titles like Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Cloud Atlas, and Spectre. His other credits include A Very English Scandal, Skyfall and Surge.Meanwhile, McDormand’s next production will be the upcoming release of The Tragedy Of Macbeth, directed by Joel Coen.