HOME TRAILERS 2013 SCHEDULE PODCASTS REVIEWS POSTERS INTERVIEWS SHORT FILMS NEWS FEEDS ABOUT APPS

LATEST NEWS

Paul Dano and Scoot McNairy Join McQueen's 'Twelve Years a Slave'

by Ben Pearson
May 22, 2012
Source: Variety

After tackling the difficult subject of sex addiction in 2011's Shame, writer/director Steve McQueen isn't shying away from taboo subjects for his next project. He's co-writing and directing Twelve Years A Slave, based on Solomon Northrup's 1853 account of being born a free black man and detailing his capture and time as a slave later in life. The project already has an extremely impressive cast, including Serenity star Chiwetel Ejiofor, Shame's Michael Fassbender, and Brad Pitt, and now Deadline says indie favorite Paul Dano is joining the cast and Variety says Monsters star Scoot McNairy has also signed on. More below!

McNairy will play a devious circus worker who plans Ejiofor's abduction when he's lured to Washington, DC with a job offer to play violin in the circus, and Dano will take the role of a slave owner who brutalizes Ejiofor after he's captured and sold. You may recognize McNairy from his work as the lead role in Gareth Edwards' Monsters, an indie film about aliens that was released a couple of years ago. He did some solid work there, and has been slowly building his resume with bigger projects ever since, appearing most recently in the Brad Pitt film Killing Them Softly, which Alex just reviewed at Cannes. Dano is great in pretty much everything, even the sort-of-terrible Cowboys & Aliens, so I'm stoked that Twelve Years A Slave continues to secure high quality actors. Cool?

Filed under Casting, Development, Movie News

From around the web:

Ehsan Davodi

Are you Wana give me HEART ATTACK McQeen / Chitewel Ejiofur / Fassbender / Brad Pitt and Paul Dano !! What the hell ! Are you sure we aren't in ARMAGEDDON ! Love Dano , very complicated person He and James mc avoy and shia labeuf are young adult phoneme . I really love him in little miss sunshine and bloody there will be blood I think he must choose his roles very precisely, he can be very effective,very smart, very cool And know Paul Dano with McQeen ! I don't believe ! Chietewel Ejiufor is Magnificent ! Really believable cool actor ! I think McQeen go in right direction. He choose very radical and important topics and turn them into films. I like that he don't change his style and cinematic genre. This movie was masterpiece without any doubt in my fucking mind
peloquin

I love Scoot McNairy! Everyone needs to throw In Search of a Midnight Kiss on their Netflix queue right now. I knew this guy would be a star some day and I'm really glad he's getting a fair shot in Hollywood.