Paper Street Films and Back Lot Pictures announced today award winning actors Connie Nielsen (3 Days to Kill, Gladiator), Peter Fonda (Ulee’s Gold, Easy Rider), Bryan Batt (12 Years A Slave, “Mad Men“), and Wendell Pierce (“Treme,” “The Wire“) have joined the cast of Austin Stark’s directorial debut The Runner. The four join Nicolas Cage and Sarah Paulson in the contemporary political drama.
In the aftermath of the tragic 2010 BP oil spill, Colin Price (Cage), an idealistic but flawed New Orleans congressman, is forced to confront his dysfunctional life after his career is destroyed in a sex scandal. Nielsen will portray Price’s wife, Deborah, a high-powered attorney with political ambitions of her own. Fonda will portray Colin’s father Rayne Price, the former mayor of New Orleans, still an imposing figure in the political arena. Batt will portray Mark Lavin; a Wall Street financier who caters to the big oil companies and wants the oil spill to be a blip on the screen, and Pierce will portray Frank Legrand, Price’s Chief of Staff and one of the first to see his boss’s career going off the rails.
“I couldn’t be more excited to collaborate with Connie, Peter, Bryan, and Wendell,” says Stark. “It’s going to be thrilling to watch the authenticity and complexity these incredible actors will bring to the world of this timely political drama.”
Benji Kohn, Bingo Gubelmann, Chris Papavasiliou and Erika Hampson will produce “The Runner” for Paper Street Films and Glenn Williamson for Back Lot Pictures, and executive produced by Ruth Mutch, Noah Millman, Sam Bisbee and Tom Conigliaro.
Production is set for New Orleans on June 23, 2014.
