Blueprint Pictures (The Banshees of Inisherin, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) announced today that Chlöe Bailey, Tosin Cole, Academy Award winner Olivia Colman, and Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson will star in Girl from the North Country, based on the Tony Award-winning show inspired by the songs of music icon Bob Dylan.
The star-studded drama is written and directed by Conor McPherson, the celebrated playwright behind the Broadway show, and produced by Blueprint Pictures’ Graham Broadbent and Pete Czernin. CAA Media Finance will represent the film’s domestic sales with Rocket Science launching international sales at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.
In what the New York Times declared “profoundly beautiful” and the Chicago Tribune called “a Broadway revelation!,” Girl from the North Country reimagines legendary Bob Dylan songs, including: “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” “Slow Train Coming,” “Make You Feel My Love” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”
Based in 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota during the Great Depression, a group of wayward travelers’ lives intersect in a guesthouse filled with music, life and hope. Things are spiraling out of control for proprietor Nick Laine (Harrelson). His wife Elizabeth (Colman) is suffering from dementia.
The bank is foreclosing on their home. Their adopted daughter, Marianne (Bailey), has a closely guarded secret that no one can explain. But when an escaped convict Joe Scott (Cole) seeks shelter at the guesthouse, a relationship develops between Marianne and Joe that will change everything for everyone forever.
A love story set in a time of adversity, Girl from the North Country speaks to our world now just as Bob Dylan’s timeless songs give voice to the eternal struggle of the human spirit for every age.
After seeing the play, Bob Dylan said the following about Conor McPherson, “To be associated with Conor is one of the highlights of my professional life. It goes without saying the man is a genius for putting this thing together and I’m thrilled to be a part of the experience. My songs couldn’t be in better hands. The play had me crying at the end. I can’t even say why. When the curtain came down, I was stunned. I really was.”
“Having Bob Dylan’s trust to create a story using his incomparable songs is a huge privilege which has brought nothing but joy to my world,” said McPherson. “But working with this incredible cast to bring these characters to life is almost beyond imagining. I’m also especially thrilled to be working with Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, and the whole Blueprint team who have given cinema audiences some of the greatest movies of recent times.”
Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter/musician, Bailey is best known as one half of the musical duo Chloe x Halle and for her work on ABC’s “Grown-ish,” “Black-ish,” and most recently in the feature film Jane, starring Academy Award winner Melissa Leo. Bailey can next be seen in Will Packer and Tim Story’s feature Praise This; Russell Crowe and Sam Worthington starrer The Georgetown Project; and Amazon Prime Video series “Swarm” from Donald Glover.
Cole is currently filming the lead role in, “Supacell” for Netflix; and also the Untitled Bob Marley Project directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green. Cole’s recent work includes, Chinoye Chukwu’s acclaimed feature Till in which he played civil rights hero Medger Evers.
Cole stars in Warner Brothers’ reboot of House Party from producers Maverick Carter and LeBron James, and in AMC’s “61st Street,” created by Peter Moffat and starring Courtney B. Vance. Other notable credits include, Ear for Eye by Debbie Tucker Green.
Colman can currently be seen in Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light. In film, upcoming she appears in Paul King’s Wonka alongside Timothée Chalamet; as well as Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters with Jessie Buckley. On television, upcoming appears in Great Expectations and Secret Invasion.
Recent projects include The Lost Daughter, The Father and The Favourite; as well as Heartstopper, Landscapers and The Crown. Her work in film and television has garnered her Academy Award, British Academy of Film and Television awards as well as Emmy Awards recognitions.
Harrelson was recently seen in the Ruben Östlund satire Triangle of Sadness, which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or and is up for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards. He has been nominated for three Oscars, the most recent recognizing his performance in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, as well as nine Emmys for his work on “True Detective” and “Cheers.”
Up next for Harrelson is Focus Features’ Special Olympics comedy Champions; Searchlight drama Suncoast, inspired by writer/director Laura Chinn’s life; HBO political miniseries “White House Plumbers,” centering on the Watergate scandal; and Apple Original Films’ space race feature Project Artemis.
McPherson is an Olivier Award winning theater luminary, who has been nominated for five Tony awards and a Grammy Award. He wrote and directed the Broadway musical “Girl from the North Country,” which will serve as the source material for the film, as well as multi award winning plays, “The Seafarer,” “The Night Alive,” and “The Weir.” Beyond the stage, McPherson is known for his screenplays for influential Irish cult hit, I Went Down, the BBC series, Paula, and for writing and directing his award-winning Ireland seaside pictures Saltwater and The Eclipse.
Bailey is repped by CAA. Cole is represented by CAA, Curtis Brown Group, Sherpa Management, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Colman is repped by CAA, United Agents, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Harrelson is represented by 7 Deuce Entertainment and Ziffren Brittenham. McPherson is repped by Curtis Brown Group.
During EFM, the Rocket Science slate also includes: Michael Gracey’s Better Man; Alex Winter’s The Adults starring Evan Rachel Wood, Josh Gad and Anthony Carrigan. Rocket Science is also behind Peter Farrelley’s Ricky Stanicky starring Zac Efron and John Cena, which Amazon will stream on Prime Video in 240 countries and territories worldwide at release.
