Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, her follow-up to The Hurt Locker which swept the Oscars a few years back, sees her returning behind the camera with a very promising ensemble.
We caught the first trailer over the summer, and a new poster at the start of the month, but until now, one member of the cast has been kept completely secret.
EW have revealed that the filmmakers have been holding back James Gandolfini’s part, starring as,
“one of the highest-ranking government figures featured in the film — Leon Panetta, the current Secretary of Defense, who was head of the CIA when bin Laden was found and killed.”
Gandolfini stars alongside Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Jessica Chastain, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Scott Adkins, Jennifer Ehle, Chris Pratt, Édgar Ramirez, Frank Grillo, Nash Edgerton, and a welcome surprise in Mark Duplass, with Ricky Sekhon taking the role of bin Laden himself.
“The upcoming true-life drama “Zero Dark Thirty” details the decade-long global hunt for Osama bin Laden, and in this exclusive in-theater banner, you get a satellite view of his secret compound in Pakistan. Two Black Hawk helicopters are seen approaching the fortified compound in the moments before Navy SEALs carried out the raid that lead to bin Laden’s death. The movie from the Oscar-winning writer and director of “The Hurt Locker,” will hit theaters on December 19.”
Bigelow is once more directing from a script by Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker), with the two producing alongside the increasingly amazing Megan Ellison (True Grit, The Master, Lawless).
Zero Dark Thirty will be released in the US in prime Oscar season on 19th December, and will be followed by a UK release on 25th January in the New Year, by which time we’ll know if it’s been nominated, and will have enough time to see it before the ceremonies the following month. For now, here’s our excellent first look at Gandolfini, which you can click through to enlarge.
