Last year around this time, we all knew that Iran’s stellar A Separation would be the one taking home the Foreign Language Oscar at the Academy Awards, but another contender featured some of the strongest talent in the bunch. Belgian’s drama Bullhead not only gave us the break-out performance from Matthias Schoenaerts, but also the emergence of a director to watch with Michael Roskam.
While Schoenaerts has continued on to such films as Jacques Audiard‘s Rust & Bone, it looks like this actor/director relationship will continue for a new project. Roskam is prepping his Hollywood debut for a shoot this spring and now The Playlist has word straight from Schoenarts that he will be having a role in the film Animal Rescue, joining Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace.
Coming from Fox Searchlight, the film is based on Dennis Lehane‘s short story — once set in Boston, now transplanted to New York — which follows a bartender (Hardy) who winds up in trouble after saving a wounded dog, an action which lands him in hot water with the abusive owner and his own gangster bosses. Rapace, meanwhile, is to play Nadia, “a woman with a scar across her entire neck who crosses paths with the protag when he finds a wounded puppy outside her home.” There’s no word yet on Schoenaerts’ exact role, but expect to see much more of him in the coming years, as he’s also set for another project with his Bullhead director titled The Faithful.
Are you a Bullhead fan? What do you think of this acting trio?