Weekly casting news: Hunter Schafer, Paul Giamatti score new roles (2024)

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Summer concert season is just heating up, but Hollywood casting season never stops. There’s no Knives Out or Luca Guadagnino news for the first time in a while, but some other major projects both found their leads and filled out their ensembles. Disney is doubling down on Moana and just cast their live-action princess, while Ben Barnes and Mary-Louise Parker will be a little less virtuous as the stars of Stephen King’s The Institute. Elsewhere, the casts of 28 Years Later and DINKS are also growing.

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While we were all distracted by the Wake Up Dead Man cast, the ensemble of Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later just kept growing. The latest addition to the cast is Erin Kellyman (Eleanor The Great), who will also be starring opposite Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson in Steve McQueen’s Blitz later this year. Kellyman joins previously announced stars Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, and Jack O’Connell. The film, which was written by Civil War director Alex Garland, is set to premiere June 20, 2025. [Emma Keates]

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Paul Walter Hauser may be continuing his streak of being the most employed man in Hollywood. According to Deadline, he’s currently in negotiations to join the Jeremy Allen White-led Bruce Springsteen biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere. While his role is not yet confirmed, the outlet’s sources say he’ll be playing longtime E Street guitar tech, Mike Batlan. Most recently appearing in Inside Out 2, Hauser also has roles in Fruitcake, Press Your Luck, The Fantastic Four, The Naked Gun, and The Instigators in the works. [Emma Keates]

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Paul Giamatti is going from the Barton School to Starfleet Academy. This week, it was announced that the Oscar-nominated actor had secured a role in Paramount+’s later Star Trek series, as a central villain described as “a man with an ominous past with a connection to one of the show’s cadets.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will revolve around “a young group of cadets who unite to pursue a dream of hope and optimism. Under the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they discover what it takes to become Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships, explosive rivalries, first loves, and a new enemy that threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself.” [Emma Keates]

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Thriller The Rivals of Amziah King, which was previously announced to star Matthew McConaughey, has found its supporting cast. It includes Kurt Russell (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Cole Sprouse (Lisa Frankenstein), Owen Teague (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), Scott Shepherd (Killers of the Flower Moon), Rob Morgan (Mudbound), Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Jake Horowitz (Bones and All), and Angelina LookingGlass. While no details of the film’s plot are known yet, Deadline describes it as “a character-focused crime thriller set against the backdrop of rural Oklahoma.” [Emma Keates]

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Prolific TV writer Ashley Nicole Black (A Black Lady Sketch Show, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee) has joined two Apple TV+ shows on the other side of the camera. The first is the upcoming first season of Bad Monkey, starring Vince Vaughn, where she’s also working as a writer. Having worked with Bill Lawrence on Ted Lasso, Black will also be joining the second season cast of his newer show, Shrinking, alongside Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams, and Jason Segal. [Emma Keates]

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Hijack is getting a few more passengers. In season two of the airline hijacking drama, Idris Elba will be joined by BAFTA winner Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and International Emmy winner Christiane Paul (FBI: International). No plot details have been made available for season two just yet, but the Apple TV+ series is currently in production in the UK. [Emma Keates]

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Comedian Jon Gabrus is joining DINKS (dual income no kids), an upcoming, improv-style comedy pilot from Marta Kauffman. He’ll star as a series regular alongside June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer, who play a couple in the midst of renovating their “nightmare of a dream house.” Gabrus has specifically been cast as Ronan, Scheer’s character’s adult nephew who rents out the couple’s back house. This week, it was also announced that Nicole Byer, Carl Tart, and Lennon Parham had joined the cast in guest starring roles. [Emma Keates]

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It’s a big summer for Moana, a movie that, yes, came out almost a decade ago. In case you forgot amongst all the hubbub around the upcoming Moana 2, Disney is also giving the OG the live-action treatment, starring Dwayne Johnson as the voice and now body of the demi-god, Maui. This week, the film found its Moana in Catherine Laga‘aia, a 17-year-old actress from Australia. “I’m really excited to embrace this character because Moana is one of my favorites,” Laga‘aia said of the announcement (via Variety). “My grandfather comes from Fa‘aala, Palauli, in Savai‘i. And my grandmother is from Leulumoega Tuai on the main island of ‘Upolu in Samoa. I’m honored to have an opportunity to celebrate Samoa and all Pacific Island peoples, and to represent young girls who look like me.” Also joining the cast are John Tui as Moana’s father, Frankie Adams as Moana’s mother, and Rena Owen as Gramma Tala. [Emma Keates]

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Sol Rodríguez and David Denman are flying into Peacemaker. The two actors are joining season two of the James Gunn DCU show, which stars John Cena as the titular anti-hero. Denman’s role has not yet been revealed but Rodríguez will be playing Sasha Bordeaux, a recurring DC character. Season one cast members Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Jennifer Holland, and Steve Agee are also set to return. [Emma Keates]

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Jason George’s Ben Warren is officially checking back into Seattle Grace Hospital as a series regular. George starred in seasons 12 through 14 of the ever-popular Shonda Rhimes show, before leaving for spinoff Station 19. Ben recently resumed his surgical residency, so we’ll see what’s in store for him in season 21 of the legacy series. [Emma Keates]

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Zazie Beetz is joining what has to be the most threatening title of the year: They Will Kill You. The first film from It and Flash husband-wife-collaborators Andy and Barbara Muschietti’s new production company, Nocturna, They Will Kill You will be directed by Russian director Kirill Sokolov. The director best known for the cartoonishly violent Meet The Parents riff, Why Don’t You Just Die, Kirill will make his American debut with this movie about an aspiring maid who enters a strange and potentially dangerous community when she takes a job listing, per Deadline. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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Deadline reports Grace Van Patten is the latest actor hired for the plum role of Amanda Knox, the American exchange student who spent four years in an Italian prison after being wrongfully convicted of a classmate’s murder. On Hulu’s Tell Me Lies, Van Patten steps in for Margret Qualley, who exited earlier this year. The role of Amanda Knox was first made famous by Hayden Panettiere in 2011’s Lifetime movie Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial In Italy. Is there any way we can convince Tell Me Lies to take the same subtitle? “Murder On Trial In Italy” has such a ring to it. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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As the school year is almost over and summer is heating up, model-turned-actor Hunter Schafer is getting her plans in order. Will she be heading back to Euphoria High School for more Euphoria? Well, maybe someday if Sam Levinson ever finishes his final exams. In the meantime, Schaffer’s will watch C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. Is there a better way to spend a summer vacation? Per Variety, Schafer is heading to Blade Runner 2099 opposite Michelle Yeoh, who is said to be playing an aged replicant nearing retirement. The series is expected to stream on Prime Video sometime before Euphoria season three. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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Christina Ricci and Hamish Linklater are heading to the Chop Shop. The Yellowjackets and Midnight Mass stars will lead a crime series set in a 1980s San Fernando Valley funeral home. There, Linklater plays owner David Sconce, who devises some, let’s just say, extreme business ideas to keep his beleaguered funeral home afloat. Ricci plays a journalist investigating all the “mass cremations” and “body harvesting” Deadline warned us about. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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Talk about a dream Blunt rotation. Emily Blunt is in early talks for Steven Spielberg’s latest. Written by his Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp and, get this, based on a story by Spielberg himself, a reluctant writer if there ever was one, the film is set for a May 2025 release. This would mark the director’s first summer release since 2016’s The BFG. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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Employee Of The Month director Greg Coolidge is letting him cook. Dane Cook, that is. The duo who last collaborated on Employee are reteaming for a movie called Guys Night, which sounds about right. Cook plays a husband in a dying marriage who decides the only way he can win her back is by having a great night out with his male co-workers, according to Deadline. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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The upcoming Stephen King adaptation, The Institute, is getting two more inmates. Ben Barnes and Mary-Louise Parker are committed to The Institute for something called MGM+. The eight-episode series follows the kidnapping of 12-year-old Luke, who comes to a hospital filled with children with supernatural powers. Barnes plays a cop from a neighboring town; Parker stars as Ms. Sigsby, the hospital’s Nurse Ratched. [Matt Schimkowitz]

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What can’t Harriet Walter do? The actor, who most recently starred in TV shows like Succession, Silo, Ted Lasso, and Killing Eve(to give you an idea of her range) is now taking on a major political figure. She’s set to play Margaret Thatcher in the British drama Brian And Margaret. Per Deadline, the series is a dramatization of her last TV interview during which she was grilled by journalist and friend Brian Walden (Steve Coogan). The two-parter is directed by Stephen Frears. [Saloni Gajjar]

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Candyman and The Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen, who previously co-starred in an episode of Black Mirror, is back on Netflix. He’s set to lead Man On Fire, which is based on A.J. Quinnell’s book series (Denzel Washington starred in the movie adaptation in 1987). The show follows Creasy, a mercenary suffering from PTSD. His path to redemption is cut short when he’s forced to go back to a life he’s left behind. [Saloni Gajjar]

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Benicio Del Toro will reportedly star in Paul Thomas Anderson’s mysterious next feature, which also includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Alana Haim, and more. This news comes from a Hollywood Reporter roundup of “Hollywood’s Top 100 Attorneys,” however, so this particular addition is certainly subject to change before the film is released. [Emma Keates]

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Miles Teller is graduating from Rooster to Officer. The Top Gun: Maverick star is set to lead an upcoming remake of 1982’s An Officer And A Gentleman, penned by Dana Fox (27 Dresses, The Wedding Date). The original film starred Richard Gere as Zack Mayo, a student at the Aviation Academy who finds himself torn between a new romance with a woman named Paula (Debra Winger) and the strict tutelage from his Marine sergeant (Louis Gossett Jr.) [Emma Keates]

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Until Dawn, (hopefully) the next series in our current run of great video game adaptations, has found its ensemble. The series, which is being directed by David F. Sandberg, has cast Ella Rubin (The Idea Of You), Michael Cimino (Love, Victor), Ji-young Yoo (Expats), and Odessa A’zion (Sitting In Bars With Cake). The logline is still under wraps, but Deadline reports that it’s “being described as an R-rated and terrifying love letter to the horror genre, centering on an ensemble cast.” [Emma Keates]