Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
Pedro Pascal will bring the sound of the cello to closing night at the Newport Beach Film Festival, with his new music drama Behemoth! chosen to bring down the curtain on the event’s 27th edition.
The 51-year-old The Last of Us and The Mandalorian star plays gifted cellist Alex Serian in the film, written and directed by Tony Gilroy.
Behemoth! will screen on 22 October as the finale of the California festival, which runs from 15 to 22 October, before Searchlight Pictures releases the movie in US cinemas on 4 December.
Tony and production designer Jade Healy will attend closing night and take part in a conversation before the screening.
Gregg Schwenk, CEO and executive director of the Newport Beach Film Festival, said: “We couldn’t have picked a better way to celebrate 27 years of Newport than closing with a filmmaker as exciting as Tony Gilroy.
“This film has a deeply personal story about what music demands of the people who live inside it – and having Tony and Jade here in person for Q and A is exactly the kind of up-close experience that makes Newport unlike any other festival in the country.”
Pedro’s Alex is a former child prodigy who leaves his position with an orchestra in Chicago and returns to Los Angeles after two decades away. He finds work recording Hollywood film scores while confronting unfinished family business and memories from his past.
The movie features an ensemble including Olivia Wilde, 42, Eva Victor, 32, Alexa Swinton, 17, Kaya Ralls, Erik Griffin, 50, JoBeth Williams, 77, Margarita Levieva, 46, Hank Azaria, 62, and Will Arnett, 56.
Music is central to the production, with nine composers contributing to the film rather than a single composer providing its score.
The group comprises of Michael Abels, 63, Emily Bear, 25, Lukas Frank, Michael Giacchino, 58, James Newton Howard, 75, Henry Jackman, 52, Nami Melumad, 38, Brandon Roberts and Alan Silvestri, 76.
The festival appearance comes during another high-profile year for Pedro.
He returned as Din Djarin in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, released in cinemas in May and directed by Jon Favreau, 59.
The movie continued the story of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, pairing Pedro’s bounty hunter with his young apprentice Grogu and also featuring Sigourney Weaver, 76, and Jeremy Allen White, 35.
Pedro remains closely associated with Joel Miller in HBO’s The Last of Us, while his other best-known television roles include Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones and Javier Peña in Narcos.
His recent big-screen work has also included playing Reed Richards, also known as Mister Fantastic, in Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Tony, meanwhile, created and served as showrunner of the acclaimed Disney+ Star Wars series Andor. His previous film work includes directing Michael Clayton, Duplicity and The Bourne Legacy, as well as writing credits on the first three Bourne films and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Behemoth! is also receiving its world premiere as the Centerpiece selection of the 64th New York Film Festival on 2 October, where Tony, Pedro, Will and Eva are scheduled to take part in a screening and Q A.
The Newport Beach programme also includes A Talent for Murder, Ink, Josephine, La Bola Negra, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Paper Tiger and Wild Horse Nine.
Aaron Burns’ Jimmy, a biopic about Hollywood star Jimmy Stewart, is also among the festival selections, with members of its cast and crew due to take part in a Q and A after its screening.
Last year’s Newport Beach Film Festival closed with Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz.
