Breaking Baz: ‘How To Have Sex’ Star Mia McKenna-Bruce Replacing Riley Keough In Claire Denis Movie ‘The Cry Of The Guards’
EXCLUSIVE: Mia McKenna-Bruce, recipient of last year’s BAFTA Rising Star laureate and star of Molly Manning Walker’s breakthrough hit How to Have Sex, has joined Claire Denis’ new film The Cry of the Guards. She replaces the previously announced Riley Keough.
The fast-rising British actress travels to the Republic of Senegal in West Africa next week for principal photography on the Denis movie with longtime attached actors Matt Dillon (Asteroid City, You, Me and Dupree, Drugstore Cowboy) and Isaach De Bankolé, who starred in Denis’ 1990 masterwork No Fear, No Die and her films Chocolat and White Material, and more recently in The Brutalist and Black Panther.
More from Deadline
Denis returns to the continent that defined her childhood to make The Cry of the Guards, which during development was also known as The Fence — and there’s chatter about it reverting back to that title — to film the intense drama focusing on four main characters: three men and a woman.
A bon-bon for those who guessed that McKenna-Bruce takes the role of the woman! She will play the part of Leoné, whose partner is among a group at the center of the plot involving a man who turns up in a sub-Saharan country insisting on the release of his brother’s body, who was supposedly killed in an industrial accident.
Keough’s name was still attached to The Cry of the Guards as recently as mid-December. There’s no official word as to why the Mad Max: Fury Road and American Honey star is no longer on board.
The film’s an auspicious start to the year for McKenna-Bruce and a sublime opportunity to work with a distinguished auteur. Denis’ celebrated films include High Life, The Intruder and Beau Travail.
On Wednesday, McKenna-Bruce will partner with writer, director and actor Will Sharpe, so good in Jesse Eisenberg’s bittersweet comedy A Real Pain, at BAFTAs Piccadilly HQ to announce this year’s BAFTA film nominations.
Ordinarily, revealing the noms is a fun gig. Tomorrow though, McKenna and Sharpe will need to strike the right mood because the announcements come at a time when the awards season is in flux due to the destructive fires in Southern California, devastating the lives of tens of thousands, many of whom work in the screen industry.
The Oscars and several craft awards nominations have been postponed in Los Angeles because of the blazes, which have killed at least 24 people, with at least two dozen others missing. More than 100,000 people have been left homeless.
And, frankly, because of the fires, many couldn’t care less about awards season, except that the season’s ecosystem represents thousands of jobs. I digress, but wanted to emphasize the fine line McKenna-Bruce and Sharpe must tread tomorrow.
It’s thrilling to have watched from afar how much McKenna-Bruce’s career has grown since I saw her exquisitely judged performance in the Film4- and British Film Institute-developed How to Have Sex at the Cannes Film Festival two years. The Mubi release won the Un Certain Regard Award. McKenna-Bruce went on to win British Independent Film Awards’ Best Lead Performance Prize and the London Critics Circle Film Award honor for Breakthrough Performer of the Year.
Elsewhere, McKenna-Bruce will lead Netflix’s Agatha Christie country house mystery series The Seven Dials Mystery as the fizzingly inquisitive sleuth Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent. The show is written by Broadchurch’s Chris Chibnall and directed by Chris Sweeney (The Tourist, Apples Never Fall).
The Christie whodunnit, originally published in 1929, is executive produced by The Crown’s Suzanne Mackie and Chris Sussman (Good Omens, Ludwig).
Cast includes Helena Bonham Carter (One Life, Les Misérables the Harry Potter films, A Room with a View), Martin Freeman (The Responder, Black Panther, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) and Edward Bluemel (Killing Eve, My Lady Jane).
Best of Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
