Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe Closer and O.5.10 actor Clive Owen has revealed he is set to work with Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi and is also in final talks for an Italian shot-movie by a big name local director.
Owen teased the upcoming projects in a roundtable with journalists at the Taormina Film Festival on Thursday where he is set to receive an honorary award against the backdrop of the picturesque hilltop town’s Ancient Greek amphitheater.
“I can’t say who or what it is because we’re in very early days, but I’m talking about working with an Italian director in Italy next year,” said Owen, noting how he had previously worked in the country with Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino.
“I was lucky enough to do a campaign for Campari years ago with Sorrentino, who I’m a huge fan of. I think his filmed A Great Beauty is one of the great films of the last years,” he recounted, clarifying that Sorrentino is not the director in question this time around.
The actor revealed he had also signed up to work with Ukraine’s Slaboshpytskyi having been impressed by his 2014 Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize winner The Tribe, and the screenplay for his next film.
Slaboshpytskyi currently has announced two projects on the go: Ukraine War-set drama Occupation and The Tiger. Owen declined to comment on whether he had signed up for either of these projects, or a new separate project.
“I am probably not allowed to talk about it but just to say that I am going to be working with him,” he said.
The actor will next be seen on the big screen in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s historical thriller Kristallnacht revisiting the events of the November 1938 pogrom in which the Nazi destroyed thousands of Jewish-owned shops, businesses and synagogues across Germany and Austria.
Owen said the film – also featuring Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds), Bradley James (Vikings: Valhalla), and Steven Berkoff (Beverly Hills Cop) and Alex Pettyfer (The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare) in the cast – which will likely have a festival launch in the coming months.
The actor cited Ruzowitzky’s 2007 film The Counterfeiters as well as the “very, very very good script” as draws to the project.
“It’s about a policeman working that night who is kind of trapped about what he can do because his superiors are behaving in a certain way,” said Owen. “He’s going trying to do his job like he always does, but things are going horribly wrong. There was something about the film that I was attracted to because it was unusual, it wasn’t an obvious thing.
“It’s about somebody who is going about trying to do their job, but witnessing horror after horror and not being able to do anything about it… there was something about that premise… it’s important story to be telling.”
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