News

June! It’s always such a refreshing chunk of Gregorian real estate, the promise of summer looming in its most ideal form, not yet curdled into the desultory, bedraggled blast-furnace blood factories of late August and September. It’s also when cinema begins to stretch her legs again after an invariably prolonged awards season hangover. And yes, this means a lot of sweaty studio would-be blockbusters. But it also means Don’t-Miss Indies. So! Seek out your local art house and keep those summertime blues at bay.

The Actor

When: Now

Where: Theaters, VOD

Director: Duke Johnson

Cast: André Holland, Gemma Chan, May Calamawy, Asim Chaudhry

Why We’re Excited: Somehow it’s been a full decade since Charlie Kaufman’s melancholic stop-motion feature Anomalisa left audiences both dazzled by its technical brilliance and disconsolate by its gutting existential questioning. Kaufman of course has gone on to direct 2020’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things...

The Hulu June 2025 premiere schedule has been announced and can be viewed below. The streaming service has also revealed the titles that will leave next month.

The Hulu Originals for the month include Atsuko Okatsuka: Father, Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything, The Bear Season 4, The Bravest Knight Season 2B, Call Her Alex, and Predator: Killer of Killers.

The Bear Season 4 Highlights

A look at the originals, exclusives, and premieres that are part of the Hulu June 2025 lineup.

Not Her First Rodeo: Complete Season 1 (Freeform – Streaming June 6)

A six-part docuseries following five remarkable women inside the adrenaline-fueled world of professional bull riding as they battle in and out of the ring – risking life and limb for a shot at a championship buckle, eight seconds at a time.

Predator: Killer of Killers: Film Premiere (Hulu Original – Streaming June 6)

An original animated action-adventure film set in the Predator universe. The anthology story...

Welcome to the Gold Ticket, your VIP guide to the best of award-worthy pop culture for the weekend ahead, curated by the Gold Derby team of experts. (April 4 - April 6)

The main stream

Michelle Williams is Dying for Sex.

The Academy Award nominee and Emmy winner for Best Limited/TV Movie Actress for her work in Fosse/Verdon stars in the new FX limited series, which is adapted from the Wondery podcast of the same name. The eight-episode series (now streaming on Hulu) is inspired by the true story of Molly Kochan, who, after discovering that her cancer returned and is incurable, leaves her husband (portrayed on the show by Jay Duplass) to explore her sexuality with the time she has left. Deftly balancing comedy with frequently grim subject matter, the surprisingly raunchy series — which also stars Jenny Slate as Molly's best friend with whom she embarks on her new...

“The Actor” (2025) feels like a Charlie Kaufman script directed by Damien Chazelle. It is bittersweet, charming, and immersive like a Chazelle film that lingers in your mind long after, but it follows a dreamlike logic and revels in its inherent absurdity like a Kaufman script. Somehow, their distinct styles coalesce in Duke Johnson’s surrealistic mystery film to offer a captivating confusion. It constantly puts its protagonist, Paul Cole (André Holland), at odds with himself. After waking up from an accident, he learns that he was beaten up for sleeping with a married woman. He loses most of his memories.

The husband shows no mercy to this man and throws him out. Suddenly, he finds himself stranded in a small town with no one to call his own. He enters with no recollection of the life he had led till then. He only vaguely recalls someone calling him ‘an actor’ in the hospital.

Last Updated on March 31, 2025

The Actor has been in development for quite a while. Adapted from the Donald E. Westlake novel Memory, the film follows an amnesiac actor, played by Andre Holland, who finds himself stranded in a small Ohio town in the 1950s. It comes from director Duke Johnson, who previously co-directed the stop-motion comedy/drama Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman. Known for his work in stop-motion, which includes stints on Community and more, Johnson makes his solo directorial debut.

Recently, we had the chance to talk to Johnson about his long-gestating project, with it initially having been earmarked for Ryan Gosling, before being reconfigured as a vehicle for Andre Holland. Widely acclaimed for his starring role on The Knick, Holland is a rising star, and we were lucky enough to chat with him and his co-star in the film, Gemma Chan, who many of our readers will know from...

In the surreal and Kafka-esque drama, “The Actor,” starring André Holland (“Moonlight”)and Gemma Chan (“Crazy Rich Asians”), New York-based theater actor Paul Cole (Holland) is wrapping up an out-of-town engagement when a casual adultery has a disastrous consequence. Helmed by filmmaker Duke Johnson, known for co-directing “Anomalisa” with Charlie Kaufman (“Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”), in the film, Cole can’t remember who he was, where he lives, or even, for a time, what he does.

Continue reading ‘The Actor’: André Holland & Gemma Chan Talk The Joys Of Working On Duke Johnson’s Surreal Identity Drama at The Playlist.

When Duke Johnson was making the Oscar-nominated animated feature “Anomalisa” with Charlie Kaufman, Kaufman suggested Johnson read “Memory,” a lost Donald Westlake novel that had recently been published. (Kaufman had heard about its resurrection on NPR.) The novel, about a man named Paul Cole, who finds himself stranded in a small town with a head injury after being attacked by the jealous husband of Paul’s lover, had been completed in 1963 and shopped around by Westlake, with no takers. An attempt was made in the 1970s to shop it around again but Westlake, one of the great American crime fiction writers, declined. After his death in 2008, it was finally published by Hard Case Crime two years later.

“[Kaufman] was telling me that he really liked it, because what was interesting about it is that it’s by this famous crime novelist and that it was in the guise of a noir thriller,...

André Holland is on a roll with three new films, ‘The Last Supper’ tests the faith-based market, hot Vietnamese director Tran Thanh is back, and documentary October 8 examines the explosion of antisemitism after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

A handful of big indies are out with wide releases from Focus Features (Black Bag) to A24 (Opus) to Falling Forward Films and Ketchup Entertainment (Looney Tunes: The Day The Earth Blew Up).

Neon, the indie distributor of the moment, is out with mystery-thriller The Actor, André Holland’s third leading role this year after Sundance-premiering Love, Brooklyn by Rachael Abigail Holder, which Holland also produced, and The Dutchman, by Andre Gaines, which just debuted at SXSW. The Actor opens in NYC at the Angelika, Holland doing Q&As, at The Grove in LA and top 10 markets – 20+ screens in all.

Based on the novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake, the film,...

After co-directing 2015’s Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson’s solo follow-up is an adaptation of the Donald E. Westlake’s novel Memory. Paul Cole (André Holland) is the eponymous actor––or so people tell him is his occupation after he wakes up in small-town Ohio with a mysterious head injury and zero memories. There’s a beautiful woman, Edna (Gemma Chan), and a small cast of characters who may or may not have Paul’s best interests at heart. It’s a classic noir setup, but Johnson is less interested in doling out narrative breadcrumbs that build into a perfectly interlocking narrative so that audiences can solve a central mystery––instead he centers us firmly within the headspace of Paul, prioritizing larger philosophical questions about identity along with a budding romance between Paul and Edna. Johnson was transfixed watching Chan deliver a monologue about lost love in Steven Soderbergh...

Duke Johnson ('Anomalisa') discusses his mysterious, moody masterpiece with André Holland and Gemma Chan, the book it's based on, and how Ryan Gosling is involved. 'The Actor' is in theaters March 14 from Neon.

When New York actor Paul Cole is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio, he loses his memory and finds himself stranded in a mysterious small town where he struggles to get back home and reclaim what he's lost.

André Holland & Gemma Chan discuss their remarkably unique new film 'The Actor,' written and directed by Duke Johnson ('Anomalisa'). The pair discuss the liberation and challenge of filming in such a surreal, allegorical world, discuss their theories of the mysterious film, and touch on future projects such as 'Josephine' with Channing Tatum and 'The Revisionist' with Dustin Hoffman. See 'The Actor' in theaters starting March 14, 2025, from Neon.

Based on the novel 'Memory' by Donald E. Westlake, 'The Actor' finds Paul Cole (André Holland) stranded in a mysterious small town with no memory of who he is or how he got here. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer Edna (Chan). As bits and pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery,...

For as much light as The Actor is bathed in, it’s equally shrouded in darkness. Duke Johnson’s solo directorial debut is a film of bleary sun and swallowing night and almost nothing in-between. It wouldn’t make sense to depict the in-between. That would be realistic, and The Actor is anything but real.

Jubilant strings swell over vintage opening credits as we peer at the peaks of skyscrapers in a still, top-of-the-cityscape shot not too dissimilar from the angle we get on Saffron City in the original Super Smash Bros. The twinkling black-and-white image has a glowy 1950s TV-hour charm, the text surrounded by mid-century atomic sparkle logos (see: poster). It transitions neatly into the doomy film noir scene we open on––the inciting incident.

In a motel room, mid-womanizing, our pitiable protagonist (a terrific André Holland) gets his comeuppance: a chair to the face. As it so happens,...

The Actor marks Duke Johnson’s first foray into live-action, an ambitious adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s crime thriller Memory. Here is a film that reconfigures familiar noir motifs into an enigmatic stage of human recollection.

Set against the backdrop of mid-20th century America—a period that feels as both crisply defined and nebulously dreamlike as a half-remembered postcard—the film introduces us to a once-esteemed actor, now robbed of his past after a brutal assault. One might quip that his memory seems to have taken an unscheduled vacation.

The narrative paints a portrait of a man tasked with reinventing himself in an environment that is as unforgiving as it is mysteriously surreal. The plot’s premise is both literal and metaphorical: the protagonist’s search for identity mirrors the era’s own oscillation between tradition and modernity.

The film’s design, replete with theatrical staging and visually striking ambiguity,...

There’s something initially alluring about the way Duke Johnson uses surrealism in his solo directorial feature The Actor. The film stars the gifted André Holland as a theater performer who becomes an amnesiac after suffering a violent blow to the head. His attacker is the angry husband of the woman with whom he’s having a torrid affair. We don’t see much of the instigating incident, but Johnson offers enough glimpses at the start of the film to help us figure out what happened.

The Anomalisa co-director adapted this screenplay, which he wrote with Stephen Cooney, from Donald E. Westlake’s thriller Memory. The novel is propulsive; its drama immediate and matter-of-fact. Johnson slows it down for us in The Actor, choosing a gauzy style and languid pace to shape his film like a dream you might appreciate but ultimately struggle to remember.

When we meet Paul Cole...

It can be difficult to step out of the shadow of a creative collaborator, which Duke Johnson does fitfully with “The Actor,” his first live-action theatrical feature. Though Johnson has had a steady career for close to two decades, principally in stop-motion animation for television, he is perhaps best known for co-directing “Anomalisa” with Charlie Kaufman. A full decade later, Kaufman (who serves as an executive producer on “The Actor”) still has a marked influence on Johnson’s solo directorial debut, though it is awkwardly grafted onto a noir-inflected tale — based on the novel “Memory” by Donald E. Westlake — of a man recovering from amnesia and attempting to rediscover who he is.

That man is Paul Cole (André Holland), a member of a New York City theater troupe on the last leg of a Midwest tour. As the film begins, he is preparing to bed a married woman before her...

Co-directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, 2015’s “Anomalisa” told a walking nightmare of a story about a motivational speaker who perceives (almost) everyone he meets to be the same identical stranger. They all share the same face, they all speak with the same voice, and they all reflect the inescapable self-absorption of the main character, whose hell is that he can only see the world through the prism of his own two eyes.

“The Actor” — Johnson’s solo feature debut — is a similarly dream-like film about a man suffering from the exact opposite problem. His name is Paul Cole, he’s a rising star of the New York stage, and we’re first introduced to him on a dark and fateful night in the fictional town of Jeffords, Ohio, where his theater troupe has just performed their latest show. Paul takes a local gal to his hotel room for a nightcap,...

"There's something wrong me, Edna. I don't know who I am!" Neon has unveiled an official trailer for an intriguing new film titled The Actor, starring Andre Holland as actor Paul Cole. Neon already has this set for release in March - even though it hasn't shown up at any festivals before then. It's the latest feature film made by the filmmaker who made the stop-motion animation film Anomalisa back in 2017. When New York actor Paul Cole is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio, he loses his memory and finds himself stranded in a mysterious small town where he struggles to get back home and reclaim what he's lost. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer. As bits & pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery, appearances can't be trusted,...

Neon and Anomalisa director Duke Johnson are bringing something twisty and mysterious this Wednesday with a trailer for The Actor, a bizarre amnesiac tale filled with mischief, misinformation, and malcontents. It stars André Holland as a man with no memory surrounded by suspicious characters and a beautiful stranger who wants to help him solve the mystery of his past and become a part of his future.

Here’s the official synopsis for The Actor courtesy of Neon:

“Based on the novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake, The Actor finds Paul Cole (Holland) stranded in a mysterious small town with no memory of who he is or how he got here. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer (Chan). As bits and pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery,...

Neon has unveiled the official trailer and teaser poster for “The Actor,” an upcoming noir drama directed by Duke Johnson, known for co-directing the animated film “Anomalisa.” This marks Johnson’s live-action directorial debut. The film is set to hit theaters on March 14, 2025.

Based on Donald E. Westlake’s 2010 novel “Memory,” “The Actor” stars André Holland as Paul Cole, a man who finds himself stranded in a mysterious small town with no recollection of his identity or how he arrived there. As he starts anew, he forms a relationship with local costume designer Edna, portrayed by Gemma Chan. As fragments of his past gradually surface, Paul endeavors to uncover his true self, navigating a reality where time is elusive and appearances are deceptive.

The supporting cast includes May Calamawy, Olwen Fouéré, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney, Joe Cole, Tracey Ullman, Tanya Reynolds, Asim Chaudhry, Youssef Kerkour, Edward Hogg, Thomas Dominique, Fabien Frankel,...

After co-helming Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman, we’ve long anticipated Duke Johnson’s next feature The Actor. A decade since the filmmaker’s last film, the drama is finally set for a release from Neon, and it’s much sooner than expected. The André Holland-led noir will open in theaters in less than a month, on March 14, and the first trailer and poster have now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Based on the novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake, The Actor finds Paul Cole (Holland) stranded in a mysterious small town with no memory of who he is or how he got here. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer Edna (Chan). As bits and pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery, appearances can’t be trusted, and...

“The Actor” is ready to wake up.

The new movie, from “Anomalisa” director Duke Johnson, stars André Holland and Gemma Chan, and you can watch the brand-new trailer right now.

The official synopsis notes that the story follows “Paul Cole (Holland) stranded in a mysterious small town with no memory of who he is or how he got here. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer Edna (Chan). As bits and pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery, appearances can’t be trusted and it’s unclear which of his identities is real.”

May Calamawy, Asim Chaudhry, Joe Cole, Fabien Frankel, Olwen Fouéré, Edward Hogg, Toby Jones, Youssef Kerkour, Simon McBurney, Tanya Reynolds, Tracey Ullman and Scott Alexander Young also star.

What’s fascinating about “The Actor” is that...

Duke Johnson is making his solo directing debut with the highly-anticipated noir, “The Actor.”

Johnson reunites with his “Anomalisa” co-director Charlie Kaufman to executive produce “The Actor,” which stars André Holland as a man who realizes he has no idea what his true identity is after surviving a brutal attack in 1950s Ohio. Johnson co-wrote the script with Stephen Cooney, which is based on the novel “Memory” by Donald E. Westlake.

The official synopsis reads: “Paul Cole (Holland) is stranded in a mysterious small town with no memory of who he is or how he got here. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer Edna (Gemma Chan). As bits and pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery, appearances can’t be trusted, and it’s unclear which of his identities is real.

You may recall many moons ago, “Anomalisa” animator and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Duke Johnson—he co-directed the film with writer/director Charlie Kaufman—had a new live-action film in the works called “The Actor.” The film was to star Ryan Gosling, who was also producing; it was a big screen take on Donald E. Westlake’s novel “Memory.”

Read More: ‘The Actor’: Neon To Distribute The New Film From Ryan Gosling & ‘Anomalisa’ Director Duke Johnson

Gosling was to play the role of Paul Cole, a man who must deal with his damaged memory as he struggles to rebuild his life after being left for dead and hospitalized in 1950s Ohio.

Continue reading André Holland & Gemma Chan Star In ‘Anomalisa’ Helmer Duke Johnson’s Neon Film ‘The Actor,’ Which Has Completed Production at The Playlist.

André Holland (Passing) and Gemma Chan (Don’t Worry Darling) will top Neon‘s The Actor, the second feature (and first in live-action) from Oscar-nominated Anomalisa helmer Duke Johnson, which has wrapped production. Holland takes over the male lead from Ryan Gosling, who was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts but remains aboard the project as an executive producer.

André Holland behind the scenes of The Actor

The film scripted by Johnson and Stephen Cooney is based on the bestselling novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake and tells the story of actor Paul Cole (Holland), who finds himself stranded in 1950s Ohio, suffering from severe memory loss after a brutal attack, struggling to find his way back to his life in New York and reclaim what he has lost.

Additional cast set for the film includes Tracey Ullman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Toby Jones (Empire of Light), Simon McBurney (Wolfwalkers...

Buyers respond in France, Italy, Scandinavia, Latin America.

Illustrating the enduring readiness of independent theatrical buyers to step up for coveted packages with star attachments, Endeavor Content has concluded a raft of prestige international deals on noir tale The Actor with Ryan Gosling in the lead.

Following the recent North American deal with Neon, rights to the 1950’s-set story have gone in France (Metropolitan), Italy (Notorious), Scandinavia (Scanbox), Eastern Europe (Vertical Distribution), Cis (Capella Film), Middle East (Salim Ramia), Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), and Latin America (Sun).

Endeavor Content launched sales on The Actor in early March at the virtual EFM,...

Neon has acquired the North American rights to “The Actor,” a film noir from director Duke Johnson and starring Ryan Gosling. Additionally, filmmaker Charlie Kaufman has joined the film as an executive producer.

Neon, which was also the distributor of “Parasite,” acquired “The Actor” in a competitive bidding war. The film is based on the bestselling book “Memory” by Donald E. Westlake.

Set in the 1950s, “The Actor” stars Gosling as Paul Cole, who has been stranded in Ohio after a brutal attack. As he finds himself suffering from severe memory loss, he struggles to find his way back to his life in New York and reclaim what he has lost.

Johnson, who directed the stop-motion animated “Anomalisa” along with Kaufman, wrote the script with Stephen Cooney.

Gosling is also producing “The Actor” alongside Waypoint Entertainment’s Ken Kao. Johnson will produce with Abigail Spencer under their Innerlight Films production banner.

Distributor Neon has scooped up North American rights to a new movie from “Anomalisa” director Duke Johnson. Titled “The Actor,” the film is being billed as a noir and will star Ryan Gosling. It’s based on the bestselling novel “Memory” by Donald E. Westlake, and Charlie Kaufman (who co-directed “Anomalisa” with Johnson) is also on board as an executive producer. According to Deadline, the buy was in the seven-figure range.

Here’s the synopsis from Neon: “Stranded in 1950s Ohio after a brutal attack, actor Paul Cole (Gosling), suffering from severe memory loss, struggles to find his way back to his life in New York and reclaim what he has lost. ‘The Actor’ follows a thrilling journey we must all make, to find home, to find love and ultimately to find ourselves.”

This will mark Duke Johnson’s first solo feature film directing credit. He most recently served as...

Exclusive: In a competitive situation, Parasite distributor Neon has come out on top for North American rights to Ryan Gosling package The Actor, the next movie from Anomalisa director Duke Johnson. We hear the pre-buy is in the mid seven-figure range.

Oscar-nominee Gosling will play actor Paul Cole who becomes stranded in 1950s Ohio after a brutal attack. Suffering from severe memory loss, he struggles to find his way back to his life in New York and reclaim what he has lost.

The hot virtual EFM project is based on the best-selling noir novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake. Johnson penned the script alongside Stephen Cooney. Johnson’s Anomalisa collaborator Charlie Kaufman has newly boarded as executive producer.

Jeff Deutchman negotiated the deal for Neon with CAA Media Finance and Endeavor Content, who are co-repping U.S. rights. Endeavor Content is handling international sales.

La La Land and First Man...

Neon has landed the North American right to Ryan Gosling starrer The Actor.

Duke Johnson is behind the movie based on best-selling novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake. Gosling will play actor Paul Cole, who, stranded in 1950s Ohio after a brutal attack and suffering from severe memory loss, struggles to find his way back to his life in New York and reclaim what he has lost. Johnson penned the script alongside Stephen Cooney.

Gosling will produce the film with Waypoint Entertainment’s Ken Kao along with Johnson and Abigail Spencer under their Innerlight Films production banner and Make Good’s Paul Young....

Neon has landed the North American right to Ryan Gosling starrer The Actor.

Duke Johnson is behind the movie based on best-selling novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake. Gosling will play actor Paul Cole, who, stranded in 1950s Ohio after a brutal attack and suffering from severe memory loss, struggles to find his way back to his life in New York and reclaim what he has lost. Johnson penned the script alongside Stephen Cooney.

Gosling will produce the film with Waypoint Entertainment’s Ken Kao along with Johnson and Abigail Spencer under their Innerlight Films production banner and Make Good’s Paul Young....

By any terms, Berlin’s 2021 European Film Market will deliver its smallest pre-sales market in years. Covid-19 has put back productions, created distribution bottlenecks, and provoked huge uncertainty about cinema theater re-openings.

But there will still be titles – in development, in production and complete – across a broad gamut to whet buyers’ appetites, even at times have them reaching for their wallets.

The following are a curated selection of buzz titles, ranging from big budget to accessible arthouse.

Top Sellers

“The Actor”

Director: Duke Johnson

Writers: Duke Johnson, Stephen Cooney

Cast: Ryan Gosling

Producers: Gosling, Ken Kao (Waypoint Entertainment), Johnson, Abigail Spencer (Innerlight Films), Paul Young (Make Good Banner)

New York actor Paul Cole is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio. Stripped of his memory and stranded in a small town, he struggles to get back home, and piece together his life.

Sales: CAA Media Finance, Endeavor Content

“Black Flies...

Not unlike Michael Fassbender (who recently became attached to David Fincher’s next film), Ryan Gosling has stayed relatively quiet the last few years, with his last on-screen appearance in 2018’s First Man. He’s now gearing up for a busy near future with Leigh Whannell’s Wolfman, the Russo brothers’ The Gray Man, and Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Project Hail Mary all on the table. We can now add another film to the roster.

He’s set to star in The Actor, which will be directed by Duke Johnson (who helmed Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman). Scripted by Johnson and Stephen Cooney as adapted from Donald E. Westlake’s 2011 crime novel Memory. Check out the synopsis below via Deadline:

Gosling will play New York actor Paul Cole, who is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio. Stripped of his memory and stranded in a mysterious small town,...

Ryan Gosling already has several new projects in the works, but one more won’t hurt. Gosling is now set to star in The Actor, a thriller based on the Donald E. Westlake novel Memory. Gosling will play a 1950s actor from New York named Paul Cole, who is beaten, left for dead, and suffering from amnesia in a […]

The post ‘The Actor’ Will Star Ryan Gosling As an Actor With Amnesia Stranded in a Mysterious Small Town appeared first on /Film.

Ryan Gosling is set to star in The Actor as a Hollywood icon in the 1950s struggling to reclaim his memory after a horrific beating. Based on the novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake, The Actor will be directed by Duke Johnson using a script co-written by Johnson and Stephen Cooney. Gosling and Johnson will produce alongside Waypoint Entertainment's Ken Kao, Innerlight Films' Abigail Spencer, and Make Good's Paul Young.

Per Deadline, The Actor stars Ryan Gosling as New York actor Paul Cole, a man "who is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio. Stripped of his memory and stranded in a mysterious small town, Paul struggles to get back home, piece together and reclaim the life and identity he's lost. The Actor follows a journey relatable to many: to find home, to find love, and ultimately to find ourselves."

The Actor is one of many projects in...

Exclusive: In what shapes up as a hot package for the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin, Ryan Gosling has committed to star in The Actor, with Duke Johnson directing a script he wrote with Stephen Cooney, based on Donald E. Westlake’s hard boiled novel Memory.

Gosling will produce with Waypoint Entertainment’s Ken Kao, Johnson and his Innerlight Films partner Abigail Spencer, and Paul Young through his Make Good Banner.

Gosling will play New York actor Paul Cole, who is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio. Stripped of his memory and stranded in a mysterious small town, Paul struggles to get back home, piece together and reclaim the life and identity he’s lost. The Actor follows a journey relatable to many: to find home, to find love, and ultimately to find ourselves. For those like me who long to see Gosling in another stylish and gritty action vehicle like Drive,...

Ryan Gosling is set to star in The Actor, an adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s novel Memory.

Duke Johnson will direct the film and produce with Abigail Spencer under their Innerlight Films production banner. Gosling, who will also produce alongside Ken Kao, will play the lead role of Paul Cole, who must deal with his damaged memory as he struggles to rebuild his life after being left for dead and hospitalized in 1950s Ohio.

Cole follows a thrilling journey to find home, love and ultimately himself. Gosling and Kao’s partnership follows their recent project announcements of Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s ...

Ryan Gosling is set to star in The Actor, an adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s novel Memory.

Duke Johnson will direct the film and produce with Abigail Spencer under their Innerlight Films production banner. Gosling, who will also produce alongside Ken Kao, will play the lead role of Paul Cole, who must deal with his damaged memory as he struggles to rebuild his life after being left for dead and hospitalized in 1950s Ohio.

Cole follows a thrilling journey to find home, love and ultimately himself. Gosling and Kao’s partnership follows their recent project announcements of Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s ...

Cinema Retro London correspondent Adrian Smith with Hammer actress Vera Day.

By Adrian Smith

Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

If you’re in London during the next two weeks, be sure to check out this fabulous new festival and exhibition based on Hammer’s legendary horror films.The event was launched on the 27th October at the Idea Generation gallery in Shoreditch, to which Cinema Retro was invited. We were told it was a private view of this exhibition of previously unseen photos and artwork, along with more well known stills and publicity photos. However, it was the most public “private view” we have ever seen. This could have been down to a resurgence in the popularity of Hammer, tied in with new film production, or it could have been the endless bottles of free cider.

Several Hammer-related guests were in attendance, including Paul Cole, John Hough,...