Pugh is Park's Little Drummer Girl

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I paid a lot of attention to her co-star Cosmo Jarvis (because I know my audience and our predilection for furry little fuckboys) when Lady Macbeth came out earlier this year, but it should be known I thought that Florence Pugh in the lead role was fuckin-a fantastic. And so today's big news that she is going to star in a miniseries adaptation of John Le Carre's book The Little Drummer Girl for no less than PARK CHAN-WOOK... well that is exciting, you guys. Here's what TLDG is about via Amazon:

"On holiday in Mykonos, Charlie wants only sunny days and a brief escape from England’s bourgeois dreariness. Then a handsome stranger lures the aspiring actress away from her pals—but his intentions are far from romantic. Joseph is an Israeli intelligence officer, and Charlie has been wooed to flush out the leader of a Palestinian terrorist group responsible for a string of deadly bombings. Still uncertain of her own allegiances, she debuts in the role of a lifetime as a double agent in the “theatre of the real.” Haunting and deeply atmospheric, John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl is a virtuoso performance and a powerful examination of morality and justice."

Have any of you read it? This is Park's first project since The Handmaiden blew our socks off (after blowing up our knickers) last yea; Pugh meanwhile's got a ton stacked up on her late, including a WWE family comedy with The Rock & Lena Headey (okay????), that Liam Neeson movie set on a train, and being the token female in that movie starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson's gigantic beard that I told you about. I have to say that this here project with Park looks the most promising for her out of that batch. (Although I am totally into the Liam Neeson train movie, but my guess is her role isn't huge.)
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All Over the Jack

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All the headlines touting this news today have been about Florence Pugh but leave it to me to shake it up and center us back in on the beefcake - the cast for Hereditary director Ari Aster's next film is coming together and so far it includes yes Pugh but also Will Poulter and Jack Reynor, the latter seen above. I was just talking about Reynor recently, saying I hoped he'd find a role worthy of my attraction to him, so I hope this is the one. The funny thing is...

... Poulter and Reynor both co-starred with Hereditary supernova Toni Collette in Glassland back in 2014! I still haven't gotten to see Glassland - it just sort of vanished? Have any of you seen it? I remember looking forward to it and then... nothing. I should seek it out, especially as a Collette Completeist. Anyway the most important thing about this news is that we have info on what Ari Aster's new movie is about now and it sounds very Wicker Man...

"Pugh and Reynor will play a couple that travels to Sweden to visit their friend’s rural hometown for it’s fabled mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult."

Speaking of dudes working with Florence Pugh though...

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This picture of Alexander Skarsgard in Park Chan-wook’s THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL was a real nice thing to come home to (thanks @mac20) pic.twitter.com/YftGYZi6UD

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 30, 2018

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The Girl Caught Between Skarsgard & Shannon

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Michael Shannon has just joined the cast of Park Chan-wook's upcoming miniseries The Little Drummer Girl, which will air on both the BBC and AMC - we've told you about this series twice previously, both times because of amazing enticing casting happenings, and this marks the third so you can imagine we are pretty gosh-darned psyched for number three. The previous two were Lady Macbeth's breakout star Florence Pugh (read here) and the super-Swede Alexander Skarsgard (read that here).

This series is based on a John LeCarre book about a woman on holiday (Pugh) who gets entangled with a sexy dangerous man-stranger (Skarsgard) - Shannon will be playing "an Israeli spy-master" that is plotting against them. Park sounds like he's a big fan of Shannon's and is himself pretty psyched to be working with him; here's what he told Variety:

“The first time I saw Michael was as one of the genius actors who delivered wonderful performances in ‘Revolutionary Road,’ and ever since I’ve remained his loyal fan. I believe Michael will make the perfect Kurtz, a man scarred by history and carrying burdens all too heavy on his shoulders, an Israeli ‘Captain Ahab’ obsessed by his biggest and most elusive nemesis yet.”

Seconded, Park! Anyway no word on when this thing will air - seeing as how it hasn't filmed yet I think we're safe supposing it will be sometime in 2019. Anyway if you'd like six more shots of Michael Shannon wearing suits and being his sexy creep self hit the jump...

Act For Me, Alex

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We have a new project to officially be very very very very excited about, y'all! I mean we was already excited - we told you back on the 3rd about Park Chan-wook's next project, that he's making a BBC/AMC television miniseries out of John le Carré book The Little Drummer Girl that will star Lady Macbeth's big up-n-comer Florence Pugh. Well he's just cast the male lead in the thing and it's (you guessed it already, I am guessing, given that great big beautiful picture I have posted) ... Alexander Skarsgard! Park Chan-wook filming Alexander Skarsgard - my knees be weak. (thx Mac)

Alex did pretty well the last time he tried prestige TV, winning an Emmy for getting his erect dick hit with a tennis racquet in Big Little Lies, so I don't blame him for sticking around on the small screen, especially with prestige like this. The small screen has been very good to Alex. Anyway if you want to know more of the plot, here:

"... the six-part miniseries follows brilliant young actress Charlie (Pugh) who strikes up an acquaintance with an intriguing stranger while on holiday in Greece, but it rapidly becomes apparent that his intentions are far from romantic. The man is Becker (Skarsgård), an Israeli intelligence officer, who entangles her in a complex and high stakes plot which unfolds as she takes on the role of a lifetime in the ‘theatre of the real’."

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Drumming Up Some Interest

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Earlier today EW dropped the first trailer for Park Chan-wook's upcoming AMC miniseries The Little Drummer Girl, starring Florence Pugh, Alexander Skarsgård, and Michael Shannon - see all of our previous posts here (especially this one) - and it looks as stylish and sexy and sun-dappled as you'd expect for a Park-Chan-wook series starring those people and filmed partly on the beaches of Greece.

Yes there are people in it besides Alexander, but I'm not gonna gif them! The copy of the trailer on YouTube isn't as crisp as the one EW uploaded so you should probably just click over to EW (they also have the poster for it) but since I can't post EW's video here (they're all weird about links) I'm gonna post the less crisp YouTube one, whatcha gonna do...

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The Little Drummer Girl hits early November! (thx Mac)

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Cosmo Killing Keoghan

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We've been hearing lots (and rightfully so) about Lady Macbeth's leading lady Florence Pugh lining up films after the success of that picture - most enticingly is Park Chan-wook's Little Drummer Girl miniseries with Alexander Skarsgard - but until today we hadn't heard much about her leading man Cosmo Jarvis, who we sure took a shine to. (See this gratuitous post for all the shine you can handle.) Today though, good news! Cosmo has signed on to co-star opposite one of my favorite up-n-comers, the boy who gave the second best film performance last year, The Killing of a Sacred Deer's Barry Keoghan, in a film called Calm With Horses. It's about an ex-boxer who's being recruited into violent shenanigans while trying to take care of his autistic son. Not sure who's playing who, but Cosom sure looks like an ex-boxer. (Then again, look at this picture of Barry.) Oh and the whole thing is being produced by Michael Fassbender? Okay!

90 Days

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That is how many days you have until Park Chan-wook's miniseries adaptation of John le Carré's book The Little Drummer Girl starring Florence Pugh (as the girl in question) opposite Michael Shannon (as the mustache seen above in question) and Alexander Skarsgard (as the gams in question) premieres on AMC. If you don't feel like getting out a paper calendar and putting a big red X across ninety days to figure that out it premieres on November 19th, and the six part series will then run two hours a night for three nights in a row through the 21st, aka Thanksgiving Eve. Let's hope the only turkey we get that week's on the dinner table, wokka wokka. (thx Mac)

Good Morning, World

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I got the competing schedules a little bit mixed up for Park Chan-wook's The Little Drummer Girl series since it was airing on UK television separately from American TV and I'd started by watching it via the former and ended, I think, via the latter - point being I'm pretty sure the show has run all of its episodes for everybody now on both sides of the pond, all the sides of the pond, but I'm not one hundred percent on that so I'll refrain from getting into spoilers here. Broadly, I thought it was good! It looked fabulous - if you like vintage lamps and concrete buildings and half-naked Alexander Skarsgard, and I do like all of those things, this thing was a goldmine. And Florence Pugh proved Lady Macbeth was no fluke. If anybody's got deeper thoughts (not hard) share in the comments!

Smile Skarsgård Smile

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One of our Most Anticipateds has started filming this week - Park Chan-wook's The Little Drummer Girl, a miniseries adaptation of the usual spy-thriller sorta book by John Le Carre, was spotted filming at the Temple of Poseidon in Greece yesterday. Specifically its stars Alexander Skarsgård, looking all kinds of goofy (for such a big Swedish stud-muffin Askars can be the downright goofiest) and Florence Pugh were sighted - you can see a few more shots of them at JJ. Not on view just yet: Michael Shannon, who's the third lead in the cast. Oh and I just checked IMDb to see if anybody else had joined the cast that we hadn't heard about - Max Irons is up in it too. We like Max Irons. Well looking at Max Irons anyway...