Rachel McAdams to Star in Anton Corbijn’s ‘A Most Wanted Man’

Riding high off two massive hits in the Oscar-nominated Midnight in Paris and the romantic drama The Vow, the lovely Rachel McAdams will keep herself busy the rest of the year with two more high profile roles. As you may already know, I’m always super excited when there is McAdams news to report and we have a lot to cover today.

First off, the Toronto-native will star alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman in Anton Corbijn’s long developing John Le Carré adaptation A Most Wanted Man. The espionage thriller centers on a destitute Chechen ex-prisoner who arrives illegally in Hamburg with a claim on his late father’s ill-gotten fortune. As he quickly becomes the target of U.S., British and German intelligence, an idealistic young female lawyer and incongruous British banker become entwined in this deadly web of intrigue.

There is no official word on which character McAdams will play but given the synopsis below, we presume it will be the lawyer while Seymour Hoffman will take on the British banker. Needless to say, this is incredibly exciting. Le Carre was behind classic espionage novels such as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The Constant Gardner and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which were all eventually successfully adapted into films and Corbijn’s (The American) more meditative style should fit the material like a glove (as seen last year with Tomas Alfredson and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). While we have no word on who will play the central character, this sounds like some meaty parts for McAdams and Hoffman.

Production is tentatively set to begin in September. Read the book’s synopsis below [Amazon]

A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa. Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, determines to save Issa from deportation. Soon her client’s survival becomes more important to her than her own career. In pursuit of Issa’s mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the sixty-year-old scion of Brue Freres, a failing British bank based in Hamburg. A triangle of impossible loves is born. Meanwhile, scenting a sure kill in the so-called War on Terror, the spies of three nations converge upon the innocents. Poignant, compassionate, peopled with characters the reader never wants to let go, A Most Wanted Man is alive with humour, yet prickles with tension until the last heart-stopping page. It is also a work of deep humanity, and uncommon relevance to our times.

But before that, McAdams will fall in love with a time traveler once again as THR reports that the actress will star in About Time. She replaces the previously attached Zooey Deschanel in the Richard Curtis (Love Actually) movie which centers on a man (Domhnall Gleeson) who can travel back in time and change situations for the better. Naturally, he meets the woman of his dreams that way. Unlike The Time Traveler’s Wife though, About Time is described as a “fantastic feel-good movie”.

Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie, Lydia Wilson and Vanessa Kirby are also part of the cast. Filming is set to begin in London in June.

Over the years, McAdams has made quite a few head-scratching moves and we have all lamented why an actress of her talent is still doing movies like The Vow. But while we all wished that she would do less romantic fluff, one can’t deny that she has found quite the balance between maintaining her box office appeal and working on much more interesting projects. And let’s not forget that McAdams will next be seen in the Terrence Malick Untitled Romantic Drama alongside Ben Affleck later this year (cross fingers). On a final note, we will leave you with the first still from Brian De Palma’s thriller Passion which was released a few days ago.