Daniel Zolghadri, Shane Paul McGhie, Jessica Barden & Michael Imperioli Board Max Winkler Pic ‘Last Days Of Basic Cable’
EXCLUSIVE: Daniel Zolghadri (Y2K), Shane Paul McGhie (Poker Face), Jessica Barden (The End of the F***ing World) and Michael Imperioli (The White Lotus) are attached to star in Last Days of Basic Cable, a new film from renowned, rising director Max Winkler (Flower).
Written by Adam Wilson and Justin Taylor, the indie set toward the end of the 1990s watches as four twenty-somethings navigate romance and life in a small New England college town. Zolghadri will play aspiring writer Aaron, with McGhie as his roommate Jason, Barden as Jason’s girlfriend Jessica, and Imperioli as Bob, a drugged out taxi driver who befriends Aaron.
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Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger will produce the film via their Bona Fide Productions (Somewhere in Queens, Little Miss Sunshine) banner. No word yet on when production might kick off.
Best known for his starring role in the A24 coming-of-age film Funny Pages, produced by Josh and Benny Safdie, which landed him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance, Zolghadri was back in business with the studio recently on Y2K, the recently wrapped dial-up disaster comedy helmed by Kyle Mooney, which we were first to report on. The actor has also been seen on Prime Video’s Tales from the Loop, as well as in Bo Burnham’s directorial debut Eighth Grade, HBO’s Fahrenheit 451, Netflix’s Alex Strangelove and the A24 teen crime drama Low Tide.
Most recently appearing in the Roadside comedy Fool’s Paradise marking the directorial debut of Charlie Day, as well as on Peacock’s hit murder mystery series Poker Face, McGhie’s other past credits on the film side include the popular YA romances After and After We Collided and Adam Shankman’s comedy What Men Want. Notable past TV credits include FX’s A Teacher, OWN’s Greenleaf, Fox’s Deputy and Netflix’s Unbelievable.
Best known for starring on the Emmy-nominated dark comedy series The End of the F***ing World, Barden has also been seen on Pieces of Her opposite Toni Collette, Better Things, the Australian drama series Lambs of God, Penny Dreadful and most recently, on ITV’s You & Me. Previously collaborating with Winkler on the boxing drama Jungleland, which had her starring opposite Jack O’Connell and Charlie Hunnam, Barden has additionally led Nicole Reigel’s IFC Films drama Holler and Kelly Oxford’s dramedy Pink Skies Ahead for MTV Studios.
Coming off a much-discussed performance as the Sicily-vacationing adulterer Dominic Di Grasso in the second season of HBO’s smash hit series The White Lotus, Imperioli is an Emmy winner and two-time Golden Globe nominee otherwise best known for his role as Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos. Other recent credits for the actor, who appeared early on in his career in classics like Goodfellas and The Basketball Diaries, include the Sopranos prequel film The Many Saints of Newark, which he narrated, and Regina King’s Oscar-nominated drama One Night in Miami…
On the feature side, Winkler most recently co-wrote, directed and exec produced the aforementioned Jungleland for Paramount. He’s best known for co-writing and directing the Zoey Deutch-led dark dramedy Flower, and prior to that made his feature debut with the romantic comedy Ceremony, starring Michael Angarano and Uma Thurman. In television, Winkler was most recently hired to direct and exec produce a new installment of American Horror Story, after working with Ryan Murphy as the director of multiple episodes of that series, and on titles like The Watcher. He exec produces and directed the pilots for Freeform’s Cruel Summer and Paramount+’s School Spirits, and has additionally worked in the episodic space as a director on shows like Minx, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and New Girl.
Berger and Yerxa famously produced the acclaimed Alexander Payne films Election and Nebraska, as well as Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Feris’ Oscar-winning classic Little Miss Sunshine and such additional titles as Little Children, Cold Mountain and The Peanut Butter Falcon. The pair most recently produced Ray Romano’s directorial debut Somewhere in Queens, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival, and are on board to produce the Election sequel Tracy Flick Can’t Win for Paramount+, as we told you last winter.
Zolghadri is represented by UTA, Mosaic and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern; McGhie by Innovative Artists; Barden by CAA, the UK’s Curtis Brown Group, Range Media Partners and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Imperioli by Gersh, Anonymous Content and Kraditor & Haber; and Winkler by CAA, Entertainment 360 and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
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