Gina Gershon, Katherine Waddell, Ethan Slater & Jesse James Keitel To Topline Body Horror ‘The Designer’
EXCLUSIVE: Gina Gershon (Borderlands), Katherine Waddell (Dinner in America), Ethan Slater (Wicked) and Jesse James Keitel (Queer as Folk) have signed on to star in The Designer, a new body horror feature from writer-director Em Johnson.
The film centers on Gerry (Waddell), whose need for an identity pushes her to join the massive multi-level marketing company, Kismetta, opening her up to a world of chaos that succumbs her to her own delusional reality.
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Others in the cast include Michelle Hurd (Star Trek: Picard), Annie Golden (Orange Is the New Black), Jessica Belkin (American Horror Story) and Gwendoline Yeo (Star Wars: The Bad Batch).
Hailing from Incandescent Entertainment, First Bloom Films and Hemlock Circle Productions, the film’s producers are Jiarui Guo (Oh Canada), Warner Davis (The Re-Education of Molly Singer), and Waddell. Yuchuan Cao is serving as co-producer, with WME handling domestic sales.
Currently, Gershon can be seen in Borderlands, Eli Roth’s adaptation of the hit video game for Lionsgate. Over the last few years, she’s also been seen in Roth’s horror hit Thanksgiving and the acclaimed Aubrey Plaza thriller Emily the Criminal, as well as such series as Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens and New Amsterdam.
Previously collaborating with Johnson on her debut feature Balloon Animal, Waddell has also been seen in Adam Rehmeier’s acclaimed Sundance drama Dinner in America, among other projects.
Next to be seen playing Boq, the Munchkinlander friend of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande), in Universal’s two-part adaptation of the hit musical Wicked, Slater has an accomplished stage career, having garnered a Tony Award nomination, as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World and Broadway Beacon Awards, for his Broadway debut in SpongeBob Squarepants: The Broadway Musical. He recently starred in Broadway’s Spamalot and has also appeared on shows like Fosse/Verdon and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Keitel has been seen starring on Peacock’s Queer as Folk reboot, as well as ABC’s crime thriller Big Sky.
Gershon is repped by Artists First, The Artists Partnership, and Schreck Rose Dapello; Slater by CESD, ATA Management, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Keitel by Insurge-Ent, Authentic Talent and Literary Management, and Gang, Tyre, Ramer; Hurd by IAG and TMT Entertainment Group; Golden by CESD; Belkin by Paradigm, Atlas Artists, and Schuller Talent; and Yeo by Pakula/King & Associates.
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