Kerry Condon Joins Andrew Scott & Brendan Fraser In D-Day Movie ‘Pressure’, Filming To Begin Next Month
EXCLUSIVE: BAFTA winner and Oscar nominee Kerry Condon (The Banshees Of Inisherin) is joining Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser in Working Title and Studiocanal‘s upcoming D-Day movie Pressure.
Filming is due to get underway in the UK next month on the ticking-clock drama about the tense days leading up to the Normandy landings. Condon will play Dwight D. Eisenhower’s trusted aide Captain Kay Summersby.
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The true story will see All of Us Strangers and Ripley star Scott play Britain’s Chief Meteorological Officer James Stagg, whose job it was to inform Eisenhower of weather conditions that would make or break their Normandy invasion. The complex decision-making was critical in the fate of WWII and the course of history.
Summersby served as a chauffeur and later as personal secretary to Army General Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Commander of the Allies (and later U.S. President). The two spent a significant amount of time together until the war ended and they became very close; some writers have suggested a sexual relationship between the two, although people who knew both of them at the time have rejected that claim, as have most of Eisenhower’s biographers.
Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai) will direct Pressure, which is due to start shooting in the UK in September. Additional casting is underway, with Studiocanal handling world sales.
Olivier Award winner David Haig and Maras wrote the screenplay based on Haig’s critically lauded play, which explores the personal and military stresses on Stagg and how tensions grew between the teams with different weather forecasts for the date of the proposed D-Day. The film will concentrate on the pressure cooker of the decision-making but also capture the scale of the landings.
The official synopsis reads: “In the 72 hours leading up to D-Day, all the pieces are in place except for one key element — the British weather. Britain’s Chief Meteorological Officer James Stagg is called upon to deliver the most consequential forecast in history, locking him into a tense standoff with the entire Allied leadership. The wrong conditions could devastate the largest-ever seaborne invasion, while any delay risks German intelligence catching on. With only his trusted aide Captain Kay Summersby to confide in, and haunted by a catastrophic D-Day rehearsal, the final decision rests with Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. With only hours to go, the fate of the war and the lives of millions hang in the balance.”
Better Call Saul actress Condon is coming off acclaim for Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin. She is currently in production on Apple’s big-budget F1 movie and has Disney+ and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars sci-fi series Skeleton Crew upcoming, in which she stars alongside Jude Law.
Condon is represented by Chris Andrews, Dar Rollins, and Celestine Au at CAA, Joe Powell at Curtis Brown and Peg Donegan at Framework.
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