Five More Join James Gunn’s The Belko Experiment; Shooting Begins
John Squires
|
Shooting officially began today on The Belko Experiment, and several new additions to the cast have just been announced via James Gunn’s Facebook page. James Earl, Brent Sexton, Mikaela Hoover, Joe Fria, and Ben Davis have all come on board, and we’ve got full details for ya.
As per Gunn…
James Earl is an actor I wasn’t familiar with before casting, although you may have seen him in the TV show Ground Floor, or the movies Gridiron Gang or The Lazarus Effect. He was simply awesome, so we gave him the key role of Evan, the sole security guard within the Belko building. Evan is in the ethically precarious situation of having the only gun of anyone within the building, so when people are forced to either kill each other or be killed he has a big decision to make.
Brent Sexton is an actor I’ve admired for a long time. I first saw him perform in a short film by my friends John Cabrera, Lee Kirk, and my brother Sean called The Man Who Invented the Moon. I loved his performance in that and have kept an eye on him ever since, becoming one of television’s best supporting players in roles on The Killing, Deadwood, Justified, and more. We have never met (we’ll do so this Friday, I suppose), but when the role of Vince Agostino, the head of human resources opened up, I pushed hard that we choose Brent. Because although I’ve seen him on some less-than-great shows, I’ve never seen him be less than great.
Those of you who follow me regularly on Facebook or Instagram know Mikaela Hoover is one of my best friends. We first met on the set of my short Humanzee! and she went on to do roles in James Gunn’s PG Porn, SUPER, and was Glenn Close’s assistant in Guardians of the Galaxy. Well now she’s playing Raziya Memarian, Vince’s assistant, and you’ll all be able to see what an amazing actress Mikaela really is.
Some of you may also recognize my pal Joe Fria. Joe is an actor I’ve known all the way back to 2000, not too long after I moved to L.A., and he played the romantic lead to my ex in the play Nosferatu put up by Zoo District. He’s got a great role in the upcoming film Speedwagon, but many of you may recognize him as Joey Bone, the star of the all-singing all-dancing episode of PG Porn, Squeal Happy Whores. Joe will be playing Robert Hickland, a dude frustrated by his mundane life in middle management.
And, finally, another longtime friend, Ben Davis, another actor I met through the Zoo District theater company. Ben Davis is also important in the development of Guardians of the Galaxy, in that he was the common friend between Chris Pratt and I, who vouched for him, and said he wouldn’t let me down. Few people’s words mean more to me than Ben’s, so he definitely bolstered me in fighting for Chris to play Peter Quill, something that wasn’t readily apparent. Ben is an accomplished actor with a shitload of credits, but the coolest to me are he played the voices of Dutch Van Der Linde and Nastas in the video game Red Dead Redemption. Ben Davis plays Antonio Fowler, a guy who is pretty much a dick even before everyone in the building starts killing each other.
They all join the previously announced Sean Gunn, Steve Agee, David Dastmalchian, Gail Bean, Valentine Miele, John Gallagher, Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, Michael Rooker, Melonie Diaz, John C. McGinley, and Owain Yeoman. Greg McLean directs from a script written by Gunn, who also produces alongside Peter Safran.
Gunn has described the film as the story of an American company in South America that is “mysteriously sealed off at the beginning of a workday, and its employees are ordered to kill each other or be killed themselves. This starts an escalation of violence, where we discover the true nature of each and every [Belko] employee.”
Categorized:News
