The Hollywood Reporter exclusively shared that Paul Mescal will join Olivia Colman in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Lost Daughter. This will be Mescal’s first film role after breaking out in Hulu’s Normal People (for which he is nominated for an Emmy Award). The Lost Daughter is based on the novel by Elena Ferrante. The publisher’s summary states:
Leda is a middle-aged divorcée devoted to her work as an English teacher and to her two children. When her daughters leave home to be with their father in Canada, Leda anticipates a period of loneliness and longing. Instead, slightly embarrassed by the sensation, she feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, easier. She decides to take a holiday by the sea, in a small coastal town in southern Italy. But after a few days of calm and quiet, things begin to take a menacing turn. Leda encounters a family whose brash presence proves unsettling, at times even threatening. When a small, seemingly meaningless, event occurs, Leda is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult and unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. The seemingly serene tale of a woman’s pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious confrontation with an unsettled past.
There is no word on who Mescal is playing, but he joins a cast that includes Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, and Peter Sarsgaard alongside Colman. Mescal can currently be seen in Normal People on Hulu and The Deceived, which recently wrapped its four episode run on Channel 5 in the U.K.
