{"id":624404,"date":"2026-08-06T23:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T23:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/624404\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T23:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T23:47:13","slug":"eric-roth-brian-kavanaugh-jones-dirty-films-join-the-present-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/624404\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Roth, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Dirty Films Join ‘The Present Times’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tScreenwriter Eric Roth<\/a> (\u201cForrest Gump,\u201d \u201cDune: Part One\u201d), Brian Kavanaugh-Jones<\/a> (\u201cLonglegs,\u201d \u201cA Complete Unknown\u201d), Andrew Upton of his and Cate Blanchett\u2019s production company Dirty Films (\u201cThe New Boy\u201d) and Anne Peters are on board as executive producers of the fable-like tragicomedy \u201cThe Present Times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe upcoming feature film, directed by Noah Stratton-Twine, stars Daniel Weyman, who plays Gandalf in \u201cThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,\u201d and standup comedian and actor Nick Helm (\u201cUncle\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tWeyman and Helm play embittered paparazzi Roy and Ian, respectively, who face the consequences of their intrusive profession when confronted by an immoral scheme and an otherworldly presence.<\/p>\n

\n\tJoining them in the cast are Paul Kaye (\u201cGame of Thrones\u201d), Raffey Cassidy (\u201cThe Brutalist\u201d), Emma McDonald (\u201cMoonhaven\u201d) and Jay Simpson (\u201cChernobyl\u201d), supported by an ensemble that includes Ada Player (\u201cThe Running Man\u201d), Os Leanse (\u201cArtificial\u201d), Ivy Freeman-Attwood (\u201cElden Ring\u201d), Nish Nathwani (\u201cSurge\u201d) and Luke Rollason (\u201cSupergirl\u201d) \u2014 who starred as the lead in Stratton Twine\u2019s first feature \u201cTwo Big Feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStratton-Twine describes the film as \u201can ode to both Britain\u2019s wealth and history of championing character actors, larger-than-life performances in often ludicrous yet wholly innate and resonant scenarios, and London as a singular and diverse cinematic city, prior and still championed by heroes of mine like Mike Leigh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the third feature written, directed, edited and scored by Stratton-Twine, who is currently touring his co-directed effort \u201cThe Peril at Pincer Point,\u201d which received the Neon Auteur Award at SXSW 2026 and is set to play at Fantasia, Edinburgh Intl. Film Festival and many others, having since screened and won awards at Fantaspoa and Sydney Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso featured in the cast are Kim Durham, Anna Acton, Bron Weigh, Richard Keep, Corinna Marlowe, Ignatius Upton, Andrew Upton, Andi Da Silva, Andre Lillis, Oxa Hazel, Sabira Stanisavljevic, Kenichiro Thomson and Jack Redmayne, who previously led Stratton-Twine\u2019s \u201cThe Peril at Pincer Point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Present Times\u201d is produced by Dashiell Upton, Lev Petrov, Jake Kuhn and Timofey Stolov. Casting by Marta Nogeura. Cinematographer Murray Zev Cohen returns for his third collaboration with Stratton-Twine. The production companies are Right Off Films and Gittes-Cross Pictures.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrincipal photography wrapped in May in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screenwriter Eric Roth (\u201cForrest Gump,\u201d \u201cDune: Part One\u201d), Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (\u201cLonglegs,\u201d \u201cA Complete Unknown\u201d), Andrew Upton of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[263756,434,18,117,263757,19,17],"class_list":["post-624404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-brian-kavanaugh-jones","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-eric-roth","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117051237732326660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}