David Oyelowo Joins Studiocanal & Picture Company’s ‘Role Play’ Opposite Kaley Cuoco; Prime Video In Final Talks To Acquire

Anthony D'Alessandro
·3 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Primetime Emmy nominee David Oyelowo will star opposite Kaley Cuoco in the Studiocanal and Picture Company high-concept thriller Role Play, which we hear will roll cameras in four weeks in Berlin. We also hear that Amazon Prime Video is in final talks to take the US and several major offshore territories.

Role Play centers around a married couple whose life turns upside down when secrets come out about each other’s pasts. Oyelowo will play Cuoco’s husband in the film. Thomas Vincent is directing off a screenplay by Seth Owen. The pic is based on an original idea from Brillstein Entertainment Partners’ George Heller.

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The Picture Company partners Alex Heineman and Andrew Rona are producing through their long term overall deal at Studiocanal.

Emmy nominated Cuoco, whose second season of HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant recently finished, is producing through her Yes Norman Productions. Heller will serve as EP.  Role Play is the fourth co-production between Studiocanal and The Picture Company to be shot at Studio Babelsberg in Berlin, following Netflix’s Gunpowder Milkshake, the Liam Neeson movie Retribution, and horror thriller Baghead. Studiocanal and Picture Company were also behind the Neeson thrillers, Non-Stop and The Commuter. 

Oyelowo can be seen in the HBO Max/BBC One psychological thriller limited series, The Girl Before, opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Upcoming, he stars in Searchlight Pictures’ See How The Run with Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell, the Apple TV+ series Wool with Rebecca Ferguson and Rashida Jones, and as the title character in the Paramount+ limited series, Bass Reeves. 

Oyelowo made his directorial debut with the critically-acclaimed, The Water Man, released domestically by RLJE Films and internationally by Netflix last summer. He  stars alongside Lonnie Chavis and Rosario Dawson, as well as, produces under his Yoruba Saxon banner that he founded with his wife, Jessica. Yoruba Saxon is focused on creating values-based content, across all platforms and for all quadrants, with an aim to shift the culture and color outside the lines. Yoruba Saxon has a first-look deal with Walt Disney Pictures for feature length films and an overall deal with ViacomCBS for original scripted and unscripted series.

Previous and upcoming film and television projects include: Paramount’s Captive, Searchlight’s A United Kingdom, Relativity Media’s Come Away, FilmRise’s Five Nights in Maine, Bron’s Solitary, Disney+’s First Gen and The Return of the Rocketeer and Netflix’s Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun. Other feature credits include Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Selma, Interstellar, The Midnight Sky, A Most Violent Year, The Last King of Scotland, and Les Miserables. 

Oyelowo received two Primetime Emmy noms for Nightingale in 2015 in the Outstanding Television Movie and Lead Actor in TV Movie/Limited Series categories. He also received a Golden Globe nom for the series in Best Actor Limited series as well as another nomination for Best Actor Feature Film-Drama for his turn as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma. 

Studiocanal’s Anne Cherel and Aska Yamaguchi negotiated the deal and Amazon Prime Video’s division brought the project into the streamer and will oversee along with the US team. Ron Halpern and Shana Eddy will oversee the film for Studiocanal and executive produce.

Oyelowo is repped by CAA, Hamilton Hodell and Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang.

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