Carey Mulligan to Topline and Produce Film About Vietnam War Reporter Kate Webb
Carey Mulligan has booked her next role. The Oscar-nominated actress will topline “On the Other Side,” a drama about the experiences of real-life Vietnam war correspondent Kate Webb. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mulligan is also set to produce the film, which will begin production in spring 2018.
“On the Other Side” will see Mulligan portray Webb, “a trailblazing journalist for UPI [United Press International] who would pave the way for all the female war correspondents that came after her,” THR details. The film is based on Webb’s book “On the Other Side: 23 Days with the Vietcong,” an autobiographical account of the three weeks she was held in captivity.
Topic, a First Look Media entertainment studio, will co-produce and finance the film. Also producing are Picture Films’ Margot Hand (Reed Morano’s “Meadowland”) and EBM Productions’ Edet Belzberg (“Children Underground”). Annie Marter and Adam Pincus are overseeing the project for Topic. No word on a writer or director yet.
“I’m so excited to bring Kate Webb’s remarkable story to the screen,” Mulligan said in a statement. “Her integrity, curiosity about the unknown, and tenacity set her apart from many other journalists of her time and ultimately saved her life. In a world of increasing division, I can’t think of a more relevant character to portray today — someone who’s very survival depended on her desire to understand the other side of the story, to obtain the truth, and to report it faithfully.”
Mulligan’s breakout project was Lone Scherfig’s “An Education,” in which she played Jenny Mellor, an intelligent but naive student embarking on an affair with an older man. The actress received an Academy Award nod and a BAFTA award for the role. Her recent credits include Sarah Gavron’s women’s rights drama “Suffragette,” “Far From the Madding Crowd,” and “Inside Llewyn Davis.”
You can catch Mulligan next in Dee Rees’ “Mudbound,” which follows two families — one black, one white — in the post-WWII South. The film premiered at Sundance earlier this year, where Netflix acquired it for $12.5 million. It is expected to hit theaters this fall. Mulligan will also star as DI Kip Glaspie in “Collateral,” a BBC miniseries helmed by S.J. Clarkson (“Jessica Jones”), currently in pre-production.
“When will [the film industry] catch up with the fact that [women-centric] films do well? It’s just like what Cate Blanchett said at the Oscars. The hunger for female-driven stories is there. You just have to make the films,” Mulligan told Women and Hollywood while promoting “Suffragette” in 2015. “This shock over how these films do so well is a bit tired now. Jennifer Lawrence can open movies like any male star.”
