6 days ago
Dylan O'Brien Latest To Join Apple's ‘Being Heumann'
EXCLUSIVE: Dylan O'Brien (upcoming Twinless) is set to star alongside Ruth Madeley and Mark Ruffalo in Being Heumann, Apple's adaptation of the bestselling memoir from disability activist Judy Heumann.
In the film from CODA Oscar winner Siân Heder, O'Brien will play Evan White, one of the few reporters covering the San Francisco disability rights protests at the heart of the story. Madeley plays the title role, as previously announced, with Ruffalo playing Joseph Califano, the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter, who was initially reluctant to sign off on civil rights legislation affecting the disabled Heumann follows Heumann as she leads over a hundred disabled people to take over the San Francisco Federal Building, kicking off a 28-day sit-in in 1977. The protestors quickly form a tightly bound community, refusing to leave until the government enforces section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which required all federal spaces to become accessible.
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Hailing from Apple Studios, Being Heumann will be directed by Heder, under her overall deal with Apple, from her script written with Rebekah Taussig. David Permut (Hacksaw Ridge, Face/Off) will produce for Permut Presentations alongside Kevin Walsh (Napoleon, Manchester by the Sea), whose The Walsh Company is under an overall deal with Apple. Heumann's managers John W. Beach and Kevin Cleary of Gravity Squared Entertainment will also serve as producers, with Heumann, Being Heumann co-author Kristen Joiner, Diana Pokorny, and and Jim Lebrecht exec producing.
At this year's Sundance Film Festival, O'Brien premiered the dark comedy Twinless, where he's executive producer and star, winning the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting and seeing the film claim the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award. Months later, the film was picked up by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions, which will release it in theaters on September 5. O'Brien's other upcoming projects include the 2024 Sundance drama Ponyboi (in select theaters June 27) and the Sam Raimi-directed horror film Send Help for 20th, opposite Rachel McAdams.
Also coming off a critically praised turn as Dan Aykroyd in Jason Reitman's Saturday Night, as well as the M. Night Shyamalan-produced Caddo Lake, for which he was nominated for a Gotham Television Award, O'Brien is repped by WME, Principal Entertainment, and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.
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