Add another one to it-actor Barry Keoghan‘s upcoming film list. THR reports that the “Saltburn” actor will star in the latest movie from “Chernobyl” director Johan Renck, “Amo Saddam.” Keoghan will star as an American soldier tasked with guardian the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the months before his trial and execution. No word yet on who will be play Hussein.
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Renck adapts Will Bardenwerper‘s 2017 book, “The Prisoner In His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, And What History Leaves Unsaid” for “Amo Saddam.” The book follows the accounts of twelve U.S. soldier who guarded Hussein prior to his trial in the last months of his life. “In the six months preceding Saddam’s execution, our soldier grows close to Saddam, sharing the stale air of a bombed-out palace turned into a high-security prison whilst navigating the fine line separating fact and fiction,” a press release for the film stated. “”Amo Saddam” attempts to reckon with the American imperial machine that has come to define the 21st century.”
The news of Renck’s next feature comes just days before his latest film “Spaceman” premieres at the Berlinale. That movie, a time-travel story at the edges of space starring Adam Sandler and Paul Dano, will hit Netflix on March 1 after its February 23 world premiere at the festival. Renck will co-produce the feature with Michael Parets through their Sinestra banner, with Fremantle also producing through Sinestra’s first-look deal with the media company. Bardenwerper will serve as an executive producer on the film.
Renck told THR that he aims for “Amo Saddam” to depict the experience of 2006 Baghdad “in a really immersive, authentic way” but without the “typical tropes of a war movie.” Instead, the director wants the film to have a more “genre-bending” approach, with most of the film’s action taking place at the compound Camp Victory. “So you have this American enclave with walls around it while right outside is Baghdad, this goya-esque painting of sectarian violence where all the chaos unleashed by these actions of the Western world are taking place. That contrast is something we tap into in the script”, Renck said. “In a weird way, it’s a prison movie, it’s a war movie and it’s kind of a horror movie almost. There’s a little bit of genre-bending going on.”
As for Keoghan’s casting, Parets couldn’t be more excited to work with the actor. “Barry has proven himself time and time again to be an actor who is so adept at playing really complex characters and we couldn’t be happier having him as our lead for what is going to be a challenging, ambitious and hopefully really special film,” Parets said in a press statement. As for who will play Hussein, Renck said he’s looking for a “a really good actor from the region, who speaks Arabic and can authentically embody the role.”
“Amo Saddam” is yet another buzzy project for Keoghan, who also stars in the next films of Andrea Arnold and Trey Edward Shultes. The actor also has the thriller “Bring Them Down” on the way, too. But expect Renck’s film to hit theaters after all three of those, as Renck doesn’t plan to start shotting “Amo Saddam” until this Fall.
