Since its announcement, there’s been a lot of excitement surrounding the upcoming film from James Gray, “Armageddon Time.” Though the title of the film might make you think it’s a post-apocalyptic action film, Gray’s new feature is a drama that pulls from his own life as a kid in New York City, attending the Kew-Forest School in Queens, which happens to be the same school that former POTUS, Donald Trump attended. And in a new discussion at this year’s Qumra event (via ScreenDaily), Gray revealed that one of the major A-listers signed to star in the film will actually play someone very closely related to Trump.
“Armageddon Time” features a cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro, Oscar Isaac, Donald Sutherland, and Cate Blanchett. And while we’re not sure which characters the other actors will portray, Blanchett’s relatively small role is going to be a “scene-stealer” according to Gray.
“Cate Blanchett is going to play Donald Trump’s sister which is the weirdest sentence I have ever said,” Gray explained. “She’s only in it for three days, she’s doing me a favor. She has a really long speech to deliver, it’s a real scene-stealer. I’ve tried to recreate the real speech as best I could from memory.”
Again, it makes sense that Trump’s family would be deeply involved in “Armageddon Time,” considering their ties to the school where the film is set. But it’ll be interesting to see Blanchett play such a high-profile role, even if it is only a supporting role. Unfortunately, it’s still unclear when we might see Blanchett and the rest of the cast on the big screen, as “Armageddon Time” has yet to begin production due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And the long delay that Gray has experienced due to the pandemic is making him a bit antsy, as he explained that he’s not used to spending this much time at home.
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“I worry I have gotten stale because I haven’t worked in a while,” said Gray. “Creatively it has not been great when you try and create in the context of never leaving your house. It’s like being under house arrest, maybe I should treat it like that because a lot of great people wrote great things from jail over the years.”
Hopefully, Gray doesn’t have to spend much more time at home and can begin work on “Armageddon Time.” Without a doubt, that is one of our most anticipated films that are currently in development.