13 year-old Kara Hayward made her acting debut as Suzy Bishop in Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” earlier this year, and we imagine that there are a lot of worse ways to launch an acting career. Hayward impressed in her substantial role, the movie did well critically and commercially, and it now looks like she is ready to kick on with her big-screen career after securing the lead role in “The Sisterhood of Night.”
Caryn Waechter’s directorial debut is based on Steven Milhauser’s short story about a girl (Hayward) who exposes a secret society in her New Jersey suburb, leading to a witch-hunt in the town. Hayward joins another young actress on the feature, Morgan Turner, whose previous credits include the R-Patz romantic drama “Remember Me” and Todd Haynes’ mini-series “Mildred Pierce” (playing the younger version of Evan Rachel Wood's character).
Hayward’s "Moonrise Kingdom" co-star Jared Gilman is yet to line up any projects after finishing work on Anderson’s film, and we imagine the pair must both be carefully planning how to balance their time between their new careers and their education, after finding unexpected success. Hayward told Vulture back in May that she had “been presented with some opportunities for more movies, and all I know is that I do want to continue acting, but I want my next project to be special and beautiful, quite like this ['Moonrise Kingdom'] was.” We’ll extrapolate that to be a glowing endorsement of Marilyn Fu’s screenplay for the new project then. [Deadline]
