Filming has wrapped on an under-the-radar screen adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Long day journey into nightstarring Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Ben Foster and Colin Morgan.
Renowned British theater and opera director Jonathan Kent made his directorial debut on the project, which was shot in Ireland. Above is a first image from the production.
The project sees two-time Academy Award and five-time Golden Globe winner Lange reprise her 2016 Tony-winning role on Broadway, also directed by Kent. She portrays the troubled, emotionally fragile and addiction-ridden Mary Tyrone. Four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris is her husband James, a famous actor but failed property tycoon – and a man with deep-rooted fears and regrets from his poor beginnings.
Foster will play their charming, hard-drinking eldest son, Jamie. And Colin Morgan (Belfast) is the extremely optimistic and consumptive younger son, Edmund – a portrait of O’Neill himself. David Lindsay-Abaire (Poltergeist) adapted the play for the screen.
Set on a single day in August 1912 at the family’s seaside home in Connecticut, the story follows the Tyrone family as they deal with the dual spectrum of Edmund’s potentially fatal consumption diagnosis along with his increasingly fragile state of mind and anxiety of his mother Mary. The family knows that the situation threatens to send him back into a severe addiction to morphine, which he only recently overcame.
Filmed on location in County Wicklow, Ireland, the film is financed by Magnoliamae Films, BKStudios, Brouhaha Entertainment and Fetisoff Illusion. It was produced by Gabrielle Tana (Philomena), Bill Kenwright (Cheri) and Gleb Fetisov (Without love).
As first reported by the Irish Times, filming was briefly halted after just a few days when a financier abruptly walked out on the project, but those issues were soon resolved after BKStudios stepped in.
Executive producers are BKStudios CEO David Gilbery (The Lost Girl), and head of production is Naomi George (My pure land). The film is co-produced with Redmond Morris and his Irish production company Four Provinces Films.
Director of photography was Mark Wolf with production design by Anna Rackard and costume design by Joan Bergin and Jane Greenwood.
Eugene O’Neill’s classic play has been adapted several times for the big and small screen, including versions by Sidney Lumet and Jonathan Miller.
Lange is repped by CAA and Untitled Entertainment; Ed Harris of CAA and Ziffren Brittenham LLP; Ben Foster of United Talent Agency; Colin Morgan of United Agents.
