Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage has joined the ensemble of director Oliver Stone's controversial Edward Snowden biopic. Cage will play the role of a former U.S. intelligence agent in the film and will star alongside Shailene Woodley as Lindsay Mills, Scott Eastwood and Timothy Olyphant as NSA agents, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the eponymous whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The film titled "Snowden" is already in production. Principal photography was kickstarted on Feb. 15 in Munich, Germany and shooting will span up to May across several locations. The film will follow U.S. intelligence analyst Edward Snowden's feats in unearthing the government's underground data gathering dealings and exposing them to the world. It will focus on his application for asylum in Russia.
Stone is notorious for such controversial political and legal films. He helmed the 1991 award-winning film "JFK," which provoked difference of opinion as some praised and others questioned it. Also in his portfolio is a pair of biopics — one of Richard Nixon (titled "Nixon") and one of George W. Bush (titled "W."). Cage worked with the director in the 2006 film "The World Trade Center." "Snowden" reunites the two.
Meanwhile, the script of the film was drawn out from Luke Harding's "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man" and the upcoming novel of Snowden's Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena titled "Time of the Octopus." The former retells Snowden's travel from Hawaii to Hong Kong to hand out the NSA documents to journalist Glenn Greenwald. The latter's follows Snowden as he waited for the Moscow government to grant his asylum.
Other confirmed "Snowden" cast members include Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson and Rhys Ifans. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the producers of "James Bond," will produce the film. Gordon-Levitt was cast as the central character back in November.
