Guy Pearce has been having a pretty damn good year in 2012. The actor's been moving towards stardom since "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert" and "L.A. Confidential" fifteen years ago, and looked to turn into a megastar after "Memento," but when big-budget studio picture "The Time Machine" was a flop, he seemed to shift back into being a character actor, delivering many memorable turns ("The Proposition," "Factory Girl") but mostly resisiting stardom. But in the last few years, he's had a flurry of success: small roles in two Oscar-winners in two years with "The Hurt Locker" and "The King's Speech," a homegrown hit with "Animal Kingdom," and an Emmy for "Mildred Pierce."
And the actor's having a lot of fun in some high-profile projects: a hugely enjoyable sci-fi hero in "Lockout," a sneering villain in "Lawless," which just premiered at Cannes, he'll be showing up as Peter Weyland in Ridley Scott's "Prometheus," and he'll soon start filming a supporting role in "Iron Man 3." But before all that he's going to be a little bit more down to earth, in a new film from young filmmaker Drake Doremus, who broke out last year with "Like Crazy." The film will see Doremus reteam with his star from the last film, Felicity Jones, along with Pearce and Amy Ryan. Details have mostly been under wraps, but when Playlist correspondent Aaron Hillis spoke to Pearce in Cannes, where he's promoting "Lawless" (look for more from that interview soon), we managed to get a little bit of information out of him.
When we asked the actor about his upcoming projects, he told us the Doremus project should see the filmmaker raise his already impressive game: "Drake's film — I've done. It doesn't have a title yet, but I think it will be really quite extraordinary, he's really a classic filmmaker," he said enthusiastically. " 'Like Crazy' was wonderful and I think this goes to a whole other level. Amy Ryan is in the film as well, and this [newcomer] young actress Mackenzie Davis, and Felicity Jones is in the film as well again. It's a really tense, tense story about an inappropriate relationship between a young student, an exchange student and a school teacher. I'm really looking forward to seeing that, I think it will be great."
When we spoke to Doremus at the London Film Festival last year, he told us that the film used the same semi-improvised technique as "Like Crazy," but it has more of a thriller aspect to it. "[It was] the exact same process, just a hell of a lot more money, which is strange. Nine trucks, and a hundred people on set, and I'm like, well 'I really don't need any of you people, let's just make an intimate film with ten of you… We wrapped in the middle of September. It's coming along great, it'll be done in spring, and I'm really excited about it. She plays a very different character, it's a darker cousin to 'Like Crazy,' it's a romantic thriller, so a different genre for me, but something I was excited to try." Given that the film's been in the can for nearly nine months, we'd put it down as a shoo-in to premiere at TIFF in September. Meanwhile, "Lawless" hits August 29th, and you can read more from our interview with Pearce in the next few days.