When Steven Spielberg announced his next project was a film about UFOs, the fan theorising began; where would the great director’s lifelong fascination with other worlds take us this time? Kept as confidential as an alien landing spot at the top of Devils Tower (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Spielberg has drawn together a top-drawer cast to bring his vision of what might happen if there was proof of alien contact to celluloid life.
Steven Spielberg
The auteur whose sure hand in shaping cultural-touchstone films – often depicting suburban lives affected by incredible circumstances – has earned his own adjective: Spielbergian. While making home movies as a teenager, a chance encounter with the legendary director John Ford inspired him to study film at California State University, which led to him directing TV productions at Universal.
In 1975, the release of Jaws made him a household name. From Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park to Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, he has created the most indelible and groundbreaking cinema during his six-decade career. With Disclosure Day, the 79-year-old film-maker is still making movies that start conversations and make us think about our place in the world.
What he says about Disclosure Day: “People’s questions about what is not only going on in our skies but in our worlds, and in our realities, has reached a critical mass … if someone knows we’re not alone, why haven’t we been told?”
Emily Blunt
The British-born actor playing Kansas TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild has been an international star since 2006 when The Devil Wears Prada hit our screens. Twenty years later, she’s Hollywood royalty, married to A Quiet Place writer/director John Krasinski, sister-in-law to her Devil co-star Stanley Tucci and bestie to Dwayne Johnson (whom she calls Toots). Her versatility has always yielded unexpected moves. She’s mixed costume drama (The Young Victoria) with indie intrigue (Looper); action (Edge of Tomorrow); huge scope ensembles (Oppenheimer, for which she gained an Oscar nomination); and even musicals (Mary Poppins Returns).
What she says about Disclosure Day: “There are definitely questions posed by Close Encounters that are answered in Disclosure Day.”
Josh O’Connor
Initially best-known for playing a young Prince Charles in The Crown, O’Connor brings a tangible tenderness to his work. This makes him instantly relatable whether he’s playing a gay Yorkshire sheep farmer (his breakout role in God’s Own Country), a boxer turned priest in Wake Up Dead Man, a horny tennis brat in Challengers or a sad-eyed cowboy in Rebuilding. Little wonder Spielberg tapped that quality to play Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity whistleblower who holds evidence of extraterrestrials and wants to tell the world.
O’Connor’s work is as off-kilter and unique as the fluffy jumpers and cardigans he’s now famous for sporting.
What he says about Disclosure Day: “It’s every kid’s dream getting to work with Steven – he was the architect of everyone’s childhood.”
Colin Firth
Though justly famous for his wet-shirted Mr Darcy in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, a singleton’s Darcy in the Bridget Jones’s Diary franchise, and Oscar-winning star of The King’s Speech, this British treasure can play a nasty piece of work. In Disclosure Day he’s Noah Scanlon, the head of a shadowy corporation, Wardex – and he’ll do anything to keep secrets locked down. It’s not the first time he’s played a morally conflicted spy (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), but it still feels a thrilling gear-switch for an actor who so excels in epitomising British niceness.
What he says about Disclosure Day: “The question becomes who gets to decide [who knows the truth]?”
Colman Domingo
An impeccable dresser and journeyman artist, stage-turned-screen actor Domingo found belated global appreciation after decades working in regional theatre. The Philadelphia native impressed in TV before making a big cinematic splash as real-life activist Bayard Rustin in a biopic of the same name that saw him Oscar nominated. He followed it with another Oscar-nominated performance in the prison drama Sing Sing, before scene-stealing turns in The Running Man and Michael.
In Disclosure Day, he plays Hugo Wakefield, an ex-Wardex employee who wants the truth out there, reuniting with Spielberg after a small role in Lincoln.
What he says about Disclosure Day: “Steven’s optimism, his trust, his belief in the moon and the stars and all that is beyond are embedded in my character.”
Eve Hewson
The Irish actor was so obsessed with ET as a kid that she cut her hair short and asked to be called Elliott. Hewson has been acting since her teens (debuting in 2011’s This Must Be the Place opposite Sean Penn) but made her name with roles in watercooler TV shows, Bad Sisters and The Perfect Couple. She first worked with Spielberg on 2015’s cold war thriller Bridge of Spies, and reteams with him here to play Jane Blankenship, girlfriend of O’Connor’s Daniel, who has complexities of her own to iron out.
What she says about working with Spielberg: “He really is a gem of a human being, and he loves his actors, so working with him felt really special.”
Disclosure Day is in cinemas from Wednesday 10 June
