If there’s one thing we all learned from 22 Jump Street, it’s that, wherever possible, you should get Cate Blanchett with the budget. And that’s exactly what Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton has done for his upcoming drama The New Boy – casting Blanchett in a major role being widely described as a ‘renegade nun’. If that phrase brings to mind Phoenix Buchanan’s nun costume from Paddington 2 or the demonic Valak of the Conjuring universe, you might be thinking a little too renegade – but the internet will surely be ablaze at the idea of Blanchett donning a wimple.
As well as starring in the film, Blanchett’s Dirty Films production company is on board to co-produce the film (along with Kath Shelper’s Scarlett Pictures). It’ll be set in 1940s Australia, telling the story of a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan who arrives at a monastery in the middle of the night and is taken in by Blanchett’s (get ready for it) ‘renegade nun’. “What a joy to finally be collaborating with Warwick — a filmmaker whose warmth, wit and humanity we have admired for so very long,” Blanchett said. “We can’t wait to be on the ground with him and the wonderful Kath Shelper to realise this startling story.” Thornton, previously behind the Sam Neill-starring Sweet Country, cites the film as one that’s long lived in his mind. “The idea for the story of this little boy has been flickering in my imagination for a long time,” said Thornton. “Kath and I are beyond excited to be working with Cate and the Dirty Films mob to put him up on the big screen where he belongs.”
Before we catch her in full-on nun mode, Blanchett will be seen as Lillith in Eli Roth’s Borderlands movie, and can currently be seen (on absolutely incredible form) in Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, in regular and black-and-white screenings.