Clint Eastwood has just started filming his latest drama, true-life drug tale The Mule. And given how quickly he tends to work, he's probably got half the footage he needs captured already. He's also locked in the rest of the main cast to surround his central role and Bradley Cooper, as Dianne Wiest, Michael Pena, Laurence Fishburne, Alison Eastwood, Taissa Farmiga and Ignacio Serricchio have all boarded the film.
The Mule adapts a New York Times article by Sam Dolnick that chronicled the real-life experiences of Leo Sharp. The 90-year-old was an award-winning horticulturist and decorated World War II veteran known for his prized lilies when he was busted for running drugs for Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and sent to prison. He was transporting $3 million worth of cocaine through Michigan in his beat-up old pickup truck when he was nabbed by the DEA. Sharp was sentenced to just three years after his lawyer argued that his client’s dementia sent him down the wrong path.
Eastwood will be Earl Stone, based on Leo, while Cooper is DEA Agent Colin Bates, hard on Earl's trail. Wiest is set as Stone's ex-wife, while Pena will be a drug cartel enforcer who is on his trail. We don't yet know what the others will be playing. Eastwood's Gran Torino collaborator Nick Schenk, is behind the script, and the movie is now in production in Atlanta.
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