With Jamie Dornan, Guillaume Canet and Mark Strong already aboard, the cast for Richie Smyth’s Jadotville is growing. Jason O’Mara will appear alongside the rest.
The film is set in 1961 and follows the real-life events around the siege of an Irish UN battalion by 3,000 Congolese troops under the command of French and Belgian mercenaries paid by big mining companies. Dornan is set as the Irish commander, Patrick Quinlan, with Canet in charge of the French contingent. Strong’s role has yet to be revealed, but O’Mara will be Company Sergeant Jack “Sarge” Prendergast, Quinlan’s right-hand man.
Netflix has swooped in to pick up the rights to distribute the pic, locking down a deal at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, with Kevin Brodbin writing the script.
O’Mara was last seen on the big screen in Lake Bell’s comedy In A World…. More recently he’s been appearing on TV, playing George Washington in US miniseries Sons Of Liberty. He’ll crop up in medical drama Complications, about a doctor who intervenes in a drive-by shooting, saving the victim and killing one of his attackers.