Finally set to start work on his long-gestating adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence, Martin Scorsese has had to make a quick casting change as Ken Watanabe dropped out due to a scheduling clash. The director has now hired Thor’s Tadanobu Asano to replace him.
Silence, which has been scripted by sometime Scorsese collaborator Jay Cocks, sees Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson, Adam Driver and now Asano in the story of Father Rodrigues, a 17th century Portuguese Jesuit heading to Japan with a fellow priest to discover whether Rodrigues’s mentor has left the church. Their mission is complicated by the fact that religious persecution is rife in the country, necessitating that they travel undercover with Asano as their interpreter.
Asano, who won kudos for his role in Mongol, has also appeared in the slightly less prestigious productions Battleship and 47 Ronin. With his casting falling into place, Scorsese can kick off shooting early this year, but doesn’t yet have a release date figured out.