Clooney in Canadian Caper / 'Argo' / Escape from Tehran

watching wrote: he was pretty comfortable being papped in going to and whilst in Paris so maybe he is open to it so the films continue to get mentioned when a picture and write up of him out and about hits the blogs.

'Argo' adds Scoot McNairy to cast
Exclusive: Scoot McNairy has joined the cast of Warner Bros.' "Argo," directed by and starring Ben Affleck.
McNairy joins a cast that includes Bryan Cranston, John Goodman and Alan Arkin.

Chris Terrio is adapting Joshuah Bearman's April 2007 Wired magazine article "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran," which tells how the CIA and the Canadian government teamed to recover six U.S. diplomats who'd been taken hostage in 1979.

George Clooney and Grant Heslov are producing through their Smokehouse banner along with David Klawans and Affleck.

McNairy recently wrapped production on "Cogan's Trade" with Brad Pitt .

He is repped by ICM and The Group.

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Here's the link:http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118040895

Cinderella wrote:Thank you, Katie! I hope you know how much we appreciate all your work!

On Location: Hollywood's Iranian caper comes to L.A.

At the height of the Iranian hostage crisis, artist-turned CIA technical officer Tony Mendez pulled off a stunning caper when he helped six American diplomats in the Canadian embassy in Tehran escape by disguising them as members of a Hollywood film crew.

Thirty-two years later, Mendez's daring plan has been turned into a movie called “Argo” that will begin filming next week on the streets of Los Angeles.
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Kyle Chandler Joins Ben Affleck’s ARGO
The cast of Ben Affleck’s next directorial project Argo continues to be awesome, as Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler is the latest to sign on. The Warner Bros. pic now boasts Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Scoot McNairy as part of its stellar cast. USA Today reports (via The Playlist) that Chandler’s role is a small one, but doesn’t add any further details. The film is based upon a 2007 Wired magazine article entitled “How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran.” The feature documents a rescue mission launched by the CIA for a group of diplomats in Tehran that involved a rouse to convince the Iranian government that the diplomats were actually a Hollywood film crew scouting locations.

Affleck is set in the lead role as the CIA exfiltration expert who develops the plan, with Arkin playing a Hollywood producer who’s also an O.S.S. veteran and is described as “equal parts bookie and rabbi,” Cranston onboard as an Irish CIA agent from Boston, and Goodman playing Oscar-winning Planet of the Apes makeup artist John Chambers who aids the CIA in their mission. George Clooney and Grant Heslov are producing under their Smokehouse banner. Argo is eyeing a 2012 release.

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Ben Affleck has cast Taylor Schilling as his wife in upcoming political thriller Argo.

Schilling, who appears opposite Zac Efron in war drama The Lucky One, will be joined by Tate Donovan and The Office's Nelson Franklin in Affleck's directorial follow-up to The Town.

Argo centres on a 1979 CIA mission in which agents fabricate a sci-fi Hollywood production in order to save six Americans from the Tehran hostage crisis.

Schilling will play Christine, a former teacher married to Affleck's exfiltration expert Tony Mendez; Donovan the Tehran-based US embassy worker Bob Anders; and Franklin will star as a reporter, reports Variety.

George Clooney and Grant Heslov will produce Argo through their Smokehouse production company.

Smokehouse has previously produced Good Night, and Good Luck and The Men Who Stare at Goats.

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Filming is Underway On 'Argo'
Principal photography has begun on Warner Bros. Pictures’ and GK Films’ dramatic thriller “Argo,” directed by and starring Academy Award® winner Ben Affleck (“The Town,” “Good Will Hunting”). The film is being produced by Academy Award® winner George Clooney (“Syriana”), Oscar® nominee Grant Heslov (“Good Night, and Good Luck.”) and Affleck.

Based on true events, “Argo” chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis — the truth of which was unknown by the public for decades.

On November 4, 1979, as the Iranian revolution reaches its boiling point, militants storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. But, in the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to slip away and find refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Knowing it is only a matter of time before the six are found out and likely killed, a CIA “exfiltration” specialist named Tony Mendez (Affleck) comes up with a risky plan to get them safely out of the country. A plan so incredible, it could only happen in the movies.

“Argo” also stars Oscar® winner Alan Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”), Bryan Cranston (TV’s “Breaking Bad”) and John Goodman (“You Don’t Know Jack”). The main cast also includes Kerry Bishé, Kyle Chandler, Rory Cochrane, Christopher Denham, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Victor Garber, Zeljko Ivanek, Richard Kind, Scoot McNairy, Chris Messina, Michael Parks, and Taylor Schilling.

Affleck is directing the film from a screenplay by Chris Terrio, based on a selection from Master in Disguise by Antonio Mendez. David Klawans, Chris Brigham, Graham King, Tim Headington, Chay Carter and Nina Wolarsky are serving as executive producers.

The behind-the-scenes creative team includes Oscar®-nominated director of photography Rodrigo Prieto (“Brokeback Mountain”), production designer Sharon Seymour (“The Town”); Oscar®-nominated editor William Goldenberg (“Seabiscuit,” “The Insider”); and Oscar®-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West (“The Social Network,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”).

Filming on “Argo” began in Los Angeles. Future locations include Washington D.C. and Istanbul.

Slated for release in 2012, “Argo” is a presentation of Warner Bros. Pictures, in association with GK Films, a Smoke House Pictures production, to be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

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Richard Kind, Chris Messina & Michael Parks Join Ben Affleck's 'Argo'
Earlier this week we got some word on some more minor casting for Ben Affleck's third time at bat as director with Argo. The Good Will Hunting writer will also star in the film which adapts a 2007 Wired article about the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Tehran hostage crisis, and now three more great names have joined the cast. In a press release (via The Film Stage) announcing the beginning of production, it was revealed Chris Messina (Devil), Michael Parks (Red State) and Richard Kind (A Serious Man) also have undisclosed roles in the film.

On November 4, 1979, as the Iranian revolution reaches its boiling point, militants storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. But, in the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to slip away and find refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Knowing it is only a matter of time before the six are found out and likely killed, a CIA “exfiltration” specialist named Tony Mendez (Affleck) comes up with a risky plan to get them safely out of the country. Messina, Parks and Kind each have a unique on-screen presence that is certainly welcome in what sounds like a promising film from producing partners George Clooney and Grant Heslov. I'm willing to predict that we might be looking at some more Oscar love for Affleck when the time comes.

From Vancouver Sun

Canadian Caper gets blockbuster touch

Affleck directs Argo, about six Americans plucked out of Iran during hostage crisis

By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News September 7, 2011 2:28 AM

A showcase moment in the history of Canadian diplomacy - the top-secret spiriting of six Americans out of Tehran during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis - appears destined for blockbuster treatment in Hollywood.

At least three years in development, the spy thriller Argo will focus on how CIA agent Tony Mendez - played by Ben Affleck, who also directs - plotted with Canada's ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, to rescue the trapped Americans by having them pose as Canadian location scouts for a fake movie supposedly being shot in Iran.

Another Hollywood A-lister, George Clooney, is producing and acting in the film.

Like the Affleck-helmed film that started shooting last week in Los Angeles - and which will also be shot in Washington and Istanbul - the title of the bogus movie in the CIA hatched scheme 32 years ago was Argo.

Clooney was said to be pegged for the Mendez role when news first emerged in 2008 that the hostage rescue saga - popularly known as the 'Canadian Caper' - was bound for the big screen.

But Affleck enjoyed dualrole success last year when he directed and starred in the crime drama The Town. He's signed on to juggle the same jobs in Argo.

It isn't clear now which character Clooney will play. But other notable actors cast in the film include Bryan Cranston (of TV's Breaking Bad and Malcolm in the Middle) as a top CIA official, John Goodman (The Big Lebowski and TV's Roseanne) as a Hollywood special effects expert and Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) as a movie producer involved in creating the ruse.

A spokesman for Santa Monica-based GK Films, which is working with Warner Bros. to bring Argo to theatres next year, couldn't immediately provide details about who will play Taylor or the roles of other Canadians depicted in the film.

An earlier, made-for-TV telling of the story, 1981's CBS drama Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper, featured Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent as Taylor.

But little was known at that time about the elaborate, Hollywood-inspired cover story - concocted primarily by Mendez - to ensure the safe passage of the six Americans from their secret refuge with Canadian diplomats in Tehran to freedom in the West.

One of the most famous episodes in the annals of Canadian espionage unfolded in the early days of Iran's fundamentalist, fervently anti-American revolution in November 1979. While more than 50 American citizens were taken hostage by radical Islamic students at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, six other Americans - four consular officials and two of their wives - managed to avoid captivity in the crowded streets and were given secret sanctuary by Canadian diplomats.

Taylor took three of the Americans into his official residence, and Canada's chief immigration officer in Iran, John Sheardown, took in the other three. The "visitors" were simply identified as Canadian tourists to anyone who asked.

But as the situation in Iran continued to deteriorate in early 1980, and Canadian officials prepared to shut down their own embassy and leave Tehran, it became clear that the six Americans would be facing grave danger unless they could be convincingly passed off - particularly at the city's airport - as Canadian citizens.

That's when Mendez, who only publicly revealed his full role in the caper after retiring from the CIA in the late 1990s, orchestrated the faux-film cover story as a way to ensure that the six Americans could escape.

It would be another year before the 52 American hostages in Tehran were released, in January 1981. The hostage-taking is still remembered as the central drama in a revolution that kick-started an era of deep anxiety in the West over rising Islamic fundamentalism.

Atalante wrote:Where's the link to the second set Laetval ???

laetval wrote:

Atalante wrote:Where's the link to the second set Laetval ???

Why? The second set only got 3 pics of george on 6. The 3 others are pics of Ben Affleck

Atalante wrote:

laetval wrote:

Atalante wrote:Where's the link to the second set Laetval ???

Why? The second set only got 3 pics of george on 6. The 3 others are pics of Ben Affleck

So we are not allowed to see Ben Affleck too ?