Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been cast in the lead role of the Moroccan-set ‘Damascus Cover’ – to be directed by Daniel Zelik Berk.
Deadline reports that the film, which begins production this week in Morocco, is set in 1989 Berlin and centres on the true story of a veteran spy who is sent undercover in Syria to smuggle a chemical weapons scientist and his family out of the country – and Olivia Thirlby, John Hurt, Igal Naor, and Navid Negahban will also star in the film.
Rhys Meyers has previously taken lead roles in large scale international productions such as ‘Match Point’ (opposite Scarlett Johannson) and ‘From Paris With Love’ (opposite John Travolta) – as well as winning a Golden Globe Award for portraying Elvis Presley in the 2005 television movie ‘Elvis’.
He has also headlined four seasons of ‘The Tudors’ – which was shot in Ireland – and won an IFTA award for his work in 2008.
Speaking on his casting Rhys Meyers said: ‘I’m enormously excited about this role. This was a hugely significant time in the conflict in the Middle East, post-Cold War and with the collapse of the Berlin Wall when an amount of spies were redeployed to the Middle East, where the theatre of covert operations would now take precedence.’
