Naomi Watts has nabbed the lead role in the Hitchcockian thriller ‘The Wolf Hour’.
The 48-year-old actress – who is currently starring in the revival series of ‘Twin Peaks’ – will be directed by Alistair Banks Griffin in the psychological drama which she has also signed up to executive produce.
Production is set to start in New York City later this year, and Watts will star as a woman who was once a celebrated counter-culture figure who now lives alone in her Bronx apartment.
Having all but cut herself off from the outside world during the notorious "Summer of Sam" in 1977, she retreats further into isolation, before an unseen tormentor begins exploiting her weaknesses.
HanWay Films will oversee international sales and distribution and its managing director Gabrielle Stewart praised the casting, adding that the movie will reach levels of "tension" achieved in Alfred Hitchcock movies.
He said: "’The Wolf Hour’ delivers Hitchcockian tension in a densely layered world with a role that will exploit every fibre of Academy Award nominee Naomi Watt’s emotional range as an actor. Director Alistair Banks Griffin has a clear vision of the world he is enveloping Watts in: all of our senses are going to be stimulated."
Watts reunited with her ‘Mulholland Drive’ director David Lunch on ‘Twin Peaks’, and has starred in starred in the Netflix series ‘Gypsy’ and in the films ‘The Book of Henry’ and ‘The Glass Castle’ this year.
The Oscar-nominated star will also feature in a soon-to-be-aired documentary about Heath Ledger’s life and death on Channel Seven in Australia.
The actress dated the Hollywood star – who died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in 2008, aged 28 – from 2002 until 2004 and joins Heath’s family and friends, inluding his father Kim Ledger, in the documentary about the ‘Dark Knight’ actor.
Naomi Watts to star in Hitchcockian thriller The Wolf Hour
