Director Kathryn Bigelow is attached to a new project, and has landed a fantastic actor for one of the leads. Tom Hardy will star in THE TRUE AMERICAN for Bigelow, an adaptation of Anand Giridharadas' recently published non-fiction novel The True American: Murder And Mercy In Texas. It's not clear what Tom Hardy's role will be in THE TRUE AMERICAN, but based on the book description below, he'll probably be playing self-proclaimed "Arab slayer" Mark Stroman.
Description from Amazon:
The True American tells the story of Raisuddin Bhuiyan, a Bangladesh Air Force officer who dreams of immigrating to America and working in technology. But days after 9/11, an avowed "American terrorist" named Mark Stroman, seeking revenge, walks into the Dallas minimart where Bhuiyan has found temporary work and shoots him, maiming and nearly killing him. Two other victims, at other gas stations, aren’t so lucky, dying at once.
The True American traces the making of these two men, Stroman and Bhuiyan, and of their fateful encounter. It follows them as they rebuild shattered lives—one striving on Death Row to become a better man, the other to heal and pull himself up from the lowest rung on the ladder of an unfamiliar country.
Ten years after the shooting, an Islamic pilgrimage seeds in Bhuiyan a strange idea: if he is ever to be whole, he must reenter Stroman's life. He longs to confront Stroman and speak to him face to face about the attack that changed their lives. Bhuiyan publicly forgives Stroman, in the name of his religion and its notion of mercy. Then he wages a legal and public-relations campaign, against the State of Texas and Governor Rick Perry, to have his attacker spared from the death penalty.
Yeah, Kathryn Bigelow is directing another post-9/11 drama, but it's a fascinating true story, and it's not as if THE TRUE AMERICAN will be exactly like her THE HURT LOCKER or ZERO DARK THIRTY. Tom Hardy should do a excellent job as Mark Stroman, however I'm very curious to see who they'll get to play Raisuddin Bhuiyan.
No word on when filming might start for THE TRUE AMERICAN, but Tom Hardy has a bunch projects already in the works, including MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, CHILD 44, the Elton John biopic ROCKETMAN, Doug Liman's SPLINTER CELL adaptation, and Taboo, BBC's upcoming eight-part period drama.