Film / News
Bristol’s Maisie Williams launches her own film production company
It’s proving to be a busy year for Bristolian star Maisie Williams, who rose to fame as Arya Stark in Game of Thrones. She’s recording the voice of tomboyish Goona in Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park’s new feature animation, Early Man, which is due out in January. Next up is the eleventh X-Men film, The New Mutants, in which she’s cast as the vulpine Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane, who struggles to reconcile her religious beliefs with her unfortunate habit of turning into a hairy beast. This one’s scheduled for release in April 2018.
In June, we’ll finally have a chance to see her in Haifaa Al-Mansour’s biopic Mary Shelley, which was premiered at last month’s Toronto International Film Festival. Then there’s US drama Departures, whose UK release date is yet to be confirmed, which stars Maisie as Skye, “a spunky teenager with a terminal illness”, who recruits nervous Calvin (Asa Butterfield) to help complete her bucket list.
Maisie Williams in plasticene form as Goona in Nick Park’s ‘Early Man’
In between all that, she’s somehow found time to set up her own film production company, Daisy Chain Productions, in partnership with producer Dom Santry and Bill Milner, who whom she co-starred in the Netflix thriller iBoy. “We are a new type of Production Company, focusing on youth and the development of talent in the UK,” asserts the Daisy Chain website.
“I hope to give other creatives the opportunities that I was lucky enough to receive at the beginning of my career,” Maisie told trade journal Screen International. “I have previously had the joy of working with female directors on a number of occasions. The industry is moving and I couldn’t be more excited for my future within it.”
Daisy Chain’s first production is a short film entitled Stealing Silver, in which Maisie co-stars with Ronald Pickup (pictured above on set) and also serves as executive producer. It’s directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Mark Lobatto, whose previous shorts have starred Lily James and David Warner. “A young woman is forced to confront a painful time in her life when she discovers just how wrong she’s been about the mysterious old man across the road,” teases the brief official synopsis. It’s due to be premiered at the Savannah International Film Festival at the end of October.
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