Following his completion of The Wolf of Wall Street, news about Martin Scorsese’s next drama, Silence, has steadily surfaced over the past few months, and today brings a major name to the ensemble. After funding was secured during Cannes last year, Andrew Garfield, Ken Watanabe, and Adam Driver came aboard, and Deadline has news of the latest addition.
According to the trade, Liam Neeson will joining Scorsese’s long-awaited adaptation of the Shusaku Endo novel. Silence marks the second collaboration between the actor and the director, as Neeson had a small, but crucial role in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York as Priest Vallon, the slain priest that fuels the film’s revenge plot (seen above).
There’s no word on who Neeson will play in the upcoming film, but the story chronicles Jesuit priests spreading Christianity in Japan. This appears to be a welcome departure from Neeson’s more action-oriented roles of late, exemplified in his next major film, the claustrophobic-looking thriller Non-Stop.
Before production begins in Taiwan later this year, you can catch Scorsese competing for a Best Director Award for his work on The Wolf of Wall Street at the Academy Awards ceremony. He is also curating a series of restored seminal Polish films for the Film Society of Lincoln Center beginning on February 5th. The trailer for that event can be seen below, with more details on the official site: