As it readies into production, the upcoming drama Burden has set an impressive triumvirate to lead. Rising actor Garrett Hedlund (Unbroken), Oscar winner Forest Whitaker (Lee Daniels’ The Butler) and Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) have become attached to the film, written and to be directed by Andrew Heckler. Deadline was the first to report this story.
The film may spark a topical chord as it centers around an orphan named Mike Burden (Hedlund’s character) who was raising within the Ku Klux Klan. After falling in love, Mike is urged to leave his upbringing behind in pursuit of a better adulthood, which only emboldens the Klan to seek out vengeance on Mike. He finds acceptance, however, in a black community, led by a kindly reverend. Tess Harper (No Country for Old Men) and Usher Raymond IV (Hands of Stone) round the cast. The long-gestating film is set to being production is two weeks time under the arm of production company The Firm.
Hedlund, who had a significant critical breakout in 2012 with On the Road, has appeared in Tron: Legacy, Inside Llewyn Davis, Unbroken and last year’s Pan. He will next be seen in Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Whitaker, an Oscar winner decade ago for The Last King of Scotland, soon will be seen in the science fiction film Arrival opposite Amy Adams as well as the highly anticipated Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Wilkinson, two-time former Oscar nominee (for In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton), can now be seen in Oliver Stone’s Snowden and appears in the upcoming drama Denial.
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