STONEWALL
in theaters September 25
STONEWALL is a drama about a fictional young man caught up during the 1969 Stonewall riots. Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) is forced to leave behind friends and loved ones when he is kicked out of his parent’s home and flees to New York. Alone in Greenwich Village, homeless and destitute, he befriends Ray (Jonny Beauchamp) and a group of street kids who soon introduce him to the local watering hole The Stonewall Inn; however, this shady, mafia-run club is far from a safe-haven. As Danny and his friends experience discrimination, endure atrocities and are repeatedly harassed by the police, we see a rage begin to build. This emotion runs through the entire community of young gays, lesbians, drag queens and trans people who populate the Stonewall Inn and erupts in a storm of anger. With the toss of a single brick, a riot ensues and a crusade for equality is born.
CAST & CREW
JONNY BEAUCHAMP (Ray) was born in the Bronx, New York before moving up to Rockland County, New York as a child. He started acting at age 10 when he was cast as Rooster in Viola Elementary School’s production of Annie.
Unable able to deny his talent, his mother signed him up for a children’s theater group where he began his training. By 2005 his mother had sold their property and moved back to New York City so that her son could attend a performing arts high school. After trying out a few schools, Beauchamp was accepted and graduated from PPAS (Professional Performing Arts School).
He started to work regionally off-Broadway and off-off Broadway while pursuing his B.A. in Theater Performance at Marymount Manhattan College. In his junior year he made his television debut on HBO’s How to Make It in America.
Since then Beauchamp has worked in short films and Thin Edge Films’ feature, Thirsty, set for release in September 2014.
OTOJA ABIT (Marsha P. Johnson), the only son of determined Nigerian parents, was born in Brooklyn in 1985 and grew up in Queens, New York.
A celebrated athlete and honored scholar he attended Archbishop Molloy High School and went on to a year of post-graduate work at The Gunnery in Connecticut. Abit completed his education at St. John’s University, where he played division one basketball and earned degrees in Communications and Theater Studies as well as a minor in Business.
The “smell of grease paint and roar of the crowd” got hold of Abit during his first ever production, William Inge’s Picnic. Consequently, Abit committed to a pursuit of his true passions: acting, writing and directing.
After interning at The LAByrinth Theater Company, his first big project saw him working as the assistant director on Broadway’s 2011 revival of That Championship Season, directed by Gregory Mosher and starring Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric and Chris Noth.
Abit then went on to book roles in both television and film, including a role playing opposite Al Pacino in The Humbling, directed by Barry Levinson, on NBC’s The Blacklist, and as Paris in Aleta Chappelle’s Romeo & Juliet in Harlem.
The acting bug bit VLADIMIR ALEXIS (Cong) at the age of four when visiting Disney World for the first time and discovering that Mickey Mouse was just “some random dude.” At the age of six he starred in his first play, at the age of 10 he started taking dance classes, and at the age of 14 he became part of his church choir.
After studying cinema and communications at Dawson College in Montreal, Alexis decided to deepen his acting skills with teachers such as Liz Valdez, Tom Todoroff, Julia Lenardon and Jonathan Patterson.
He has starred in theater productions In Transit (Segal Centre), The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The Musical (Shayne Gryn Productions) and Godspell (Beautiful City Theatre/Centaur Theatre).
In 2012 Alexis had the pleasure of working with acclaimed Quebec director Denise Filiatrault in the French-language production of Hairspray produced by Festival Juste Pour Rire (JPR)/ Just For Laughs Festival (JFL). In 2013 Filiatrault hired him for the role of TJ in the French-language production of Sister Act: The Musical, which she directed and produced (JPR/JFL).
In 2014, Alexis worked with Scapegoat Carnivale Theatre Company for the first time in the roles of Mosi and Sydney in Lindsay Wilson’s documentary theatre and mythical storytelling play Blind.
Alexis recently completed a two-year Artist Mentorship Program with Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop. Trained in hip-hop dancing with a jazz and ballet base, Alexis has competed in dance competitions and performed as a dancer in Canada and in the United States. He has sung with great artists such as Ben Folds and legendary jazz singer Kim Richardson.
JEREMY IRVINE (Danny Winters) made his feature film debut in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, in which he starred as Albert, a young man who travels to France to find his horse, Joey, who has been sent to fight in World War II. The film received a Best Picture nomination for the 2012 Academy Awards® and Golden Globes®.
Irvine was most recently seen opposite Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman in The Weinstein Company’s The Railway Man, based on a true story of British Army officer, Eric Lomax (played by Irvine), who was tormented as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp and years later sets out to confront his captor. Irvine was also seen in BBC Films’ Great Expectations, in which he starred as Pip. Directed by Mike Newell, the film was adapted from Charles Dickens’s classic novel and also starred Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter. It was the closing night film at the 56th BFI London Film Festival and made its premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.
In 2012, Irvine starred opposite Dakota Fanning in Now Is Good, about a young teenage girl with a terminal illness who resolves to live her life on fast forward. Directed by Ol Parker, the film is based on Jenny Downham’s novel Before I Die.
Irvine recently wrapped production on Fallen directed by Scott Hicks and starring Addison Timlin and Joely Richardson. The film follows a young girl who finds herself in a reform school after therapy and drawn to a fellow student who is actually an angel who has loved her for thousands of years. Irvine also wrapped production on The World Made Straight, in which an Appalachian community is haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre. The film also stars Haley Joel Osment and Minka Kelly.
Irvine recently completed production on the horror film The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, based on the Martyn Waites novel of the same name and directed by Tom Harper and co-starring Helen McCrory and Phoebe Fox. The film is a sequel to The Woman in Black, taking place 40 years after the first haunting at Eel Marsh House. Irvine also completed production on the thriller The Reach opposite Michael Douglas who also serves as a producer. Directed by Jean-Baptiste Léonetti, the film sees a hunting enthusiast played by Douglas hire a guide to take him on a trek through the desert. As the trek goes on, the hunter becomes a merciless torturer to the guide, played by Irvine, putting him through painful mental and physical tests in the middle of the desert.
Bolstering his on-screen talent, Irvine spent a year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and has appeared in stage productions including the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Dunsinane, an update to Macbeth.
JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS (Trevor) first gained international attention and a London Film Critics Circle Award for his starring role in Todd Haynes’s Velvet Goldmine with Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale and Toni Collette. Since then, Rhys Meyers has snatched up a Golden Globe Award® for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie” for his portrayal of the young Elvis Presley in the CBS television miniseries Elvis and also received an Emmy® nomination for the role – the flawless portrayal of the King by a young Irish actor floored critics and audiences alike. He was honored again when he received his second Golden Globe® nomination for his role as Henry the VIII in The Tudors. Rhys Meyers continues to land leading roles opposite today’s hottest film actors and directors, and has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most sought after leading men.
Rhys Meyers starred as the lead in the NBC drama Dracula, produced by Colin Callender and Tony Krantz. Rhys Meyers was recently seen opposite Lilly Collins in Mortal Instruments, an independent feature based on the popular adult trilogy City of Bones. He also appeared in the critically acclaimed feature Albert Nobbs, starring opposite Glenn Close and Brendan Gleeson.
Rhys Meyers showed great range in the musical romance August Rush alongside an all-star cast including Terrance Howard, Robin Williams and Keri Russell. In Mission Impossible III, Rhys Meyers co-stared with Tom Cruise under the direction of J.J. Abrams.
Rhys Meyers earned critical acclaim for his role in Woody Allen’s edgy film Match Point. Dubbed as Allen’s “comeback,” the film was nominated for three Golden Globes® including “Best Picture.” Match Point, which co-starred Scarlett Johansson, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 with Rhys Meyers winning the festival’s Chopard Trophy for Male Revelation of the Year.
Rhys Meyers is also recognized for his role as the girls’ soccer coach in the award-winning sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham, in which he starred with Keira Knightley and Parminder Nagra. Rhys Meyers other film credits include starring roles in Oliver Stone’s epic Alexander, and in Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair, with Reese Witherspoon.
On the small screen, Rhys Meyers has starred in a wide range of long-form projects, both in the US and in the U.K. Among his television credits are the Showtime presentation of The Lion in Winter, with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close, Alfonso Arau’s The Magnificent Ambersons, the mini-series Gormenghast, and Samson and Delilah.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Rhys Meyers made his film debut in A Man of No Importance, and then played the young assassin in Neil Jordan’s biopic Michael Collins. His subsequent film credits have included: The Maker; Telling Lies in America, starring Kevin Bacon; The Governess, opposite Minnie Driver; the thriller B. Monkey; Mike Figgis’s The Loss of Sexual Innocence; Ang Lee’s Western Ride with the Devil; Julie Taymor’s Titus, with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange; Prozac Nation, opposite Christina Ricci; thriller The Tesseract; the crime drama I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, with Clive Owen and Charlotte Rampling; and The Emperor’s Wife.
An award-winning actor, RON PERLMAN (Ed Murphy) has moved seamlessly between the worlds of film, television and theater for four decades. Having received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, he returned to his native New York City to begin his professional career. His first years kept him exclusively in the theater, delving into the works of Beckett, Pinter, Ibsen, Marlow Chekhov and Shakespeare.
Perlman’s film career began in the early ‘80s with his first of three collaborations with Jean-Jacques Annaud, Quest for Fire, for which he was nominated for a Genie Award, Canada’s equivalent to the Oscar®. He went on to make two more films with Annaud, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery, and Enemy at the Gates, with Jude Law and Rachael Weisz.
The last half of the ‘80s found Perlman in primetime on CBS in the critically acclaimed Beauty and the Beast opposite Linda Hamilton, for which he won a Golden Globe®, two Emmy® Nominations, and three Viewers For Quality Television Awards.
The ‘90s marked the beginning of what would become a signature collaboration with the brilliant Guillermo del Toro. Their first film together, Cronos, won the Critics Award at Cannes and projected del Toro into film history. They next did Blade II, which established del Toro’s box office bonafides and allow him to launch the Hellboy franchise, which found Perlman in the title role. Perlman and del Toro continue their collaboration to this day, most recently with Pacific Rim and The Book of Life, an animated film released in the fall of 2014.
Now that Perlman’s historic six-year run playing the explosive Clay Morrow in FX’s Sons of Anarchy has come to a close, he is set to produce and star in the new Amazon one-hour series, Hand of God, written by Ben Watkins and directed by Marc Forster. He is also poised to begin a 10-picture slate that he will produce for his very own production company, Wing and a Prayer Pictures, which will augment the 45 independent films he has already loaned his talent to. The first of these new films, Wooden Lake, which Ron will direct, will go into production this summer.
Since wrapping on Hand of God, Ron signed on to shoot three movies back-to- back. First was Skin Trade opposite Dolph Lundgren, Peter Weller and Michael Jai White, and then Moonwalkers, which he recently wrapped, starring opposite Rupert Grint.
Ron even found time to pen a memoir, Easy Street: The Hard Way, in collaboration with Michael Largo for Da Capo Press. The book was released in September 2014.
JOEY KING (Phoebe Winters) started acting professionally at just four years old when she booked a national commercial for Life cereal. But it wasn’t until she booked her first film, 2006’s Grace, that she knew she found her calling. On the first day of filming Joey had to pretend to almost drown in the ice-cold ocean. King has said she was completely hooked on making movies after that.
King’s recent features include Zach Braff’s Wish I Was Here, which premiered at Sundance in 2014 to incredible reviews. She recently wrapped on The Sound and the Fury, directed by James Franco, starring opposite Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogan and Jon Hamm. Other recent work includes Roland Emmerich’s White House Down, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, The Conjuring opposite Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, Family Weekend with Matthew Modine and Kristin Chenoweth, and Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful with James Franco, Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams.
Some of King’s past films include Crazy, Stupid, Love, playing Steve Carell and Julianne Moore’s daughter, Battle Los Angeles opposite Aaron Eckhart, and Ramona and Beezus, playing the title character Ramona opposite Selena Gomez. She voiced the yellow furball Katie for the animated feature Horton Hears a Who! and Beaver for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. She will next be heard voicing the role of Jessie in The Boxcar Children.
King currently stars on the small screen in FX’s new series Fargo, from executive producers Joel and Ethan Coen, based on their award-winning film. King’s past television work ranges from Disney’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody to HBO’s Entourage. Other television credits include Medium, CSI, Ghost Whisperer and Fox’s New Girl with Zooey Deschanel. King was also a series regular on NBC’s Bent, starring as Amanda Peet’s daughter Charlie.
King has performed in over 10 theater productions and loves the feel of a live audience. King has also performed in live “improv” theater, and feels the greatest thing in life is making an audience laugh. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her two parents, two older sisters, three dogs and one potbelly pig named named JayJay (a gift from Jay Leno!) who all make her laugh everyday.
ROLAND EMMERICH (Directed / Produced by) is one of the world’s most talented and sought-after directors. His career began in his native Germany. He studied film at the University of Television and Film Munich where his student film The Noah’s Ark Principle went on to open the 1984 Berlin Film Festival.
Emmerich is currently shooting Independence Day Resurgence, the follow up to his 1996 epic sci-fi and box office hit Independence Day. The film started production in May and is slated for a June 2016 release. Roland is directing, co-writing and producing the film.
Emmerich and Dean Devlin are developing a reimagining of Stargate as a follow up to their 1994 hit. They will be partnering with MGM and Warner Bros. and are planning it as part of a trilogy.
The summer of 2013 saw the release of action film White House Down, starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The story followed a Capitol policeman tasked with saving the life of the US President after a paramilitary group seizes the White House. Emmerich directed and produced the film and James Vanderbilt wrote the screenplay. In 2011 Roland directed the controversial feature Anonymous, which explored the theory that William Shakespeare’s plays were written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. The film featured an amazing cast including Vanessa Redgrave, Rhys Ifans and Joely Richardson.
Late 2009 saw the release of the box office hit 2012, an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors. This major blockbuster starred John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton. As well as directing, Roland co-wrote the screenplay.
Emmerich is famed for his disaster movies, which also include 10,000 BC, a fantasy-drama that tells the story of the world’s first hero, who brings down an evil empire to save his love. In 2004 The Day After Tomorrow was released, starring Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal, which follows a climatologist’s struggle to figure out a way to save the world from global warming. Roland directed, co-wrote and produced both films.
In 2000, Emmerich directed The Patriot based on the history of the American Revolution. The film starred Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger and Joely Richardson. Earlier on, 1994 saw Emmerich direct the cult hit Universal Soldier, which was followed by Stargate in the same year. Following that, 1996 and 1998 brought two of the most popular action films that the world had ever seen, both directed by Emmerich. In 1996 Independence Day grossed over $800 million worldwide, a blockbuster that secured Emmerich’s position as one of Hollywood’s top film directors. In quick succession, Emmerich released another Hollywood blockbuster, Godzilla, which he also and saw him reunite with screenwriter Dean Devlin. The film starred Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno and Hank Azaria.
In addition, to his work in film and television, Emmerich has made considerable contributions to many charities, including but not limited to the Cambodian Children’s Fund and the Gay and Lesbian Center of Los Angeles.
JON ROBIN BAITZ’s (Screenplay by) most recent play, Other Desert Cities, just ended a successful 14-week West End run in London at the Old Vic, following a long run on Broadway after transferring from the Lincoln Center Theater.
His plays also include The Substance of Fire, A Fair Country, Ten Unknowns, Mizlansky/Zilinsky, Three Hotels and The Paris Letter.
Baitz is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for A Fair Country and Other Desert Cities, a Drama Desk Award winner, as well as an Outer Critics Circle and Humanitas winner (for the American Playhouse film of Three Hotels, which he directed). He is a Guggenheim and NEA Fellow, and a recipient of an American Academy of Arts & Letters award for drama.
Baitz created the Emmy®-winning ABC drama Brothers & Sisters, after writing episodes of West Wing and Alias. He also adapted his play The Substance of Fire for the screen and wrote the screenplay for the Al Pacino film People I Know.
His eight-part mini-series, The Slap, which he wrote and executive produced along with director Lisa Cholodenko and Walter Parkes and Laurie McDonald, aired on NBC in the spring of 2015.
He is a founding member of Naked Angels theater company and on the faculties of the New School’s graduate drama division and SUNY’s MFA Playwrights program.