Bill Nighy Will Star in a Film About an ‘Opulent Russian Restaurant’ in NYC

Danish director Lone Scherfig (Their Finest) is making progress on a movie that will juxtapose glitz and grit against the backdrop of a New York City restaurant, and she is recruiting a notable roster of actors. British sexagenarian Bill Nighy (Love Actually, The Girl in the Cafe, and many others) leads the newly announced cast, reports Variety.

No official name has been set, but the working title is Secrets From the Russian Tea Room. Nighy will play “the owner of an opulent Russian restaurant,” per Variety. A comedy/drama, the movie will attempt to analyze homelessness and tolerance by telling the story of “four people in New York City through the worst crises of their lives, the year they gradually become each other’s closest allies and forever change each other’s lives through compassion, kindness and love,” according to a prior report from the Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and Jay Baruchel (Undeclared and a slew of other Judd Apatow projects) are also part of the cast. The trio joins previously announced actors Andrea Riseborough (Birdman), Tahar Rahim (The Looming Tower), and Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick). Scherfig’s past directorial work includes 2011’s One Day, which starred Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, and An Education, a 2009 coming-of-age flick, set in the 1960s and starring Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard.

Filming will take place in New York, Toronto, and Copenhagen. No release date has been announced.

• Bill Nighy, Caleb Landry Jones, Jay Baruchel Join Lone Scherfig’s New York Restaurant Movie [Variety]
• Lone Scherfig’s Secrets From the Russian Tea Room Receives Funding [Nordisk]
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