Jessica Chastain and Kit Harrington Lead Xavier Dolan’s THE DEATH AND LIFE OF JOHN F DONOVAN

Pair will lead Dolan’s Hollywood-set tale…

Jessica Chastain (‘Interstellar,’ ‘A Most Violent Year’) and Kit Harington, best known for his role as Jon Snow in ‘Game of Thrones,’ are to star in ‘The Death and Life of John F. Donovan,’ the English language feature debut of French-Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan.

The Hollywood-set film sees Harington playing the titular American movie star, whose correspondence with an 11-year-old actor living with his mother in England is exposed, prompting ill-founded assumptions that begin to destroy his life and career.

Chastain is attached to play the editrix of a celebrity-dishing magazine, who targets Donovan as his pen pal relationship is exposed in the public eye. 

Oscar-winners Kathy Bates and Susan Sarandon, who recently co-starred in Melissa McCarthy’s ‘Tammy,’ are also on board, with THR hearing that Bates is being lined up for the role of Donovan’s high-powered manager, while Sarandon will play Harington’s mother.

Dolan is expected to the cameras rolling this spring, during Harington’s downtime from ‘Game of Thrones.’