Belfast actor Ciarán Hinds to star in new Irish Netflix film alongside Black Widow’s Florence Pugh 

Belfast actor Ciarán Hinds, who will appear in the new Netflix film, The Wonder, alongside Florence Pugh.

First picture of Florence Pugh from the new Netflix film The Wonder, which has started shooting in Dublin and Wicklow.

thumbnail: Belfast actor Ciarán Hinds, who will appear in the new Netflix film, The Wonder, alongside Florence Pugh.
thumbnail: First picture of Florence Pugh from the new Netflix film The Wonder, which has started shooting in Dublin and Wicklow.
Maureen Coleman

Belfast actor Ciarán Hinds has joined the star-studded cast of the big screen adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s acclaimed novel, The Wonder.

The film, for Netflix, stars Florence Pugh and is the first from the streaming giant’s new UK and Ireland Features Slate.

Production is now underway in Dublin and Wicklow with acclaimed Chilean director Sebastián Lelio, whose 2017 feature A Fantastic Woman won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, at the helm. The film is based on Donoghue’s book inspired by the famous historical phenomenon of the ‘fasting girls’ and follows on from her Oscar-nominated adaptation of the 2010 novel Room, starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay.

Pugh, who is currently starring in Marvel Studio’s Black Widow, is joined by Strike star Tom Burke, Irish actress Niamh Algar of Calm with Horses and The Virtues fame and who is set to star in Channel 4’s gripping new drama Deceit and mother and daughter pairing, Elaine Cassidy and Kila Lord Cassidy. Also on the bill are Hinds, Toby Jones, Dermot Crowley, Brian F O’Byrne and David Wilmot.

The Wonder is set in the Irish Midlands in 1862 and tells the story of a young girl who stops eating but remains miraculously alive and well. English nurse Lib Wright (Pugh) is brought to a tiny village to observe 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell. Tourists and pilgrims gather to witness the girl, who is said to have survived without food for months. Is the village harbouring a saint or are there more ominous motives at work?

The psychological thriller is being produced by House Productions and Element Pictures, the company behind the TV adaptation of Normal People.

Hinds, who comes from north Belfast but lives in Paris, was recently seen in the critically-acclaimed supernatural series The Terror and stars in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming film about his native city, Belfast. The former Game of Thrones actor is also starring in new Britbox comedy drama series The Dry opposite Belfast’s Roisin Gallagher.

Sebastian Lelio, director of The Wonder, said: “Bringing the powerful novel The Wonder by Emma Donoghue to the screen not only offers me the chance to portray the collision between reason and faith, individual and community, obedience and rebellion, but also to explore my own interpretation of what a ’period’ film can be.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled that the magnetic and courageous Florence Pugh will play our fierce female lead.”

The Wonder will be released on Netflix in 2022.