WINCHESTER (2018) Cast and Crew

Directors Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig, and actors Helen Mirren,Jason Clarke, and Sarah Snook

CAST & CREW

THE SPIERIG BROTHERS (Co-Writers/Co-Directors) are identical twins Michael and Peter Spierig, German-born Australian film directors, writers and producers who have shared prestigious nominations and awards for their collaborative work.

Their critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller Predestination, based on Robert A. Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies", was nominated for nine Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for the brothers who wrote and directed the film, starring Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke. The film also won four AACTA Awards including Best Actress for Sarah Snook, who stars in WINCHESTER. The Spierig Brothers won the Toronto After Dark Film Festival Special Award for Best Sci-Fi Film and Best Screenplay for Predestination, which also took a second place Audience Award for Best Feature Film. And, they were the recipients of the Australian Writer's Guild John Hinde Award for Best Science Fiction Screenwriting and were nominated by the Australian Film Critics Association (AFCA) for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

WINCHESTER is the second collaboration for The Brothers with so many of the filmmakers who also worked on Predestination, including Producer Tim McGahan, Executive Producer Michael Burton, Cinematographer Ben Nott, Costume Designer Wendy Cork and Editor Matt Villa. For Production Designer Matthew Putland, WINCHESTER is the third time he has teamed with the Spierigs, having worked on Predestination and Undead.

Their 2003 feature debut, the low-budget zombie horror-comedy Undead financed by pooling their life savings, received the Fipresci Award by the International Federation of Film Critics at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The film was screened at 17 film festivals including Edinburgh, Montreal, Toronto, Sitges, Berlin, Amsterdam and Puchon and was sold to 41 countries. It was released in the U.S. and Canada by Lionsgate Films. The company developed a close relationship with The Spierigs releasing their second film Daybreakers, which opened in 2,500 theatres across the U.S. That 2010 vampire thriller, also starring Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill, garnered an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Visual Effects Award for the brothers, shared with Rangi Sutton, James Rogers and Randy Vellacott and, a nomination for the Macquarie AFI Award for Best Original Screenplay. WINCHESTER is The Spierig Brothers' fourth collaboration with Lionsgate.

They co-directed Jigsaw, the eighth installment of the lucrative SAW franchise, recently released by Lionsgate. The franchise conceptualised by fellow Australian Directors James Wan and Leigh Whannel was an opportunity for the Brothers to visit the horror genre again. To date the film has grossed over 100 million dollars worldwide in its theatrical release.

HELEN MIRREN (Sarah Winchester) is an Academy Award winner (The Queen), a BAFTA Award winner, a Golden Globe winner, a Cannes Film Festival Award winner, a Screen Actors Guild Award winner, a Tony Award winner, an Olivier Award winner and a Dame.

She has amassed an extraordinary number of appearances in film, television and on stage including: An Oscar for The Queen and three Oscar nominations for The Last Station, Gosford Park and The Madness of King George; 11 Golden Globe nominations and three wins for Best Actress in The Queen (film), Elizabeth 1 (television) and Losing Chase (television); four BAFTA awards for Best Actress - one in film for The Queen and three in television for Prime Suspect, Prime Suspect 2 and Prime Suspect 3 - and seven BAFTA nominations; four Primetime Emmy Award wins - Prime Suspect: The Final Act; Elizabeth I; The Passion of Ayn Rand; Prime Suspect: The Scent of Darkness - plus, six BAFTA nominations; two Cannes Film Festival wins for Best Actress for Neil Jordan's Cal and The Madness of King George; and three Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards for Best Female Actor - Phil Spector, The Queen, and Gosford Park (shared as part of an ensemble cast), plus six SAG nominations to name a few. For her 2006 portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen alone, Mirren received an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. She was also named Best Actress by virtually every critics organization from Los Angeles to London. In 2014, she was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship for her outstanding career in film.

Helen Mirren was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 2003 in recognition of her contribution to the arts.

She can be seen in the upcoming films: The Leisure Seeker opposite Donald Sutherland; Lasse Hallstrom's upcoming The Nutcracker and The Four Realms and Luc Besson's Anna M. Her recent films include: The Fate of the Furious; Collateral Beauty; Eye in the Sky, in which she portrays an army Colonel in a world of drone warfare; Trumbo as Hedda Hopper; Woman in Gold, as Maria Altmann, the Austrian Jewish refugee who fought to reclaim her family's art that had been stolen by the Nazis in World War II.

Her prior films include: Lasse Hallstrom's The Hundred-Foot Journey; the HBO biopic Phil Spector, for which she won a SAG Award for her performance and was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe. Additionally, she voiced the character of Dean Hardscrabble in Monster University. For her role as Alma Reville in Hitchcock, she was nominated for a Golden Globe and a SAG Award; the comedies RED and RED 2; John Madden-directed thriller The Debt, in which she plays a Mossad agent; Istvan Szabo's The Door; Terry George's Some Mother's Son, on which she also served as associate producer; Calendar Girls; The Clearing; Shadowboxer; State of Play; The Tempest; and, Brighton Rock.

Mirren began her career in the role of Cleopatra at the National Youth Theatre. She then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she starred in such productions as Troilus and Cressida and Macbeth. In 1972, she joined renowned director Peter Brook's theatre company and toured the world.

Her film career began with Michael Powell's Age of Consent, but her breakthrough film role came in 1980 in John Mackenzie's The Long Good Friday. Over the next 10 years, she starred in a wide range of acclaimed films, including John Boorman's Excalibur, Neil Jordan's Irish thriller Cal, for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and an Evening Standard Film Award; Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast; and Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.

She earned her first Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Queen Charlotte in Nicholas Hytner's The Madness of King George, for which she also won Best Actress honors at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Her second Oscar nomination came for her work in Robert Altman's 2001 film Gosford Park. Her performance as the housekeeper also brought her Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations, several critics groups' awards, and dual SAG Awards, one for Best Supporting Actress and a second as part of the winning ensemble cast. Mirren earned both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for her performance in The Last Station, playing Sofya Tolstoy.

In television, Mirren starred in the award-winning series Prime Suspect as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison. She had earned an Emmy Award and three BAFTA Awards, as well as numerous award nominations, for her role in early installments of the Prime Suspect series. She won another Emmy Award and earned a Golden Globe nomination when she reprised the role of Detective Jane Tennison in 2006's Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act, the last installment in the PBS series. Mirren was also honored for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in the HBO miniseries Elizabeth I, winning an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award. For her performance in the biopic Phil Spector, she won a SAG Award and was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

Her long list of television credits include: Losing Chase; The Passion of Ayn Rand; Door to Door; and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, which earned Golden Globe, Emmy and SAG Award nominations and awards.

On stage, in 2015 Mirren reprised her role as Queen Elizabeth II on Broadway in Stephen Daldry's The Audience, for which she won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. In 2013, she debuted her stage role of Elizabeth II in The Audience in London's West End, for which she received the Olivier Award for Best Actress.

A prolific stage thespian, Mirren has worked extensively in the theatre from the RSC to Broadway. She received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in Mourning Becomes Electra at London's National Theatre. In 2009, Mirren returned to the National Theatre to star in the title role in Phedre, directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner.

SARAH SNOOK (Marion) reteams with The Spierig Brothers in WINCHESTER for a second collaboration following their hit film Predestination, a performance that brought her the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) and Film Critics Circle of Australia (FCCA) Best Actress Awards.

She received an AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama for the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) series Sisters of War and was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Feature Film for Not Suitable for Children, a role that also brought her an FCCA Award for Best Actress. Snook also received the Graham Kennedy Most Outstanding New Talent TV Week Logie Award for her performance in Sisters of War. She also received nominations for the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama and Logie Award for Best Outstanding Actress for her role in The Beautiful Lie.

Snook was the runner up for the prestigious Australians In Film Heath Ledger Scholarship in 2011. She recently appeared in The Glass Castle with Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson. Her other film credits include: Neil Armfield's Holding The Man, co-starring Guy Pearce, Anthony Lapaglia, which closed the 2015 Sydney Film Festival; Jocelyn Moorehouse's The Dressmaker with Kate Winslet, Judy Davis and Liam Hemsworth, which screened at the Toronto and Melbourne International Film Festivals; Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs; Sleeping Beauty; These Final Hours; Oddball.

She is currently shooting the HBO drama series Succession with Brian Cox and Kieran Culkin. Her television credits include: The Secret River with her WINCHESTER co-star Finn Scicluna-O'Prey; The Moody's; Redfern Now; Spirited Series 2; Blood Brother; Packed to the Rafters; My Place; and All Saints.

Her theatre credits include: King Lear for the South Australian Theatre Company and three productions for the Griffin Theatre Company: Lovely/Ugly: Transformer, Crestfall and S27.

In 2015, Snook returned to the stage for Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder opposite Ralph Fiennes at London's Old Vic Theatre.

JASON CLARKE (Dr. Eric Price), known for his unforgettable roles in critically acclaimed independent and blockbuster films, first captured the American audiences' attention with the Showtime drama series Brotherhood in his role as the Rhode Island politician Tommy Caffee navigating the treacherous worlds of local politics and organized crime.

But it was the Australian thespian's performance as Dan in Director Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar contender Zero Dark Thirty that pivoted him as one of the most respected talents working in film today. For that memorable role, the Chicago Film Critics Association nominated him for Best Supporting Actor. Clarke can be seen in the upcoming period drama The Aftermath, opposite Keira Knightley and Alexander Skarsgard, Serenity opposite Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, and Damien Chazelle's First Man opposite Ryan Gosling about the life of Astronaut Neil Armstrong and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon. He will also be seen as U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy in Chappaquiddick, examining the fatal car accident in 1969 that claimed the life of a young campaign strategist and the effect it had on Kennedy's political career.

Part of the ensemble cast of Dee Rees' period drama Mudbound, opposite Carey Mulligan and Garrett Hedlund, Clarke shared a New York Film Festival Gotham Jury Award for Ensemble Performance, the Film Independent Spirit Awards' Robert Altman Award, and the Breakout Ensemble Award at the Hollywood Film Awards. Mudbound premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and screened at the Toronto Film Festival, London Film Festival and New York Film Festival.

He recently appeared in Marc Forster's All I See Is You, opposite Blake Lively.

Clarke also starred in such films as Baltasar Kormakur's Everest, based on the true story of the tragic 1996 Mount Everest disaster, and Terminator: Genisys opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Other film credits include: the sci-fi sequel blockbuster Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, with Gary Oldman and Keri Russell; Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups, with Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Natalie Portman; Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby, co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan; Roland Emmerich's White House Down; John Hillcoat's period drama Lawless, with Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce and Jessica Chastain; Michael Mann's Public Enemies with Johnny Depp; Victoria Mahoney's Yelling to the Sky; Jada Pinkett Smith's directorial debut The Human Contract; David Schwimmer's Trust, co-starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener; Paul Anderson's Death Race; Daniel Espinosa's adaptation of the critically acclaimed Tom Rob Smith novel Child 44; Texas Killing Fields, which premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival; and, The Better Angels, a drama co-starring Brit Marling and Diane Kruger, about Abraham Lincoln as a young child in which Clarke plays his father that premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

In Australia, the Queensland native also starred in a supporting role in Phillip Noyce's Rabbit Proof Fence as well as a role in Better than Sex.

His television credits include: the lead role in Fox' cop drama The Chicago Code; and Mercury opposite Geoffrey Rush.

Clarke has extensive theater credits as an actor and director.

He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.