WHITE LIES: Josh Hartnett To Star in Oliver Stone’s First Movie in a Decade

White Lies Starts Filming with Josh Hartnett Starring

Josh Hartnett will be starring in filmmaker Oliver Stone‘s White Lies, Stone’s first film as a director since 2016’s Snowden.

Oliver Stone made a big name for himself in the 1980’s with Oscar-worthy films such as Platoon (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture) and Born on the Fourth of July. Both of those films were centered on the Vietnam War. Stone has a very diverse track record and has made films such as Natural Born Killers, JFK and Nixon. No stranger to controversial topics, Stone was considered a master of his craft in his prime. Now, the filmmaker has enlisted Josh Hartnett as the star of his new human drama, White Lies, which has already started shooting.

Hartnett will play the character, Jack Freeman, a man whose parents were divorced. Making errors in his own family life, he strives to find a happy equilibrium, but, instead, finds complexity getting in the way, especially in regards to his relationship with a new woman in his life. Stone originally had Benicio Del Toro attached to the role, but that was 8 years ago. Stone believes this new project is a return to form for him and that it will put him back on the map at the same place he was in 1986 when Stone’s prolific career got jump started from the one-two punch of Platoon and Salvador.

Family, love, pain and loss are just some of the themes Stone plans on exploring in his new collaboration with Hartnett. The action of the film takes place in Rome, Italy, Bangkok, Thailand, and Sofia, Bulgaria, according to Deadline. Hartnett is the perfect actor to work with Stone as he’s been in prestige films such as Black Hawk Down (where he was the main star) and Oppenheimer. Hartnett is soon to be seen in a Colleen Hoover adaptation titled, Verity. Hoover adaptations are making a big splash right now with the latest, Reminders of Him, being a big box-office hit.

Hartnett also had a principal role as the star in M. Night Shyamalan’s film, Trap, from the summer of 2024. Meanwhile, Stone has a lot of catching up to do. His last picture, Snowden, only made $21 million domestically which proved a bit disappointing for a director of his caliber. On the flip side, audiences loved it as it scored a straight “A” CinemaScore grade. If he can keep that grade with White Lies, Stone just has to face a hurdle at the box-office. If Stone can get past that box-office challenge, he may even make it to the Oscars again if this new film is as good as the filmmaker is suggesting it will be.

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