Andra Day, Len Cariou, Lonnie Chavis, Alexandra Daddario, Finn Wittrock and Teyonah Parris have been cast to lead the ensemble of Deborah Riley Draper’s Don’t Go Gentle. The film recently kicked off production in Toronto.
What is ‘Don’t Go Gentle’ about?
Per the official description, “A decorated Army medic refuses to let a wrongful conviction become the final word on her life—only to be pulled into the privileged, deeply strained world of a former judge and his family. As their worlds collide, competing ideas of justice, power.” The film is set in Buffalo, New York, in 2026.
Writer-director Deborah Riley Draper said, “Don’t Go Gentle begins with a woman the system has tried to reduce to a record—and follows what happens when she refuses to stay there. Tanya is a medic, a mother and a veteran fighting to reclaim the honor stripped from her, but she is not looking to be saved. She walks into a charged collision of privilege, history, and competing beliefs about justice, value and belonging, where every act of help carries a cost and every assumption is up for challenge. Andra Day has created a sublime, fiercely intelligent Tanya—one whose fight to hold on to what is right, without losing herself in the process, feels profoundly human and urgently of this moment.”
Day added, “Don’t Go Gentle challenges the idea that strength means suffering in silence. What we accepted yesterday does not have to be what we accept today and Tanya exemplifies that. She is resilient and a healer, For her every new environment and every obstacle is an opportunity to grow and improve conditions for herself, her son and her community.”
Who plays who in ‘Don’t Go Gentle’?
Day stars as honorably discharged Army medic Tanya Jenkins. Cariou plays Lawrence Driver, a retired judge whose history and sense of authority are challenged by Tanya’s presence. Chavis plays Rasheed Jenkins, Tanya’s teenage son; Parris plays Ellen, Tanya’s half-sister; Daddario plays Amelia Driver, Lawrence’s daughter; and Wittrock plays Ben Driver, Lawrence’s son.
Who is behind ‘Don’t Go Gentle’?
Draper wrote the screenplay and directs. Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel and Dan Kaslow produce under the G-BASE banner, alongside Crystine Zhang for Oval-5, Ashley Thornton Harrison, Tyler Levine and Cariou. Day, Roxann Thomas Chargois, Draper’s Coffee Bluff Pictures and Heather Cariou executive produce.
Featured image photo credit: Courtesy photos provided — Emilynn Rose/Andrew Walker/Getty/Najah Chavis/Jacob Webster/Storm Santos/PMC
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