Martin Freeman Joins Diane Kruger in The Operative

Martin Freeman Joins Diane Kruger in The Operative

BLOOM announced today that Emmy Award winner and Golden Globe nominee Martin Freeman (Black Panther, The Hobbit) will star alongside Diane Kruger (In the Fade, Inglourious Basterds) in Yuval Adler’s espionage-thriller The Operative. Principal photography is set to start in Israel and Bulgaria this coming June. Adler wrote the screenplay, which was adapted from the Israeli best-seller The English Teacher, written by former Israeli intelligence officer Yiftach Reicher Atir and culled from the real-life stories of Mossad operatives.

Spiro Films’ Eitan Mansuri (Foxtrot), Archer Gray’s Anne Carey (20th Century Women, The American, upcoming Can You Ever Forgive), and Match Factory Production’s Michael Weber and Viola Fügen (Foxtrot, Jupiter’s Moon) are producing. Academy Award nominee Teddy Schwarzman (The Imitation Game, Mudbound, upcoming Ben is Back) is executive producing and financing under his Black Bear Pictures banner. Le Pacte’s Jean Labadie is co-producing the film, which is supported by the Israeli Film Fund, Film and Medienstiftung NRW, MDM and Minitraité (FFA/CNC). Endeavor Content is handling U.S. sales with BLOOM continuing to sell the foreign rights in Cannes.

The Operative follows the story of Rachel (Kruger), a rogue spy from Israel’s feared national intelligence force Mossad, vanishes without a trace while attending her father’s funeral in London. The only clue to her whereabouts is a cryptic phone call she places to her former handler Thomas (Freeman), who is then summoned from Germany to Israel by Mossad. With Rachel’s life immersed in her assignments as part of a vast espionage effort against Iran’s nuclear program, Thomas must retrace her steps to determine what threats she may now pose to their operation, while also working to protect her.

Freeman won an Emmy Award for his current role as Dr. John Watson in Sherlock, BBC’s contemporary adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories. He is also known for his role as Bilbo Baggins, in Peter Jackson’s film series The Hobbit. His other notable credits include the UK version of The Office, the TV comedy-crime series Fargo, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and Emmy Award, The World’s End, and most recently Marvel’s blockbuster Black Panther.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

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