Chris Pine is going from the Final Frontier to the Beautiful Country. The Star Trek star has taken on his first Italian-language role in The Kidnapping of Arabella. Variety reports that the dramedy will be the sophomore directorial feature from Carolina Cavalli.
The Kidnapping of Arabella will star Benedetta Porcaroli, who recently graced the screen in the Sydney Sweeney nunsploitation screamer Immaculate, as a misfit who believes that she’s the “wrong version of herself”. She’s dispelled of that notion, however, when she meets a special seven-year-old girl. Pine‘s role is being kept under wraps for now, but it will be in Italian; the actor speaks Spanish, as well. Director Cavalli made her directorial debut with the coming-of-age drama Amanda, which also starred Porcaroli; it screened at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, and holds a 95% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. She also co-wrote the Afghan immigrant drama Fremont, which Collider‘s Marco Vito Oddo called a “charming movie with many layers of its own.” The Kidnapping of Arabella is set to begin filming this week in northern Italy.
Who Is Chris Pine?
Pine‘s parents, Robert Pine and Gwynne Gilford, are both actors, and his grandmother, Anne Gwynne, was an early “scream queen” in Universal‘s 1940s horror movies. Chris made his screen debut in a 2003 episode of ER, and went on to star in The Princess Diaries 2, Smokin’ Aces, and Just My Luck. He hit the big time playing Captain James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams‘ big-screen reboot of Star Trek, and reprised the role in its two sequels; making a fourth film has been harder to navigate than the Romulan Neutral Zone, but Paramount still intends to get it done. He has subsequently starred in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Unstoppable, Into the Woods, Hell or High Water, and two Wonder Woman movies as the titular heroine’s WWI love interest Steve Trevor. He had a busy 2023, starring in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (for which Pine hopes to make a sequel), voicing the villain in Disney’s centennial-anniversary film Wish, and directing his first feature, Poolman, which he also starred in.
Although not nearly as common as it once was, a number of notable mid-century actors made their fortunes by traveling to Italy and starring in low-budget films. Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson went to Italy as TV actors, and after starring in the “spaghetti Westerns” that took chances no American Western would dare to, returned Stateside as bonafide movie stars. Henry Fonda also took a chance to shed his nice-guy image by playing a loathsome villain in Sergio Leone‘s Once Upon a Time in the West. Quentin Tarantino commented on the phenomenon in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as washed-up TV actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) takes a sojourn in Italy towards the end of that film.
The Kidnapping of Arabella is set to begin filming this week in northern Italy; no release date has yet been announced.
via Collider