She stole our hearts as the Wildling Ygritte on HBO’s brilliant high-fantasy series Game of Thrones, and now British actress Rose Leslie will be bringing her fiery red locks to the big screen – for another action-heavy role, as it turns out. We’ve learned that Leslie will be taking on a lead role in Summit Entertainment’s supernatural action-thriller The Last Witch Hunter, alongside Vin Diesel.
Leslie will play a witch who also serves as a love interest for Diesel’s character, a “semi-immortal witch hunter.” Set in modern-day New York City, The Last Witch Hunter picks up when the hunter is “forced to partner with his natural enemy, a female witch (Leslie). The two must stop a villainous witch queen from obtaining a relic and unleashing plague upon humanity.”
The Crazies helmer Breck Eisner is sitting behind the camera on this one, which was most recently scripted by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama (Gods of Egypt). But before Sharpless and Sazama worked on it, Priest writer Cory Goodman pitched the story to Summit, which then brought in D.W. Harper and Melisa Wallack (Dallas Buyers Club) to help Goodman produce a strong screenplay. Now that Sharpless and Sazama have added in their two cents, Summit evidently believes The Last Witch Hunter is ready to roll.
Though a Diesel-powered action movie is nothing new, and the plot doesn’t sound particularly riveting, it’s exciting to see Leslie come aboard. She’s proven on Game of Thrones that she can hold her own both physically, in the series’ many battle sequences, and dramatically, against other terrific actors like Kit Harington and Ciarán Hinds. Leslie’s star is also rising, and though she’s starring in a Ray Liotta-led drama called Sticky Notes, this likely tentpole will undoubtedly serve as her highest-profile post-Thrones gig yet.
The Last Witch Hunter is due to roll cameras in Pittsburgh next month.
