Jessica Chastain
Jessica Chastain is best known for her vibrant red hair, said to signify feistiness, which is probably very fitting given that she has been drawn towards female characters who are bold, unbreakable and determined. Although she made her big screen debut in 2008, it was not until 2011 that she burst onto the Hollywood radar in terms of public consciousness when she received an Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film adaptation of The Help alongside Octavia Spencer; in 2012 a second Oscar nomination followed for her performance in the controversial thriller Zero Dark Thirty, for which she won a Golden Globe Award.
Chastain was actually offered the role of Molly Bloom by Sorkin before any kind of negotiation between his production company and her representation had taken place; he simply believed that if he could cast both Jessica, and her eventual co-star Idris Elba, to play opposite each other then he would be able to create not just chemistry and empathy between them, because he considered them to be the most empathetic and chameleonic actors of their generation.
Idris Elba
Elba was the second actor cast for the movie by Sorkin. Nicknamed "Mr Sexy" by the British press, Elba is a man of many hats, working as not just an actor, but as writer, producer, musician, singer and rapper as well. He has even made the odd guest DJing appearance at major music festivals. He rose to prominence in his native Britain as a television actor, playing Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in the BBC One series Luther. His star began to rise globally when his name was suggested as a contender for the role of James Bond when Daniel Craig announced his intention to give up playing the role of the archetypal English spy.
On the big screen, Elba received international acclaim for playing Nelson Mandela in the movie adaptation of his auto-biography The Long Walk To Freedom. In 2018 he made his directorial debut with a film adaptation of the novel Yardie by Victor Headley.
Kevin Costner
Costner's career has not always been on the ascendent; his timeline often resembles the temperature chart at the end of a hospital bed of a patient with a spiking fever, because it has had extraordinary highs followed by equally extraordinary lows; after the Academy Award winning movie Dances With Wolves, his career took a sharp downturn with the most expensive box office bomb ever produced, Waterworld. The latter movie was so bad that many critics doubted that anyone would ever be able to bounce back from it.
Rising to prominence playing Elliot Ness in The Untouchables opposite Sean Connery in 1987, Costner's star rose quickly, seeing him win two Academy Awards for Dances With Wolves before starring in some of the most successful films of the decade, including Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves, and The Bodyguard.
After Waterworld, Costner's movies did not fare very well, either critically or commercially, and it was not until the beginning of the twenty-first century things started looking up again, with several notable supporting actor roles in small, independent movies. He also became extremely successful on the smaller screen, winning a Primetime Emmy Award in 2012 for his performance in the mini-series Hatfield and McCoys.
Michael Cera
Canadian singer-songriter Cera began his showbusiness career very early on, working as a child actor and portraying the young Chuck Barris in the 2002 movie Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. However, it was not for this that he became best known; in his native Canada he was the break-out star of the television comedy series Arrested Development.
He branched out onto the big screen with a succession of acclaimed roles in independent movies, including Superbad and Juno, starring in the latter opposite Academy Award winner Ellen Page. He has also worked on Broadway, winning a Tony Award nomination for his performance in Lonergan's Lobby Hero in 2018.
Jeremy Strong
Strong had worked with Jessica Chastain before as a member of the cast of Zero Dark Thirty he is drawn to gritty challenging roles in movies that are based on real-life events or characters, including Lee Harvey Oswald in Parkland and James Reeb in Selma. He is currently one of the cast members of the Golden Globe winning television series Succession.
Chris O'Dowd
O'Dowd is an Irish actor and comedian who moved to England to study theater after dropping out of college in his native Dublin. He became popular in the U.K. as one of the recurring characters on the Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd before moving onto the bigger screen in the 2011 Bridesmaids.
After winning an Irish Film and Television Award in 2016 for his work on the Sky 1 television series Moone Boy, O'Dowdbegan working on the Epix comedy series Get Shorty.
