Brendan Gleeson (Safe House, The Guard) has signed on to star in the period action drama In the Heart of the Sea at Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow. Sam Keeley (This Must Be the Place) has also joined Ron Howard's (Frost/Nixon, A Beautiful Mind) film, which is based on Nathaniel Philbrick's book. The story follows the crew of the Nantucket whaling ship the Essex, which was stalked and destroyed by a sperm whale in 1820. Stranded thousands of miles from home, the surviving men (including the captain and first officer) were lost at sea for 90 days and at one point resorted to cannibalism.
Gleeson will play an older version of one of the crew members who made it through the tragedy and is interviewed years later by the author Herman Melville for research on his novel 'Moby Dick'. Keeley will play one of those experiencing the incident first-hand, and they join Chris Hemsworth (Avengers Assemble), Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Cillian Murphy (Inception) and Tom Holland (The Impossible), who are already on board. Shooting for In the Heart of the Sea is due to begin in London in September.