Sonoya Mizuno, best known as an actress and star of “Ex Machina,” “Devs,” “House of the Dragon” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” has set her directorial debut.
“Stages” is being produced by both A24 and Film4, with Mizuno’s regular collaborator Alex Garland set to produce alongside Peter Rice, Agile Films’ Myles Payne and Sam Ritzenberg.
Details of the project remain under wraps, but the film is said to be inspired by Mizuno’s own dance background. Alongside her acting, Mizuno trained at the Royal Ballet School. She then danced in ballet companies including English National Ballet, Dresden Semper Oper Ballet and Scottish Ballet. “Ex Machina” marked her on-screen acting debut, playing an android who performs a disco dance with Oscar Isaac. In “Devs,” also written and directed by Garland, she had the lead role as a software engineer at a quantum computer company who investigates the sudden apparent suicide of her boyfriend.
Speaking to Variety at the time of “Devs,” Mizuno said while she wasn’t particularly tech-savvy herself, the show confirmed and challenged her beliefs about the pervasiveness of big tech.
“I remember reading the script, like, ‘I want to talk about these tech leaders who are controlling the way our society is run because our governments don’t have the structure to support how fast the industry is growing,’ and it felt like an amazing opportunity to do that,” she said.
A24 and Film have previously collaborated on projects including last year’s Oscar winner “The Zone of Interest” and the drama “We Live in Time.”