Award-winning filmmaker Christos Nikou’s next Apple Original Films sci-fi love drama Fingernails will feature The Bear’s, Jeremy Allen White. According to Deadline, he will be joining Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed in the lead roles. Buckley’s Anna has a long-term boyfriend named Ryan, who will be played by White. In the domain of Fingernails, scientists have developed a test to determine whether or not a pair is truly in love with each other. A “certified love connection” exists between Anna and Ryan.
The plot will revolve around Anna as she starts a new job as an assistant to Trevor (Ahmed), a mysterious and devoted instructor at one of these schools. Nikou’s newest effort, Fingernails, opened at this year’s Venice Film Festival and was picked up by Apple Original Film; his directorial debut, Apples, premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival and was Greece’s official Oscar entry. Along with Stavros Raptis (with whom Nikou also worked on Apples) and Sam Steiner (a British dramatist), Nikou wrote the film’s screenplay. Blanchett, together with her colleagues Andrew Upton and Coco Francini of Dirty Films, are the project’s producers. Production is expected to start later this year. White’s breakout role in the critically acclaimed FX drama The Bear has made him a highly sought-after actor.
Although production on Season 2 has been greenlit, White has been keeping himself quite occupied in the meantime. In addition to Fingernails, he will play the lead role of Kerry Van Erich in A24’s upcoming biopic The Iron Claw, which follows the lives of the Von Erichs, a legendary wrestling family. Next to Zac Efron and Harris Dickinson, he will be one of the film’s main protagonists. Sean Durkin is writing and directing the picture, and according to Deadline, White plans to film The Iron Claw and Fingernails simultaneously before returning to work on Season 2 of The Bear. Fingernails will begin manufacturing later this year, but there is no information on when it will be available to the public.