Actor and Kansas City Royals baseball fan Paul Rudd stars in a new World War II movie premiering next month. He plays real-life professional baseball Morris “Moe” Berg in this espionage thriller from director Ben Lewin (Please Stand By). The movie adapts the true story of the catcher who became a World War II spy. The Boston Red Sox player was a private figure when, in 1944, the U.S. government’s wartime intelligence agency enlisted his services. His mission: To go behind enemy lines in Europe to assassinate the Nazi’s chief nuclear scientist before the Germans develop an atomic bomb. IFC Films is marketing the film as a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.
The film stars Rudd along with Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man, The Illusionist, The Amazing Spider-man 2), Mark Strong (The Imitation Game, Kingsman, Shazam!), Jeff Daniels (Good Night, Good Luck, Radio Days), Sienna Miller (G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA, Layer Cake), Tom Wilkinson (Valkyrie), Guy Pearce (Alien: Covenant, Iron Man 3), and Wonder Woman’s Queen Hippolyta, Connie Nielsen. Adapted from a book The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, by Nicholas Dawidoff, with a script by Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan, Thor: The Dark World), the film has a similar look and feel to other recent World War II espionage thrillers, like Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie and Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Imitation Game.
Production design is by Academy Award-winning designer Luciana Arrighi (Howard’s End, Remains of the Day). Costumes were designed by Joan Bergin (The Prestige, In the Name of the Father, My Left Foot, Vikings). Three-time Oscar winning composer Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit) created the musical score.
Here’s Paul Rudd starring in the trailer for The Catcher Was a Spy:
