EXCLUSIVE: Emmy and Golden Globe nominees Greta Lee (Past Lives) and Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers) have inked deals to star in My Notes on Mars, a sci-fi romance marking the first English-language feature from renowned Hungarian filmmaker Lili Horvát (Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time).
Set to shoot between Budapest and Vienna next spring, Horvát’s latest centers on Margot (Lee), a brilliant young scientist with a troubled marriage, who disappears inexplicably while hiking with her husband Sam (Scott) and a group of friends. A few weeks later, she miraculously reappears the day of her own memorial service. Margot is clearly not the same as before the accident. Nevertheless, Sam sees his wife’s miraculous reappearance as a second chance.
For Horvát, the film is “a story about the labyrinthine human psyche, about the ever-changing faces of love. To start over a marriage, to rediscover the other, to fall in love again — our story is about the grueling realization of this impossible desire.”
Noting that she’s “particularly drawn to characters who dare to make surprising, unconventional choices in both their private and professional lives,” the filmmaker added, “I feel that this is true for Greta and Andrew as well. It is an incredible honor for me that I can accompany them on the journey of creating Margot and Sam Fogel.”
Horvát will direct from her own script and produce with Dóra Csernátony under their Poste Restante banner, together with Oscar nominee Emilie Georges and Naima Abed (Call Me By Your Name, Drift) for Paradise City, Anne Carey (Can You Ever Forgive Me?, 20th Century Women), Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu and Bady Minck of Amour Fou (Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey Into the Desert) and Mirsad Purivatra and Jovan Marjanovic of Obala Art Center (Triangle of Sadness, Sieranevada). The film has received support from the National Film Institute of Hungary.
In her own statement, Horvát’s producing partner Csernátony said, “I see My Notes on Mars as a very organic step in Lili’s work, and I am so excited to see her unique vision elevated by the amazing talents that have joined us.”
Lee gave one of the best performances of last year in A24’s romantic drama Past Lives, earning the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Virtuoso Award for her work, as well as nominations at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards, Independent Spirit Awards and Gotham Awards. Otherwise perhaps best known for her Emmy-nominated work on The Morning Show, the actress will next be seen in Disney’s Tron: Ares and Kathryn Bigelow’s still-untitled new film for Netflix.
Scott is currently up for two Emmys as the producer and star of Netflix’s stellar Steven Zaillian miniseries Ripley. Prior to the crime thriller’s April debut, he was seen staring opposite Paul Mescal in Andrew Haigh’s acclaimed romantic fantasy All of Us Strangers, a Searchlight title for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe. Most recently tapped to star in the D-Day pic Pressure for StudioCanal and Working Title, he’ll also be seen coming up in Netflix’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
Horvát broke out as the writer, director and producer of Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, a romantic drama selected as Hungary’s entry for Best International Feature at the 93rd Academy Awards. Telling the story of Márta, a 40-year-old neurosurgeon who falls in love and leaves her career in America behind to return to Budapest and start a new life, the film earned an Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film in 2021. Prior to that project, the filmmaker made her feature debut with drama The Wednesday Child.
Lee is represented by UTA, Entertainment 360, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Scott by CAA, United Agents, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole; and Horvát by UTA.
