Two-time Academy Award winner Sean Penn will share the spotlight with a host of Australian talent in Kick Gurry’s C*A*U*G*H*T, a six-part satirical comedy that began filming last week at Sydney’s Fox Studios.
Gurry directs, produces, writes, and stars in the Stan Original series, which follows four Australian soldiers sent on a secret mission to a war-torn country.
Mistaken for Americans, they are captured by freedom fighters and produce a hostage video that goes viral. When the soldiers reach celebrity status, they realise that being caught might just be the best thing that could’ve happened to them.
Joining Gurry and Penn in the cast are Ben O Toole, Lincoln Younes, Alexander England, Mel Jarnson, Fayssal Bazzi, Dorian Nkono, Rebecca Breeds, Bella Heathcote, Bryan Brown, Erik Thomson, and US star Matthew Fox.
Michael and John Schwarz are producing for Deeper Water Films alongside Brendan Donoghue, while Penn, who will reportedly play a fictionalised version of himself, is executive producing with Stan’s Cailah Scobie and Amanda Duthie.
The series is produced in association with Fremantle, who will also handle international distribution.
Gurry said his biggest challenge in creating the series was coming up with a concept worthy of all his “insanely talented friends”.
“I genuinely cannot wait to share this show with the whole world and look forward to the internet telling me how terribly I missed the mark,” he said.
John Schwarz told IF that Gurry, whom he has known for more than 20 years, approached Deeper Water films in May last year with some early drafts of the script and teaser trailer he had shot with Donoghue, having already brought Penn onboard.
“Stan is the first place we took it to and we developed the scripts with them, added some cast, and here we are,” he said.
“Given the subject matter of war, fame, and identity, Sean was someone that he had already been in contact with and ended up being a champion of the project Kick had presented him.
“From there, it was about fleshing out the scripts because Sean was already very attracted to what the show was, and he believes in Kick.”
For Penn, C*A*U*G*H*T captured the comedy that was “generally confined to fox holes”.
“Kick’s brand of irreverence is so charged by an enthusiasm for all things considered inappropriate,” he said.
“From ball-sacks to fame, idiots and intellectuals, and finally to that creepy-crawly continuum of war.”
The series announcement follows the launch of seven new Stan Originals earlier this year, with the streamer aiming to invest in more than 30 productions per year within five years.
Scobie, chief content officer at Stan, described Penn’s involvement in the project as “a real coup”.
“Helmed by the extraordinary Kick Gurry, C*A*U*G*H*T marks yet another blockbuster addition to our growing slate of locally produced, world-class Stan Originals — with the series promising to poke fun at celebrity culture, while exploring the often outrageous price of fame,” she said.
The series, which will shoot for at least six weeks in different locations around Sydney, is due to launch on Stan and new UK streaming service ITVX in 2023.