THE UPSIDE (2019) About the Cast
Kevin Hart , Bryan Cranston, Nicole Kidman, Julianna Margulies, Golshifteh Faharani, and Aja Naomi King
Cast: Kevin Hart (Dell), Bryan Cranston (Phillip), Nicole Kidman (Yvonne), Julianna Margulies (Lily), Golshifteh Faharani (Maggie), and Aja Naomi King (Latrice)
KEVIN HART (Dell) has made a name for himself as one of the foremost comedians, entertainers, authors and businessmen in the industry today.
After an electrifying performance at amateur night in a Philadelphia comedy club, Kevin quit his shoe salesman job and began performing full time at venues such as The Boston Comedy Club, Caroline’s, Stand-Up NY, The Laugh Factory, and The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. However, it was his first appearance at the Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival that led Kevin into roles in feature films.
Hart recently starred in Night School for Universal, a film in which he co-wrote, produces and stars in - all under the Hartbeat Production banner. The comedy follows a group of misfits who are forced to attend adult classes in the longshot chance they’ll pass the GED exam. Grossing $28 Million, Night School has had the highest opening weekend in comedy of 2018.
Hart is currently back on the road doing standup with his newest hour of material titled the “Irresponsible Tour.” This tour will take Hart all around the world in 2018.
2017 was a banner year for Hart, his memoir I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons debuted at Number One on the New York Times Bestseller list and remained on the list for ten consecutive weeks. The book also topped records on the Audible platform, selling over 100,000 copies in the first five weeks. Earlier in the year Hart voiced a title character in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie . To close 2017, Kevin appeared in the Sony reboot of the classic film Jumanji alongside Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black . Jumanji has been Kevin’s highest grossing box office release to date, the movie has made over $900 Million Worldwide.
Hart’s newest business venture is his digital platform the LOL NETWORK - Laugh Out Loud, the comedy brand and multi-platform network founded by Hart in partnership global content leader Lionsgate. The streaming video service will launch on August 3rd featuring a slate of original scripted and unscripted comedy series, stand-up specials, licensed programming, and live broadcasts. Laugh Out Loud combines Hart’s unparalleled social media savvy that earned him 100+ million followers with his vision for the future of comedy - social, mobile, multicultural, and seriously funny . Hart handpicked the boldest comedic voices to create, produce and star in content exclusive to the service. These include digital superstar comedy talents GloZell, King Bach, Emmanuel Hudson, DC Young Fly, Draya Michelle, David So, Timothy DeLaGhetto and Anjelah Johnson (MADtv, viral sensation Bon Qui Qui) - among others - who have amassed tens of millions of fans across social media. The Laugh Out Loud service will also feature up and coming comedians curated by Hart through LOL showcases at events, including a partnership with the world’s top comedy festival “Just for Laughs.”
Hart’s recent movie projects include the animated film The Secret Life of Pets (Illumination Entertainment) and the biggest grossing live action comedy Central Intelligence (New Line Cinema and Universal Pictures), Universal’s Ride Along 2 , which grossed over $100 million worldwide, Screen Gems’ The Wedding Ringer , and Warner Brothers’ Get Hard . The consummate worker, Hart is also a force in television, executive producing the show, “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” which is currently in Season 5. In addition, Comedy Central will launch 2 standup comedy series’ “Kevin Hart Presents: Hart of the City” and “Untitled Kevin Hart Stand-Up Series.”
In addition, Hart embarked on the multi-city domestic and international WHAT NOW comedy tour. Domestically, he sold out 8 tristate area arenas, including Madison Square Garden, Barclays, Prudential Center and Jones Beach, selling over 100,000 tickets in the NY market. He was also the first comedian to sell out an NFL stadium, selling over 50,000 tickets in one show. Internationally, he sold out over a dozen arenas in the European market, selling over 150,000 tickets, and sold out arenas across Australia, selling 100,000 tickets. Hart’s hit comedy tour grossed over $100 million worldwide.
To round out 2016, Hart wrapped production on Sony Pictures’ continuation of the classic Jumanji, alongside Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black, and Universal Pictures released the feature version of his comedy tour WHAT NOW in October.
In 2012, Hart was tapped to host the 2012 MTV VMA’s, garnering much industry praise for his appearance, before his next comedy tour, Let Me Explain took him to 90 American cities along with Europe and Africa - resulting in him becoming the second American in history to sell out London’s O2 Arena. Kevin spent the fall of 2012 filming two movies back to back: Screen Gems’ remake of the film, About Last Night , and Universal’s buddy Cop movie Ride Along , opposite Ice Cube. Kevin continued his incredible run with a starring role in Screen Gems’ Think Like A Man , a comedy based on Steve Harvey's bestselling book, which grossed $95 Million worldwide, and had a supporting role in the Universal / Nick Stoller comedy, Five Year Engagement, produced by Judd Apatow.
In September 2011 Hart released Laugh At My Pain the feature film version of his comedy tour (under the same name). The movie grossed over $7 million and was 2011’s most successful film of those released in less than 300 theaters. The LAMP tour was so successful it catapulted Hart to 2011’s number one comedian on Ticketmaster, and in February 2011, he sold out the Nokia Theater for two nights in a row, breaking the record previously set by Eddie Murphy. This lead to the LAMP DVD hitting double platinum in February 2012, after being on sale for only a month.
Other film credits include Little Fockers with Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller, Death at a Funeral , Fool’s Gold and The 40 Year-Old Virgin .
In 2009, Hart’s one-hour Comedy Central special I’m A Grown Little Man became one of the highest rated specials for the network, and in 2010, Hart’s DVD Seriously...Funny was one of the fastest selling DVDs, going triple Platinum, aided by the Comedy Central special of the same name, which was the highest rated comedy special of 2010.
Hart’s other television credits include, hosting BET’s classic stand-up comedy series “Comic View: One Mic Stand,” ABC’s “ The Big House,” which he also executive produced and wrote, and recurring roles on “Love, Inc,” “Barbershop,” and “Undeclared.”
Hart currently resides in Los Angeles.
BRYAN CRANSTON (Phillip) is an Academy Award® nominee, and Emmy®, Golden Globe, SAG, Tony® and Olivier Award winner.
Cranston most recently appeared as a guest star on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and was nominated for an Emmy® Award for “Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.” Additionally, Cranston voiced the character of “Chief” in Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated film Isle of Dogs , which premiered at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival and was released by Fox Searchlight on March 23, 2018. The film features an ensemble voice cast including Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Scarlett Johannsson and Frances McDormand, among many others.
Cranston just wrapped production on Disney’s, The One and Only Ivan , starring opposite Helen Mirren, Angelina Jolie, Sam Rockwell, and Danny DeVito.
Cranston recently made his West End debut starring in Network at the National Theatre. Based on the iconic film by Paddy Chayedsky, which won four Academy Awards® in 1976,
director Ivo Van Hove brings the story of Network to the stage with Cranston in the principal role of “Howard Beale.” Cranston recently won a Critics Circle Award for “Best Actor” and won an Olivier Award for “Best Actor” for his performance. The play also received an Olivier Award for “Best New Play.”
Cranston made his Broadway debut in 2014 as President “Lyndon B. Johnson” in All The Way by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan. He won the 2014 Tony® Award for his performance, as well as a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and Theater World Award for “Outstanding Actor in a Play.” Cranston went on to produce the film adaption of the play through his production company, Moonshot Entertainment, along with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and Tale Told Productions. It premiered on HBO in May 2016 and was nominated for eight Emmy® Awards including “Outstanding Television Movie” and an individual nomination for Cranston for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.” “All The Way” was nominated for four Critics’ Choice Awards, including “Best Television Movie,” and an individual nomination for Cranston for “Best Actor in a Television Movie.” Additionally, Cranston was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for “Best Actor in a Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television” and won the SAG Award for “Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series.”
In addition to “All The Way,” Moonshot Entertainment has developed three television series for Amazon including “Sneaky Pete” (season three is currently in production) , “The Dangerous Book for Boy s, ” and “ Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams .” Moonshot also developed the animated series “SuperMansion” for Crackle, which received two Emmy® Award nominations, and season three premiered in May 2018.
In 2015, Cranston starred as the title character in Jay Roach’s Trumbo . His performance garnered him nominations for an Academy Award®, Golden Globe Award, SAG Award, BAFTA Award, and Critics’ Choice Award in 2016 for “Best Actor.”
Cranston’s other feature film credits include: Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying , Robin Swicord’s Wakefield , Dean Israelite’s Power Rangers , John Hamburg’s Why Him?, Brad Furman’s The Infiltrator , Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla , Ben Affleck's Argo , Len Wiseman’s remake of Total Recall , Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive , Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion , Brad Furman’s The Lincoln Lawyer , Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris’ Little Miss Sunshine , Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan , and Tom Hanks’ Larry Crown and That Thing You Do! , among others. Bryan
has also lent his voice to DreamWorks Animation films Kung Fu Panda 3 and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted .
On television, Cranston’s portrayal of “Walter White” on AMC’s “Breaking Bad” garnered him four Emmy® Awards, four SAG Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He holds the honor of being the first actor in a cable series and the second lead actor in the history of the Emmy® Awards to receive three consecutive wins.
As a producer on “Breaking Bad,” Cranston won two Emmy® Awards and a Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award for “Outstanding Drama Series.”
Behind the camera, Cranston was nominated for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for “Breaking Bad” (in 2014) and “Modern Family” (in 2013 and 2014). Cranston also wrote, directed, and acted in the original romantic drama Last Chance as a birthday gift for his wife and star of the film, Robin Dearden.
Cranston’s career began with a role on the television movie “Love Without End,” which led to him being signed as an original cast member of ABC's “Loving.” He went on to appear as Hal on FOX's “Malcolm in the Middle,” which ran for seven seasons and for which Cranston was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and three Emmy® Awards.
Aside from his acting career, Cranston is a New York Times bestselling author of A Life In Parts. In his riveting memoir, Cranston traces his zigzag journey, with great humor and much humility, from his chaotic childhood to mega stardom by vividly revisiting the many parts he’s played on and off camera. Cranston shares his thoughts about innate talent, its benefits, challenges, and proper maintenance, but ultimately A Life in Parts is about the necessity and transformative power of hard work.
Cranston is also a spokesperson and longtime supporter of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC is the leading nonprofit organization in the U.S. working with law enforcement, families and professionals on issues related to missing and sexually exploited children.
Academy Award® winning actress NICOLE KIDMAN (Yvonne) first came to the attention of American audiences with her critically acclaimed performance in Phillip Noyce’s riveting 1989 Australian psychological thriller Dead Calm. Kidman has since become an internationally-recognized, award-winning actress known for her range and versatility.
In 2002, Kidman was honored with her first Oscar® nomination for her performance in Baz Luhrmann’s innovative musical, Moulin Rouge! For that role, and her performance in writer/director Alejandro Amenabar’s psychological thriller The Others , she received dual 2002 Golden Globe nominations, winning for “Best Actress in a Musical.” In 2003, Kidman won an Academy Award®, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award and a Berlin Silver Bear for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry’s The Hours .
In 2010, Kidman starred opposite Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole , for which she received Academy Award®, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Award nominations for “Best Actress.” The film was developed by Kidman’s production company, Blossom Films. In October 2012, Kidman starred in Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy with Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron and John Cusack. Her performance earned her an AACTA, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations. In 2014, Kidman was seen in Grace of Monaco , which earned her a SAG nomination. In 2015, she was seen in The Secret in Their Eyes , The Family Fang with Jason Bateman, which she also produced, and Genius alongside Colin Firth. In 2016, Kidman was seen in Lion with Dev Patel, for which she received Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and Oscar nominations. She was most recently seen in Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer , and John Cameron Mitchell’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties.
Her upcoming projects include Destroyer , Boy Erased , AQUAMAN and The Goldfinch, a movie adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
In television, Kidman starred in HBO’s “Hemingway and Gellhorn” alongside Clive Owen in 2012. Her portrayal as Martha Gellhorn earned her Emmy®, SAG and Golden Globe nominations. Kidman returned to the small screen in 2017 with the limited series “Big Little Lies” alongside Reese Witherspoon for HBO (Kidman’s Blossom Films and Witherspoon’s Pacific Standard produced the project), for which she received an Emmy® Award, Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award and SAG Award. “Big Little Lies” also received an Emmy® Award, Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for “Outstanding Limited Series.” She also had an arch on the second season of “Top of The Lake: China Girl . ” Kidman is currently in production on the second season of “Big Little Lies,” where she will again serve as actress and executive producer.
In 2018, Kidman and her production company, Blossom Films, signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios. Under the agreement, she will develop theatrical and series content, the first of which being a new drama series, “The Expatriates,” based off the novel by Janice Y.K Lee.
In theater, Kidman made a highly-lauded London stage debut in the fall of 1998, starring with Iain Glen in The Blue Room , David Hare’s modern adaptation of Schnitzler’s La Ronde. For her performance Kidman won London’s Evening Standard Award and was nominated in the “Best Actress” category for a Laurence Olivier Award. In 2015, Kidman was seen on the West End stage in Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51 , for which she received a London’s Evening Standard Award.
In January of 2006, Kidman was awarded Australia’s highest honor, the Companion in the Order of Australia. She was also named, and continues to serve, as Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UN Women, whose goals are to foster women’s empowerment and gender equality, to raise awareness of the infringement on women’s human rights around the world and to end violence against women. Along with her husband, Keith Urban, she has helped raise millions over the years for the Women’s Cancer Program which is a world-renowned center for research into the causes, treatment, prevention, and eventual cure of women’s cancer. In 2017, the Cannes Film Festival honored Kidman with a special award for her body of work and longstanding history with the festival. She is one of only eight people to ever receive this honor in the 70-year history of the festival.
As an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award winner, JULIANNA MARGULIES (Lily) has achieved success in television, theatre, and film.
In June 2018, Margulies returned to television in the AMC series “Dietland.” Based on the book written by Sarai Walker and created for television by Marti Noxon, Margulies stars opposite Joy Nash. Margulies plays Kitty Montgomery, a wildly ambitious magazine editor in the beauty industry.
Most recently, Margulies starred and produced the CBS hit show “The Good Wife” as Alicia Florrick, a role that has won her two Emmy, as well as a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Other TV credits include her multi-episode guest role in HBO's “The Sopranos , ” “The Grid, ” a mini-series from TNT and the BBC, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination, and TNT's original mini-series “The Mists of Avalon,” opposite Anjelica Huston and Joan Allen. Margulies also starred as one of the original members of the groundbreaking show “ER,” for which she received both an Emmy Award and two SAG Awards as nurse Carol Hathaway.
In 2012 Margulies was seen on the big screen in Fisher Stevens’ Stand Up Guys alongside Al Pacino and Christopher Walken. Margulies also starred in City Island , opposite Andy Garcia. The film won the Audience Award at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.
Margulies other film credits include the dark comedy The Darwin Awards , directed by Finn Taylor, opposite Winona Ryder and Joe Fiennes; David R. Ellis' Snakes on a Plane opposite, Samuel L. Jackson; Jay Alaimo's Slingshot, opposite David Arquette and Balthazar Getty; Steve Beck's Ghost Ship, opposite Gabriel Byrne; Bruce Beresford's Evelyn, opposite Pierce Brosnan; What's Cooking , an ensemble drama directed by Gurinder Chadha, Richard Linklater's The Newton Boys , Boaz Yakin's A Price Above Rubies , Jack Green's Traveller , Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road , and George Hickenlooper's The Man From Elysian Fields , opposite Andy Garcia and Mick Jagger.
On stage, Margulies made her Broadway debut in 2006 starring in Festen, opposite Michael Hayden, Larry Bryggman, Ali MacGraw, and Jeremy Sisto. Margulies completed a successful run in Jon Robin Baitz's Ten Unknowns at Lincoln Center, opposite Donald Sutherland, for which she won the Lucille Lortel Award. Other theater credits include: The Vagina Monologues, both Off-Broadway and in the Los Angeles premiere, and Intrigue with Faye at the NY Stage and Film Festival.
She has personally been involved in Project ALS since its inception, Erin’s Law and the rebuilding efforts of the Rockaways, alongside the St. Bernard Project, after Super Storm Sandy. She is also a long-standing board member of the New York City based theater company MCC, a company dedicated to giving the American playwright a voice and a platform.
GOLSHIFTEH FAHARANI (Maggie) is an Iranian actress, daughter of theater director Behzad Faharani. She started performing on stage very early at the age of six. She studied classical music, but at 14-years old she took a different turn. She was cast as the lead actress in the movie The Pear Tree by Dariush Mehrjui for which she won the award for “Best Actress” at the 16th Fajr International Film Festival. Since then, she has been in more than fifteen movies.
More recently, she’s been seen in many rewarded movies like Bahman Ghobadi’s Half Moon (2006), which won the Golden Shell at the 2006 San Sebastian Film Festival. She’s also been in Rasool Mollagholi Poor's Mim mesle madar (2006), which after a huge success in Iran was chosen to represent Iran for the “Best Foreign Film” at the Academy Awards® in 2008.
In 2008, she acted in Ridley Scott’s film Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russel Crowe. Thanks to this part, she became the first Iranian actress to be in a major Hollywood production. Her last film in Iran, About Elly was directed by Asghar Farhadi in 2009, and won a Silver Bear in Berlin and “The Best Narrative Feature” at Tribeca.
In 2010, she took part in her first film in France, I’ll Kill You If You Die by Hiner Saleem.
In 2011, she was with Mathieu Amalric in Chicken with Plums by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. She starred in Rachid Bouchareb’s Just Like A Woman with Sienna Miller. They were both awarded “Best Actress” at the Festival de la fiction TV de la Rochelle in 2012.
Atiq Rahimi chose her to be the lead of his best-selling novel adaptation Syngue Sabour for which she received nominations at various film festivals. Hiner Saleem also offered her the leading part in My Sweet Pepperland .
In 2014, she explored different types of projects with different directors. She worked with the young French Mia Hansen-L¿ve in Eden , with the Lebanese director Jihane Chouaib in Go Home , with Ridley Scott in Exodus and Jon Stewart in Rosewater .
In 2016, she appeared in The Misfortunes of Sophie by Christophe Honoré and Paterson by Jim Jarmusch (competing in the main competition section of Cannes Film Festival).
On stage she played one of the greatest classic female roles of literature in Anna Karenina directed by Gaëtan Vassart for the Théâtre de la Tempête.
In 2017, she was seen in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , directed by Joachim R¿nning and Espen Sandberg.
Farahani was in a series of movies between 2017 and 208 including The Song of Scorpion by Anup Singh, Santa and Co by the famous French director Alain Chabat, and les filles du soleil by Eva Huson. This movie was selected in the main competition section of the Cannes Film Festival.
She recently finished shooting Manele Labidi’s Un divan ˆ Tunis, and Pierre Trividic and Patrick Mario Bernard’s l’angle mort .
AJA NAOMI KING (Latrice) is a gifted actress whose body of work has evolved with impressive performances and versatile roles across film and television.
On television, King stars as ambitious student ‘Michaela Pratt’ in the hit ABC series, “How to Get Away with Murder.” Set in Philadelphia at a prestigious law school, King portrays one of the five ambitious law students who is chosen to work for the brilliant criminal defense professor ‘Annalise Keating’ played by Viola Davis. The show follows the students and ‘Annalise' as they become forever connected to each other after a murder is committed on campus. The show is currently in its fifth season. For her performance in the series, King received a "Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series" nomination at the 2015 NAACP Image Awards.
Upcoming on the big screen, King will also star as the lead in the upcoming film A Girl from Mogadishu from Pembridge Pictures. The film follows Somali activist Ifrah Ahmed (King), who was born into a refugee camp in Somalia and sent to Ireland as a teenager. Recounting her traumatic childhood experiences of female genital mutilation-cutting when applying for refugee status, she vows to devote her life to the eradication of the practice.
Most recently in film, King received critical acclaim for her role in the Fox Searchlight groundbreaking feature, The Birth of a Nation . In the biographical drama, King plays the wife of ‘Nat Turner,’ the famed African-American who in 1831 led a slave rebellion for freedom in Southampton County, Virginia. King was nominated for a 2017 NAACP award in the category of “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture” for her performance, and the film won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
King's additional feature film credits include Christopher Shinn's Four , in which she starred alongside a notable cast whose performances garnered them a Los Angeles Film Festival Award for “Best Performance.” She made her film debut in Whit Stillman's dramedy Damsels In Distress featuring Greta Gerwig, and also appeared in 36 Saints and The Rewrite opposite Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei.
Other television credits include series regular roles in Amazon's “The Onion News Empire” and the CW series “Emily Owens M.D.” Prominent guest appearances include a season-long arc on the ABC drama “Black Box,” “Bojack Horseman” for Netflix, as well as “The Blacklist,” “Blue Bloods,” “Deadbeat,” and “Person of Interest.”
On stage King has portrayed ‘Camae’ in Katori Hall’s play The Mountaintop for L.A. Theatre Works and their live audio theater program. Trip Cullman directed King in Edgewise at the Walkerspace Theatre in New York.
In 2017, King was honored by ESSENCE at their 10th annual “Black Women in Hollywood” event. She was awarded their Lincoln Shining Star award.
King was recently named the newest spokeswoman for L’Oreal Paris in November 2017 with Camila Cabello and Elle Fanning. She joins an esteemed group of representatives for Loreal including Julianne Moore and Eva Longoria. She is promoting L’Oreal Paris True Match Lumi Glow, a collection of products for radiant skin.
King is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
