Guardian staff 

Meryl Streep to star in Steven Soderbergh’s Panama Papers thriller

The Oscar winner is set to take on the lead in The Laundromat, a fact-based film alongside Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas
  
  

Meryl Streep in March 2018.
Meryl Streep in March 2018. Photograph: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Meryl Streep will take the lead in The Laundromat, a Steven Soderbergh-directed thriller about the Panama Papers.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar winner will potentially star alongside Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas, who are both in early talks to join, in the fact-based tale. The Panama Papers was a set of leaked documents that shared financial information of offshore entities, revealing fraud, tax evasion and attempts to avoid international sanctions.

The film will be based on Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite, a book by journalist Jake Bernstein. It will be adapted by Scott Z Burns, a frequent Soderbergh collaborator whose credits include Contagion and Side Effects.

It’s not yet been announced what role Streep will play in the film but sources have claimed she will be the emotional throughline. The project doesn’t yet boast distribution but Netflix is reportedly interested. The streaming giant also bought the rights to another book on the Panama Papers with August Osage County director John Wells producing the adaptation.

Streep picked up her 21st Oscar nomination this year for her role in Steven Spielberg’s drama The Post. While promoting the film, which detailed the struggle to publish information from the Pentagon Papers, she spoke about the importance of the press.

“Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you,” Streep told the crowd at the International Press Freedom Awards in New York. “You are the fourth estate, you are our first line of defense against tyranny and state-sanctioned news.”

She’ll next be seen briefly in Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again and Mary Poppins Returns alongside Emily Blunt. She’s also heading to the small screen for a role in the second season of Big Little Lies.

Soderbergh’s most recent thriller Unsane was a box office disappointment, making just $12m worldwide. His next film, sports drama High Flying Bird, stars Zazie Beetz and Andre Holland, is set to be released later this year.

 

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