Latest Casting News for John Wick Spin-Off The Continental
By Michelle Strozykowski
Ducatisti Nhung Kate
Female MMA fighter Nhung Kate joins the cast of the eagerly anticipated Lionsgate Television produced show The Continental.
Currently in production for Starz! streaming service, a location shoot for The Continental took place November 2021 in Budapest, Hungary featuring new cast member Nhung Kate.
The Vietnamese actress, best known for 2016 horror flick The Housemaid, is an accomplished martial artist and MMA fighter. She's also known to be rather fond of ripping around South East Asia on her Ducati motorcycle. Remind you of anyone?
"Riding your bike is one of the greatest things you can do to clear your head and just feel the speed and the motion.”
Keanu Reeves in RidersWest, 20 Jan 2015
Who Will Star in The Continental?
Nhung Kate is tipped to play a beautiful but deadly character known as ‘Yen’ in the John Wick prequel. She joins other stars such as Colin Woodell (recently seen as Buckley Ware in The Flight Attendant) who will be playing a young Winston. The current incumbent of the part of Winston, hotel manager of The Continental New York in the John Wick films, is Ian McShane. A regular mark of quality, McShane has indicated he may contribute to The Continental series in voice-over form, but not in person as that would cause an obvious clash of timelines.
Speaking to Rotten Tomatoes, McShane confirmed his absence from the new series:
"No, but I may give 'em a voiceover. A series? No. They talked about that."
What We Know About the Rest of the Cast
Irish actress Katie McGrath (Lena Luthor in Supergirl) will be playing The Adjudicator, centring us firmly in the John Wick universe, where we know adjudicators are sent to ensure everything is performed according to the exacting wishes of the cabal known as The High Table.
London born actress Jessica Allain (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2022) will play the part of Lou, alongside veteran star Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon etc.) who is taking on the role of Cormac (whom we know scant about currently). Regular bad guy Peter Greene (Zed in Pulp Fiction, Redfoot the Fence in The Usual Suspects, Dorian in The Mask) will play a character known as Uncle Charlie, and Adam Shapiro (Steve Jobs) will play Lemmy.
The remaining actors known to be slated to appear in all three episodes of the limited series are; Jeremy Bobb (known for HBO series The Outsider) as Mayhew, and Ayomide Adegun as the young version of hotel concierge Charon.
Other Acting Talent to Feature
Other known announcements of who is to appear in The Continental include:
Marina Mazepin as Gretel. Check out her contortionist dancing here on America's Got Talent 2019
Ben Robson as Frankie. Newcastle born Brit Robson is known for playing Kalf in Vikings.
Ray McKinnon as Jenkins. Writer/actor/director McKinnon is showrunner for the award winning Sundance TV series Rectify.
Mishel Prada as KD. Prada is known for playing Gabi in Fear the Walking Dead.
Mark Musashi as Hansel. Musashi is a stunt performer who has worked on films such as Infinite and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.
Hubert Point-Du-Jour as Miles. Point Du Jour played Bob in The Good Lord Bird.
The Continental Show Creators
The deeper the dig into this upcoming series, the more the excitement is beginning to build. Simply based on the few details available at present, it looks like it just might be okay. For a start there isn't going to be a young John Wick in it. Why is this good? Well, isn't it hard to imagine anyone else in the role other than Keanu Reeves. Casting a young John Wick would have been a hiding to nothing, so it's a relief in so many ways that the production team haven't set themselves up to fail.
Picking the show creators Greg Coolidge and Kirk Ward to helm this project seemed like a leftfield choice, but it's looking increasingly like it might be the right one. Speaking to Deadline, Kevin Beggs of Lionsgate TV explained:
“We took a lot of pitches, and then the creative team from this obscure little show called Wayne that was on YouTube came to us with their take... We were really blown away because it solved a bunch of problems and was super exciting, about a crumbling New York in the 1970s"
Setting the drama some forty years prior to the John Wick franchise allows a great deal of freedom, and with talent like Nhung Kate on board the anticipation is definitely leaning towards the positive. A cursory glance at Wayne, which is currently available on YouTube premium, also instills a sense of reassurance regarding The Continental that these guys are fully capable of delivering the goods.
Wayne is currently available to watch on (paid platform) YouTube Premium, but you can check out the first episode for free here.