Oscar nominees Hugh Jackman and Terrence Howard have teamed up for the upcoming crime thriller Prisoners.
The pair star alongside Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo and Paul Dano in a film about two families searching for their daughters who were kidnapped on Thanksgiving in a small town.
Prisoners hits theaters September 20th, and will inevitably cause moviegoers to reflect on the kidnappings of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight, who were rescued from captivity in a house owned by their kidnapper Ariel Castro, just months ago.
During an interview with theGrio at the Toronto International Film Festival, Jackman and Howard weighed in on recent news that Ariel Castro committed suicide while serving out his prison sentence of life plus 1,000 years.
“The whole thing saddens me so much… It just devastates me,” Jackman said. “Because after doing a film like Prisoners, I can’t help but think I know what the collateral damage is now with these things. Your deepest fears come out, everybody is affected by it and it devastates lives. The Castro case captivates everyone whether you’re a parent or not because it taps into our deepest fears. And I think he was obviously sick, and it’s just terrible to me that something can go on so long…that families don’t know what’s going on, what people are doing. It’s astonishing to me and terrifying as a parent.”
Howard says although he only played the part of a father whose daughter was kidnapped, he empathizes with parents who are faced with all the real life circumstances he portrayed on camera.
“I got to play the part of someone going through this,” Howard said. “But right now somewhere in the world a father is going through what I was playing, and will be faced with all of the real life circumstances that I acted on camera, and my heart goes out to those people.”
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