Nicolas Cage Will Star in Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden Biopic

Just hours after Citizenfour, the documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, took home the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary, Deadline published a report that another big name talent has joined the fictional version of Snowden’s story, which is currently shooting in Munich under the direction of Oliver Stone. That talent is one Nicolas Cage.

No word on who exactly Cage is playing, but the cast is stacked from top to bottom, and also includes Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, and Timothy Olyphant. (Joseph Gordon-Levitt will star as Snowden.) Cage and Stone have worked together before; Cage headlined Stone’s 9/11 drama World Trade Center.

Snowden’s story should be fertile territory for Stone. The scenario presented by Citizenfour, with journalists so afraid of omnipresent government surveillance that they take to having conversations by slipping pen-and-ink notes back and forth, played like an Oliver Stone conspiracy thriller already. It’s been a while since Stone made a film that really connected, but this could easily be his comeback project — unless the NSA is reading this post right now, in which case I think this whole thing is a terrible idea that’s doomed to fail.