EXCLUSIVE: Yara Martinez (Bull) is the newest addition to the cast of Pedro Pan, the historical thriller dramatizing Cuban child rescue mission Operation Pedro Pan, on which we were first to report.
Character details for Martinez are under wraps. Kicking off production in Mexico early next month, the film’s cast also includes Néstor Carbonell, Allen Leech, Danny Pino, Paz Vega, Andy García, and Annabelle Wallis.
Set in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution, Pedro Pan follows a Cuban socialite, an English schoolteacher, and an Irish Catholic priest in Miami who spearhead a daring operation to help more than 14,000 children escape communist indoctrination and begin new lives in America — evading Castro’s secret police at every turn.
The real-life Operation Pedro Pan took place between 1960 and 1962, when Cuban parents — fearing the indoctrination of their children under Castro’s regime — sent them to the United States in a clandestine program supported by the Catholic Church and the U.S. government. The children arrived without their parents, with little more than a suitcase, before being placed with relatives, foster families, or Catholic charities. It remains the largest recorded child refugee exodus in the Western Hemisphere.
Richie Adams is directing from a script by Adams and Bart Gavigan (End of the Spear, Mouth of Hell), which stemmed from a story by composer Carlos José Alvarez (Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami). Steve Shapiro (Find Me Falling, The November Man), Alvarez, and Liz and Ken Whitney (Tommy’s Honor, The Mongoose) are producing alongside Adams under his newly formed At Speed Pictures, with Luisa Gómez de Silva (All Is Lost, Saw X) providing production services. David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me) and Brent Miller (I Carry You With Me, Before We Forget) are serving as executive producers.
Perhaps best known for starring in Bull, Jane the Virgin and The Tick, Martinez has more recently been seen on Chicago P.D. and heard in Fox’s adult animated sitcom Grimsburg. She is repped by Independent musician Group and D2 Management.
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