Bucking Fastard

Bucking Fastard is an upcoming American drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Kate and Rooney Mara.

Bucking Fastard
Directed by	Werner Herzog
Written by	Werner Herzog
Produced by	Clara Wu Tsai Ariel Leon Isacovitch Agnes Chu Kieran Corrigan Emanuele Moretti Andrea Bucko
Starring	Kate Mara Rooney Mara
Cinematography	Peter Zeitlinger
Edited by	Marco Capalbo
Music by	Ernst Reijseger
Production company	Cobalt Sky Motion Picture Group
Country	United States
Language	English

Premise

Twin sisters Jean and Joan Holbrooke, in search of an imaginary land where true love is possible, start digging a tunnel through a mountain range.^[1]

Cast

• Kate Mara as Jean Holbrooke
• Rooney Mara as Joan Holbrooke
• Orlando Bloom as Gareth Mulroney
• Domhnall Gleeson as Timothy

Production

Referring to unrealized projects in a chapter of his 2022 memoir Every Man for Himself and God Against All, filmmaker Werner Herzog mentioned the film as being about British identical twin sisters Freda and Greta Chaplin, who gained notoriety in the 1980s for having a restraining order put on them by a man they both become involved with. The title, Bucking Fastard, refers to a synchronized verbal slip the sisters made in court.^[2]

In February 2025, it was announced that Herzog would make a film under the same name based on a true story about twins Joan and Jean, with real-life siblings Kate and Rooney Mara on board to star. It would be the sisters' first project together.^[3] Speaking about working with her sister for the first time, Kate said: "We’ve been looking for something to do together for a while. The first hurdle was finding a filmmaker that we both like, and while we like a lot of the same things, we both had an equal excitement about working with Werner. We’re playing total equals who speak in unison and do everything the same. They dream the same in the film, and they’re so in sync. We could have never imagined finding two roles in a film where we’re literally equals in so many ways, and it was just so perfect."^[4]

Principal photography took place at Dublin's Pigeon House film studios and in and around the city of Naas; the Mara sisters were spotted during shooting on Dublin's Capel Street in early April, with additional scenes set to be filmed in Slovenia.^[5] Filming wrapped by the end of the month,^[6] with Orlando Bloom and Domhnall Gleeson being revealed as part of the cast. Herzog reunited with various collaborators, including cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, editor Marco Capalbo, and composer Ernst Reijseger.^[1]