By Matt Grobar
May 14, 2025 10:50am

EXCLUSIVE: Jack Fessenden has set the cast for his new film, eco-noir Alfalfa. The list includes two-time Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz (Weapons), Toby Huss (Halt and Catch Fire), Virginia Kull (Presumed Innocent), Marcus Scribner(Black-ish), Oscar nominee Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips), and James Le Gros(Good One).

Set to shoot this fall in Southwestern Utah, the film follows Lance (Butz), a sprinkler contractor in a drought-stricken desert boomtown whose life converges with a criminal duo, led by Abdi, who are hunting for a corpse that has resurfaced on the banks of a receding reservoir. Caught in a web of escalating tensions, false accusations, and buried secrets, Lance, his wife Elana (Kull), and estranged son Noah (Scribner) must navigate the pull of shady developer Whip (Huss), who partners with Saudi investors on a thirsty alfalfa growing venture, threatening the community’s dwindling water supply. Le Gros will play a water cop with ties to the town’s dark past.

“ALFALFA highlights the looming threat of water scarcity in a humanist thriller with promise to be the Chinatown of the New West,” Fessenden said. “I could not be more excited to be working with a cast of actors I’ve admired for years to deliver a bold ensemble film about the environmental issue of our century.”

Marking Fessenden’s third feature as writer-director, on the heels of war drama Foxhole and crime thriller Stray Bullets — both starring Le Gros — Alfalfa will be produced by Javier Gonzalez and Lu Robinson, and executive produced by Franklin P. Laviola and Dan Reardon. Bess Fifer handled casting.

Butz is repped by IAG and Untitled Entertainment; Huss by IAG and Artists First; Kull by Innovative Artists and Principal Entertainment LA; Scribner by CAA, Artists First, and Nina Shaw and Gordon Bobb of Del Shaw Moonves; Abdi by SMS Talent and Haven Entertainment; and Le Gros by Innovative Artists and Industry Entertainment.

Read at Deadline