Paul Mescal to front Kevin Macdonald’s espionage thriller ‘A Spy by Nature’

“Normal People” star Paul Mescal will headline the modern espionage thriller “A Spy By Nature”, to be directed by “The Mauritanian” director Kevin Macdonald.

According to entertainment website Variety, the film is an adaptation of the first novel in Charles Cumming’s bestselling Alec Milius spy series.

Screenwriters John Hodge (“Trainspotting”) and Joseph Charlton (“Industry”) will adapt Cumming’s book to screen.

“A Spy By Nature” revolves around Milius, a disillusioned 20-something whose gift for deception catches the eye of MI6, the UK’s intelligence agency.

Milius is battling the impact of a geopolitical war on commodities involving the British and the Americans as he struggles to preserve his relationship with his girlfriend. He is eventually forced to confront his own nature – whether he can be a good man as well as a good spy.

Macdonald, known for the Academy Award winning documentary “One Day in September” and the Forest Whitaker-starrer “The Last King of Scotland”, said Mescal is the perfect choice to play the lead in this espionage movie.

“I’ve wanted to make ‘A Spy By Nature’ for many years – and when I met Paul Mescal, with his beguiling mixture of intelligence, skill and youth, I knew I’d found the perfect star. This is a very modern spy story – sexy, dangerous, morally ambivalent – and only an actor of Paul’s talent could pull it off,” the director said.

“A Spy By Nature” is produced by Chris Clark (“All the Money in the World”) and Quentin Curtis (“Legend”).

HanWay Films and Ingenious Media, who developed the project together with the producers with development funding from the British Film Institute, serve as executive producers on the upcoming film.