As exclusively reported today in Deadline, MPI Original Films (MPI) announced today Miriam Silverman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Emily Arancio, Nestor Carbonell (The Morning Show, Bandit), and Holland Taylor (The Chair, Hollywood) as the main cast for Motherland. This feature-length drama produced by MPI stars Silverman as Cora who forms a protective bond with her estranged daughter Zinnia (Arancio) in an alternate present society where parents are forbidden from knowing or raising their children.

Miriam Silverman won the 2023 Tony® Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her critically-acclaimed performance as Mavis in the Broadway production of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, opposite Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan, as well as winning the 2023 Drama Desk Award for the same role at BAM. Additional Broadway and theater performances include Junk (Broadway debut), Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic Theater Company), the world premiere of Ethan Coen’s A Play Is a Poem (Mark Taper Forum), and more. In television and film, Silverman can be seen in Breaking with John Boyega and Connie Britton, Dead Ringers (Amazon) opposite Rachel Weisz, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon), Fleishman Is in Trouble (Hulu), The Blacklist (NBC), and Blue Bloods (CBS). 

Emily Arancio is an up-and-coming talent who recently received her MFA in acting from the University of Southern California.

Nestor Carbonell is an award-winning Cuban American actor who is currently a series regular on Apple TV+’s The Morning Show and just wrapped the feature film Bandit and a recurring role in the upcoming FX series Shogun. Prior, he starred as Sheriff Alex Romero in the hit A&E series Bates Motel. He is most often recognized for his integral role in the acclaimed series Lost as the iconic Richard Alpert. Carbonell’s feature credits include Crown Heights, which premiered at Sundance and received the Dramatic Audience Award; Imperium; The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises; Smokin’ Aces; The Lost City; The Laramie Project; and the title role in Jack the Dog. 

Holland Taylor is an Emmy®-winning and Tony®-nominated actress and playwright who has been a regular fixture of stage and screen for over five decades. She can most recently be seen recurring on the hit Apple TV+ series The Morning Show and the seventh, and final, season of Billions. For Netflix, she has a lead role in The Chair. Prior to that, she starred in Ryan Murphy’s global hit Hollywood, for which she received an Emmy® Award nomination for her performance as Ellen Kincaid. Taylor won the Emmy® Award for Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1999 for her groundbreaking performance as Judge Roberta Kittleson on ABC’s legal drama The Practice. She has received a grand total of eight Emmy® nominations during her career including another for The Practice, one for her guest appearance on the comedy series The Lot, and an incredible four nominations for her inspired work on CBS’s #1 sitcom Two and a Half Men, on which she starred as Charlie Sheen’s mother from hell Evelyn Harper.

Her countless television credits also include the classic comedy Bosom Buddies starring Tom Hanks, the landmark series The L Word, NBC’s sitcom The Naked Truth, and recently David E. Kelley’s Mr. Mercedes. On the feature side, Taylor can now be seen in 20th Century Studio’s feature Quiz Lady opposite Awkwafina and Sandra Oh. Prior to that, she could be seen in Bill & Ted Face the Music. That same year, she co-starred in Netflix’s hugely popular To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You and appeared in Netflix’s The Stand-In. Her memorable film roles include Legally Blonde, The Truman Show, One Fine Day, George of the Jungle, Baby Mama, the classics Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, To Die For, Next Stop Wonderland, Happy Accidents, Spy Kids 2 and 3, Keeping the Faith, Gloria Bell, and Bombshell.

In June 2020, PBS’s Great Performances aired a filmed version of Taylor’s unforgettable one-woman play Ann, based on the late Texas Governor Ann Richards, which Taylor wrote and starred in across the country and on Broadway receiving a 2013 Tony® Award nomination for Leading Actress in a Play. For Ann’s Broadway engagement at Lincoln Center’s Beaumont Theatre, Taylor also received Drama Desk and Drama League nominations, and the Outer Circle Critics Award for Best Solo Performance.

Award-winning director Evan Matthews (The Teleios Act) will helm Motherland. The screenplay comes from Nicole Swinford. Summer Crockett Moore, Tony Glazer, Lana Link, and Rob Pfaltzgraff serve as producers and Nick Reid will executive produce. The independent film secured a waiver from SAG-AFTRA and has begun production in the Hudson Valley of New York.