One of the most acclaimed and accomplished actors in Hollywood, Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones brings a distinct character to his every film.  Prior to In the Electric Mist, Jones most recently starred in No Country for Old Men, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel and written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. He also recently starred in the critically acclaimed film In the Valley of Elah, directed by Paul Haggis for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Jones was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscarâ in 1994 for his portrayal of the uncompromising U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in the box office hit The Fugitive.

In 2005, audiences saw Jones star in the critically acclaimed film, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which he also directed and produced. The film debuted in competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and garnered Jones the award for Best Actor and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga the award for Best Screenplay. 

Born in San Saba, Texas, he worked briefly with his father in the oil fields before attending St. Mark’s School of Texas, then Harvard University, where he graduated cum laude with a degree in English.

John Goodman remembers the day in 1975 when he left his native town of St. Louis for New York.  He made the rounds, worked at odd jobs and just tried to keep busy. He’s been quite busy ever since.  Most recently, Goodman starred in Disney’s “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” In addition, he co-starred with Susan Sarandon in Warner Bros, “Speed Racer” and lent his voice to the Dreamworks’ animated feature “Bee Movie,” which received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Animated Film.

Goodman’s upcoming projects include Epoch’s “Gigantic” and Disney’s animated feature “The Princess and the Frog.”  Goodman has garnered many accolades, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and seven Emmy nominations for his role in “Roseanne.”  In 2007, Goodman won his second Emmy, for Outstanding Guest Actor, on “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”  Previous film credits include “Barton Fink,” “Storytelling,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” “Coyote Ugly,” “Bringing Out the Dead,” “Fallen,” “The Borrowers,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “The Flintstones,” “The Babe,” “C.H.U.D.,” “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Raising Arizona” and “The Big Lebowski.” He has lent his voice to numerous animated films, including “Monsters, Inc.,” “The Emperor’s New Groove,” “Cars,” “Tales of the Rat Fink” and “The Jungle Book II.”

Peter Sarsgaard has built his critically-acclaimed acting career on challenging and off-beat roles in some of the most uncompromising independent films of the past 10 years.  In addition to IN THE ELECTRIC MIST, he recently has co-starred with Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon in RENDITION.  Sarsgaard appeared with Jake Gyllenhaal in the hallucinatory Desert Storm film, JARHEAD, directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes and with Jodie Foster in FLIGHTPLAN.  In 2004 he played a bisexual sex researcher in KINSEY with Liam Neeson; Zach Braff’s sarcastic & depressed best friend in GARDEN STATE and the magazine editor who finally exposes the widespread fraud of a star journalist in SHATTERED GLASS.  For that last role, he won the BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the same category. Sarsgaard’s breakthrough role was his haunting and violent turn in BOYS DON’T CRY along side the Academy Award winning performance by Hillary Swank. 

Sarsgaard lives in Brooklyn and made his Broadway debut last fall in Anton Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL, starring with Kristin Scott Thomas. He currently is starring along with his partner Maggie Gyllenhaal in the off-Broadway production of UNCLE VANYA.

Mary Steenburgen won an Academy Award for her role in Melvin and Howard.  She was last seen in Four Christmases co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Vince Vaughan.  In July 2008 she starred alongside Will Farrell and John C. Reilly in the Columbia Pictures’ comedy “Step Brothers,” produced by Judd Apatow.  Mary was recently seen in Nobel Son, starring opposite Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman, and Numb, starring Matthew Perry.  Both films premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.  She starred for two seasons on the Emmy nominated CBS series, Joan of Arcadia.  In February 2006 she was seen in the David Mamet directed play Boston Marriage at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

In 2005, she co-stared in the independent feature Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003 she was seen in the CBS television film It Must be Love co-starring her husband, Ted Danson.  Mary co-starred in New Line Cinema's Elf, alongside Will Farrell and James Caan.  She has appeared in two films for director John Sayles, Sunshine State, and Casa De Los Baby.  In 2001 Mary appeared alongside Kevin Kline in Irwin Winkler's Life as a House, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.  She has constantly redefined herself through challenging roles in films such as Philadelphia, Parenthood and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Other films that encompass Mary's career include:  Back to the Future III, Time After Time and End of the Line, for which she also served as the film's executive producer.

In addition to her professional work, Mary has devoted a great deal of time to causes close to her heart.  In 1989 she and fellow actress, Alfre Woodard founded Artists for a Free South Africa, and in 1996 Mary and her husband Ted Danson were presented with Liberty Hill Foundation's prestigious Upton Sinclair Award for their work in human rights and environmental causes. Mary Steenburgen is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, the daughter of a railroad conductor and a public high school secretary. 

Kelly Macdonald’s career took off after her role as Ewan McGregor’s one-night stand in 1996’s Trainspotting. In addition to IN THE ELECTRIC MIST, Kelly also recently starred in CHOKE, written by Chuck Palahniuk and directed by Clark Gregg.  In 2008, Kelly was seen in Joel and Ethan Coen’s film NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the BAFTA’s as well as at the London Film Critics Circle Awards.    For her role in Richard Curtis’s THE GIRL IN THE CAFE, she was honored with an Emmy, as well as a Golden Globe nomination. Kelly also appeared in Two Family House, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.  Her career is also filled with other leading roles, most poignantly as the teenage prostitute in Stella Does Tricks  and as the feisty girl who charms a schizophrenic Daniel Craig in Some Voices. She more than held her own in the all-star cast of Robert Altman's British country-house thriller, Gosford Park, for which Kelly received an Empire Award nomination for Best Actress and shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture.  

James Lee Burke was born in 1936 in Houston, Texas and grew up on the Louisian-Texas coast. Over the years he worked as a pipeliner in Texas, land surveyor in Colorado, social worker in California, newspaper reporter in Louisiana, and U.S. Forest Service employee in eastern Kentucky. He also taught at various universities in the mid-west and south.

Over the years he has published twenty-eight novels and two collections of short stories. Mr. Burke also managed to go thirteen years during the middle of his career without publishing a novel in hardback. During that period his novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie received over 100 editorial rejections. Later, after it was published with Louisiana State University Press, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Mr. Burke's work has received two Edgar Awards for Best Crime Novel of the Year. He is also a Bredloaf Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow and has been a recipient of an NEA Grant. In 2009 he was given the Grand Master Award by The Mystery Writers of America.

He and his wife of 49 years, Pearl Burke, have four children and divide their time between Missoula, Montana, and Iberia, Louisiana.

Any discussion of Buddy Guy invariably involves a recitation of his colossal musical resume and hard-earned accolades. He’s a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a chief guitar influence to rock titans like Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, and Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, and a living link to that city’s halcyon days of electric blues.  Buddy has received five Grammy Awards, 23 W.C. Handy Blues Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts.  Yet despite this long list of achievements, Buddy Guy and his music remain as vital as ever. Just last year, Buddy appeared on the big screen nationwide with a show-stopping performance in Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film, Shine A Light. At the age of 72, he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time, as part of the magazine’s “100 Greatest Guitar Songs” package (his cataclysmic 1961 recording of “Stone Crazy” made the list). And now, the release of Skin Deep—an album of all original material, with guest appearances from fellow guitar wizards Eric Clapton, Robert Randolph, Susan Tedeschi, and Derek Trucks—adds yet another dimension to this master’s legendary career and another Grammy nomination. “He was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people,” Clapton remembered at Guy’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. “My course was set, and he was my pilot.”

In The Electric Mist provides Buddy Guy with his first acting role in a film. It was also an opportunity to go back to his Louisiana roots to perform along side an accordion and rubboard in zydeco-influenced arrangements of“ Stone Crazy” and “Damn Right, I’ve Got The Blues.”

Bertrand Tavernier decided to become a filmmaker when he was very young. At 14, he roamed the Cinemathèque (National Film Library) where he discovered the impact of Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang and Buster Keaton’s movies. He made his debut as an assistant for Jean-Pierre Melville on Léon Morin, prêtre / The Forgiven Sinner. In 1974, his first feature film L’Horloger de Saint-Paul / The Clockmaker of Saint-Paul won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival.

Other early highlights of a long and distinguished career include Que la fête commence / Let Joy Reign Supreme (1975); Le Juge et L’Assassin / The Judge and the Assassin (1976); Death Watch (1979), shot in English and starring Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel. In 1982, Tavernier adapted Jim Thompson’s novel (Pop 1280) as Coup de Torchon / Clean Slate with Philippe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert. In 1984, Un dimanche à la campagne / A Sunday in the Country received the Best Director Award in Cannes, the New York Critics’ Award and the British Critics’ Award. He followed in 1985 with Round Midnight, a feature film about jazz. Herbie Hancock won the Academy Award for Best Score. 

Tavernier tackled the Hundred Years' War in La Passion Béatrice / Beatrice in 1987 and World War I in the hit film La Vie et Rien d’Autre / Life and Nothing But, for which  Noiret was awarded the César (French Award) and Félix (European Awards) for Best Actor.  With L’Appât / The Bait (1995), he garnered the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Capitaine Conan / Captain Conan in 1996 earned Bertrand Tavernier the César (French Award) for Best Director and Philippe Torreton the César for Best Actor. Ca commence aujourd’hui / It All Starts Today (1999)won the Audience Award in San Sebastian. Jacques Gamblin earned the Silver Bear for Best Actor in Laissez-passer / Safe Conduct (2002) and played opposite Isabelle Carré in Tavernier’s Holy Lola (2004).  In the Electric Mist (2009) marks Tavernier’s directorial debut in the United States. 

Producer MICHAEL FITZGERALD was born in New York City, raised in Italy and educated in Ireland.  After graduating from Harvard University he began his film career as a screenwriter in Rome.  In 1979, he produced and co-wrote John Huston’s celebrated film adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.  His second film with Huston, Under the Volcano was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Actor—Albert Finney and Best Music—Alex North). He then produced The Penitent, starring Raul Julia, Mister Johnson with Academy Award-winning director Bruce Beresford and Blue Danube Waltz with the world-renowned Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó.  A producing partnership with actor/director Sean Penn culminated in their critically acclaimed production of The Pledge, starring Jack Nicholson. 

In 2005 he completed both Colour Me Kubrick, starring John Malkovich, about a con-man who impersonates director Stanley Kubrick, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones.  For its realization of life, death and redemption along the Texas-Mexico border, The Three Burials won the Actor prize for Tommy Lee Jones and the Screenplay prize for Guillermo Arriaga at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.  Having now wrapped his collaboration with the director Bertrand Tavernier, In the Electric Mist, he is actively preparing an English language project with the Romanian writer/director Nae Caranfil to be filmed later this year as well as Waiting for the Barbarians from the novel by Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee to be shot in Central Asia in 2010.