As previously announced, Jon Stewart is taking a break from The Daily Show beginning on June 10 to direct Rosewater, his adaptation of Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari’s memoir Then They Came For Me. Bahari’s book deals with his coverage of Iran’s disputed 2009 election and his subsequent imprisonment by the Iranian government, which used Bahari’s appearance on The Daily Show as evidence of his supposed espionage. According to The Wrap, Stewart has now reportedly cast Gael Garcia Bernal—who recently ran afoul of another oppressive regime in No—in the starring role. Bernal’s character, much like the real Bahari, “winds up spending 118 days in a notorious Iranian prison where he is brutally interrogated by a man whose defining characteristic is the smell of rosewater.”
Sadly, Garcia Bernal has never been a guest on The Daily Show, which means we can’t point to some previous interview exchange as an indication of his and Stewart’s on-set working relationship. So then, we can only hope Stewart will fill out of the rest of the cast with frequent guests like Paul Rudd, Denis Leary, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Colbert as Al Sharpton, Kermit the Frog, and, above all else, Hugh Grant.