Mick Jagger is set to appear in Three Incestuous Sisters, Alice Rohrwacher’s adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s illustrated gothic novel. The Rolling Stones frontman joins a cast that already includes Dakota Johnson, Josh O’Connor, Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Buckley and Isabella Rossellini, which is not exactly a quiet way to make an English-language debut.
The film is shooting on Stromboli, the volcanic island off Sicily, where Jagger reportedly arrived by helicopter earlier this week. An inside source confirmed Italian press reports about his arrival and said he is staying in a villa with a loaded bit of film history attached.
Why Stromboli matters to the story around the film
Jagger is staying at a villa on the island where Roberto Rossellini, Isabella Rossellini’s father, famously began his scandalous affair with Ingrid Bergman while making his 1949 film Stromboli. Given that Isabella Rossellini is now part of Rohrwacher’s film, the location comes with more backstory than most production rentals.
Rohrwacher’s project is described as a gothic drama, and Stromboli gives it the kind of remote, charged setting that suits the material. Principal photography began in April, with ten weeks of shooting planned between Stromboli and Rome.
The production is keeping most plot details quiet, which is very considerate for anyone who enjoys mystery and mildly inconvenient for everyone else.
What Audrey Niffenegger’s novel is about
Three Incestuous Sisters is based on Niffenegger’s illustrated gothic novel about three sisters living in isolation. Their enclosed world is unsettled by the arrival of a lighthouse keeper’s son.
That premise has the emotional shape Rohrwacher often works with: sealed-off communities, strange longings, and people whose inner lives are more unruly than their surroundings suggest.
According to unconfirmed Italian press reports, Jagger is playing the lighthouse keeper, while Josh O’Connor is playing his son. That casting detail has not been officially confirmed.
Alice Rohrwacher’s first English-language feature
The film marks Rohrwacher’s first English-language feature. The Italian director is already a major figure on the festival circuit, with two Cannes prizes to her name for The Wonders in 2014 and Happy as Lazzaro in 2018.
Her most recent feature, La Chimera, starred O’Connor and also featured Rossellini. It competed at Cannes in 2023, was released in the United States by Neon and sold widely internationally.
Earlier this year, Rohrwacher was honored with the European Film Academy’s Achievement in World Cinema Award. In other words, this is not a casual side project assembled between lunch and a scenic helicopter landing.
Jagger’s screen career has always been selective
Jagger is best known, of course, as the frontman of The Rolling Stones, but his acting work has never been entirely ornamental. His film debut came in Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance, where he played with his own image as a burned-out, decadent rock star.
His other notable screen roles include:
- A ruthless corporate mercenary in Geoff Murphy’s 1992 sci-fi film Freejack, a box-office disappointment that later found cult status
- A drag queen in Sean Mathias’s Bent
- A jaded business executive running an escort agency in George Hickenlooper’s The Man From Elysian Fields in 2001
- A reclusive art collector in Giuseppe Capotondi’s 2019 noir The Burnt Orange Heresy, which premiered in Venice
His casting in Rohrwacher’s film feels less like novelty and more like a calculated use of presence. Jagger has spent decades being read as a symbol before he opens his mouth, which can be useful in a gothic story built around isolation and disruption.
The Rolling Stones are also releasing new music
The film news arrives as The Rolling Stones are also preparing a new studio album. Earlier this month, the band announced Foreign Tongues, a 14-track collection due July 10 from Capitol Records.
The album follows Hackney Diamonds, the Grammy-winning record that marked the band’s first studio album in nearly 15 years. The new release is being introduced with the lead single In the Stars, released digitally on Friday, May 5, alongside the opening track Rough and Twisted.
So yes, Jagger is apparently balancing a gothic Italian film shoot with a new Stones album rollout. Retirement continues to be a concept other people discuss.
Who is producing the film
Three Incestuous Sisters is financed and produced by Indian Paintbrush. Johnson and Ro Donnelly are producing through Johnson’s TeaTime Pictures, alongside Steven Rales for Indian Paintbrush. Rohrwacher is also producing.
Fandango is serving as the Italian line producer.
With Rohrwacher behind the camera, a cast built from several generations of prestige performers, and a setting already thick with cinema history, the film is shaping up as one of the more closely watched international productions currently underway.
