What stars are going to attend the 2023 Venice Film Festival? List of confirmed actors

The 80th Venice International Film Festival opens on Wednesday although this year’s event will be more subdued than usual due to the continuing strike action by Hollywood actors and script writers, many of whom won’t be attending to promote their work on the Lido. Members of the Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, have been striking since May, demanding a better deal with Hollywood’s studios with many having seen their income fall during the age of streaming media.

Under strict union rules, SAG-AFTRA members are restricted about the work and promotional activities they can undertake. That means that many A-listers won’t be on the red carpet in Venice this year.

The festival opens on Wednesday 30 August with the premiere of Italian World War II film Comandante, directed by Edoardo De Angelis. The event runs until 9 September, concluding with Spanish-language Netflix drama Society of the Snow.

There has been a great deal of speculation as to which Hollywood stars will be attending. Sources have confirmed that Adam Driver, who stars in Michael Mann’s eagerly-anticipated racing biopic Ferrari, will be at the festival although it is not known if his co-stars Shailene Woodley and Penélope Cruz will join him. The Daily Mail reports that the Spanish actress, who stole the show sashaying down the red carpet at the 79th festival, will be there.

Also confirmed are Mads Mikkelsen who plays explorer Ludvig Kahlen in Danish historical drama The Promised Land, Caleb Landry Jones and JoJo T. Gibbs the stars of Luc Besson’s DogMan which premieres on Friday, Peter Sarsgaard and Billy Magnussen (as executive producers) for Coup! - a satire set during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, and Ukranian-French actress Olga Kurylenko for the Xavier Giannoli-directed crime drama Of Blood and Money.

Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, who play Priscilla and Elvis Presley respectively in Sofia Coppola’s biopic Priscilla, based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, are believed to have solicited their accreditation as has the director. Other filmmakers who have been accredited include: Woody Allen, Michael Mann, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Yorgos Lanthimos and Jack Huston. It is unknown whether Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, two regular attendees will be going this time.

Among the actors who might be giving the festival a miss this year are Willem Dafoe, Lily James, Liam Neeson, Joe Keery, Rachel Sennott, Adam Jones and Adrian Lester while there has been no word on whether cast members of Roman Polanski’s black comedy The Palace, starring Mickey Rourke and John Cleese will be in La Serenissima later this week.