In case you’ve not yet heard, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart is taking this summer off to make his directorial debut, Rosewater.

Stewart recently found his lead actor for the project, the Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal. Bernal is best known for his work in movies like Y Tu Mama Tambien, Amores Perros, Babel, The Motorcycle Diaries, and more recently in the Will Ferrell Spanish-language comedy, Casa de mi Padre.

Rosewater is an adaptation of the book Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story Of Love, Captivity and Survival by Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molloy. It tells Bahari’s story, a BBC journalist who in 2009 left his pregnant wife in London for what was to be one week to go and cover the presidential election in Iran. Instead he ended up spending 118 days as a captive at Evin prison in northwestern Tehran. While captive he was interrogated repeatedly by a man who always smelled of rose water.

Stewart will be taking 12 weeks to film the movie beginning in June, with Daily Show correspondent John Oliver taking over hosting duties while he’s gone.

[Source: The Wrap]