Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe Bring Queer Tension to Vietnam War Thriller
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 16: (L-R) Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez of "Merrily We Roll Along" perform onstage during The 77th Annual Tony Awards at David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on June 16, 2024 in New York City. Photo Credit: Theo Wargo
by Chris Tremblay Aug 24
4 MIN READ
Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe are joining forces again, this time for the psychological Vietnam War thriller Trust the Man. The project recently wrapped production under the direction of nonbinary writer-director Will Graham, bringing together two performers whose previous collaboration became one of Broadway’s most celebrated recent partnerships.
Groff and Radcliffe previously appeared together in the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. Both actors received Tony Awards for their performances in that production, which brought renewed attention to Sondheim’s nonlinear story about friendship, ambition, compromise, and emotional connection. Their reunion in Trust the Man gives audiences another opportunity to see the performers share the screen after their successful stage partnership.
The new film is not being presented as a conventional romance. Instead, available descriptions frame it as a thriller involving military intelligence, secrecy, obsession, and an unstable bond between two men. Queerty described the project as homoerotic, while the publicly released synopsis emphasizes the psychological pressure created when an investigation becomes personally and emotionally consuming.
Trust the Man centers on an ambitious officer in the U.S. Army’s intelligence service who is assigned to investigate a decorated soldier during the Vietnam War. The soldier’s background contains unexplained elements, and the investigation gradually develops into a perilous relationship marked by secrecy, loyalty, and attraction. The publicly available reports do not identify which actor plays the intelligence officer or the decorated soldier.
That limited information leaves room for the film’s central relationship to unfold without reducing it to a simple label. A story about two men navigating intimacy inside a military environment can explore how authority, masculinity, fear, and desire collide under extreme circumstances. However, the production’s precise approach to sexuality, identity, and historical context has not yet been fully disclosed.
Graham is writing and directing the film, and the production is backed by Invitation Media. Graham is also listed among the producers alongside Tonia Davis and Max Linsky, while Luke Rodgers and Alex G. Scott are also credited as producers. Daniel Radcliffe is among the project’s executive producers.
The film was shot in New Jersey, with production activity reported in communities including Montclair and Seaside Park. Local reporting documented filming locations along the Jersey Shore and described the project as a large production involving equipment, trailers, food service, makeup facilities, and other on-location operations.
The production’s cast grew substantially as filming progressed. Deadline reported that Kate Mara, Finn Wittrock, Justice Smith, Victor Garber, Angus O’Brien, and Jack Ball joined Groff and Radcliffe. The ensemble connects established film, television, and theater performers with younger actors known for work in contemporary drama and LGBTQ+-inclusive entertainment.
Justice Smith’s involvement may be of particular interest to LGBTQ+ audiences. Smith publicly came out as queer in 2020 and has appeared in projects including The Get Down, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Detective Pikachu, and All the Bright Places. His casting in Trust the Man adds another openly queer performer to a production whose central story appears to involve same-gender emotional and erotic tension.
Graham’s nonbinary identity is also relevant to the film’s place in current queer cinema. Representation behind the camera can shape which stories are considered filmable, whose interior lives receive attention, and how gender and sexuality are handled in a script. At the same time, a filmmaker’s identity does not by itself establish the content or quality of a finished work. The film should ultimately be assessed on its storytelling, historical care, performances, and treatment of the characters.
Queer stories set during wartime often confront the gap between private feeling and public expectation. Military institutions have historically been associated with rigid ideas about masculinity and loyalty, while LGBTQ+ people serving in the armed forces have navigated changing policies and uneven social acceptance. Trust the Man’s premise places that tension at the center of a suspense narrative rather than presenting queer characters only through a coming-out storyline.
The United States formally ended its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011, allowing gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members to serve openly. That policy change did not erase the experiences of earlier generations, nor did it settle every question involving transgender service members or broader LGBTQ+ inclusion in the military. A period thriller set during the Vietnam War therefore has an opportunity to show how historical conditions shaped queer people’s choices and risks.
For LGBTQ+ audiences, the film’s value may lie in its willingness to make queer subtext, desire, and danger part of the main dramatic engine. Queer characters have frequently appeared in historical dramas through coded gestures or tragic outcomes; contemporary filmmakers have more room to explore complicated relationships with emotional depth and agency. Whether Trust the Man fulfills that promise will depend on the completed film, which has not yet received a publicly announced release date.
The project also reflects the continuing movement of LGBTQ+ storytelling across genres. Rather than limiting queer cinema to romance, comedy, or explicitly activist drama, Trust the Man places its apparent queer tension inside a military mystery. That approach can broaden the kinds of lives and relationships audiences expect to see in mainstream entertainment while allowing queer viewers to encounter characters defined by more than their sexuality.
Trust the Man has completed filming, but its distributors, release platform, and official release date have not been publicly announced in the sources reviewed for this article. The production’s next stage will include postproduction, marketing, and decisions about whether the film premieres theatrically, through a festival, or on a streaming service.
For now, the strongest confirmed details are the completed production, Graham’s role as writer-director, the Vietnam War setting, and the reunion of Groff and Radcliffe. The film’s queer significance is clear in the way its reported premise centers an intense relationship between men, but audiences will need to wait for further official information before drawing conclusions about its characters or final themes.
The new film is not being presented as a conventional romance. Instead, available descriptions frame it as a thriller involving military intelligence, secrecy, obsession, and an unstable bond between two men. Queerty described the project as homoerotic, while the publicly released synopsis emphasizes the psychological pressure created when an investigation becomes personally and emotionally consuming.
The story behind Trust the Man
Trust the Man centers on an ambitious officer in the U.S. Army’s intelligence service who is assigned to investigate a decorated soldier during the Vietnam War. The soldier’s background contains unexplained elements, and the investigation gradually develops into a perilous relationship marked by secrecy, loyalty, and attraction. The publicly available reports do not identify which actor plays the intelligence officer or the decorated soldier.
That limited information leaves room for the film’s central relationship to unfold without reducing it to a simple label. A story about two men navigating intimacy inside a military environment can explore how authority, masculinity, fear, and desire collide under extreme circumstances. However, the production’s precise approach to sexuality, identity, and historical context has not yet been fully disclosed.
Graham is writing and directing the film, and the production is backed by Invitation Media. Graham is also listed among the producers alongside Tonia Davis and Max Linsky, while Luke Rodgers and Alex G. Scott are also credited as producers. Daniel Radcliffe is among the project’s executive producers.
The film was shot in New Jersey, with production activity reported in communities including Montclair and Seaside Park. Local reporting documented filming locations along the Jersey Shore and described the project as a large production involving equipment, trailers, food service, makeup facilities, and other on-location operations.
An expanded ensemble
The production’s cast grew substantially as filming progressed. Deadline reported that Kate Mara, Finn Wittrock, Justice Smith, Victor Garber, Angus O’Brien, and Jack Ball joined Groff and Radcliffe. The ensemble connects established film, television, and theater performers with younger actors known for work in contemporary drama and LGBTQ+-inclusive entertainment.
Justice Smith’s involvement may be of particular interest to LGBTQ+ audiences. Smith publicly came out as queer in 2020 and has appeared in projects including The Get Down, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Detective Pikachu, and All the Bright Places. His casting in Trust the Man adds another openly queer performer to a production whose central story appears to involve same-gender emotional and erotic tension.
Graham’s nonbinary identity is also relevant to the film’s place in current queer cinema. Representation behind the camera can shape which stories are considered filmable, whose interior lives receive attention, and how gender and sexuality are handled in a script. At the same time, a filmmaker’s identity does not by itself establish the content or quality of a finished work. The film should ultimately be assessed on its storytelling, historical care, performances, and treatment of the characters.
Why the project matters to LGBTQ+ viewers
Queer stories set during wartime often confront the gap between private feeling and public expectation. Military institutions have historically been associated with rigid ideas about masculinity and loyalty, while LGBTQ+ people serving in the armed forces have navigated changing policies and uneven social acceptance. Trust the Man’s premise places that tension at the center of a suspense narrative rather than presenting queer characters only through a coming-out storyline.
The United States formally ended its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011, allowing gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members to serve openly. That policy change did not erase the experiences of earlier generations, nor did it settle every question involving transgender service members or broader LGBTQ+ inclusion in the military. A period thriller set during the Vietnam War therefore has an opportunity to show how historical conditions shaped queer people’s choices and risks.
For LGBTQ+ audiences, the film’s value may lie in its willingness to make queer subtext, desire, and danger part of the main dramatic engine. Queer characters have frequently appeared in historical dramas through coded gestures or tragic outcomes; contemporary filmmakers have more room to explore complicated relationships with emotional depth and agency. Whether Trust the Man fulfills that promise will depend on the completed film, which has not yet received a publicly announced release date.
The project also reflects the continuing movement of LGBTQ+ storytelling across genres. Rather than limiting queer cinema to romance, comedy, or explicitly activist drama, Trust the Man places its apparent queer tension inside a military mystery. That approach can broaden the kinds of lives and relationships audiences expect to see in mainstream entertainment while allowing queer viewers to encounter characters defined by more than their sexuality.
What comes next
Trust the Man has completed filming, but its distributors, release platform, and official release date have not been publicly announced in the sources reviewed for this article. The production’s next stage will include postproduction, marketing, and decisions about whether the film premieres theatrically, through a festival, or on a streaming service.
For now, the strongest confirmed details are the completed production, Graham’s role as writer-director, the Vietnam War setting, and the reunion of Groff and Radcliffe. The film’s queer significance is clear in the way its reported premise centers an intense relationship between men, but audiences will need to wait for further official information before drawing conclusions about its characters or final themes.
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