EXCLUSIVE: Billy Zane (Titanic), John Billingsley (Unspeakable: The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey), Scottie Thompson (NCIS) and Bonnie Root (Don’t Let Them Out) have signed for writer-director-actor Philippe Caland’s neo noir thriller Milliseconds.

The film is billed as a complex mystery about a reclusive former painter who becomes drawn into an investigation involving a suicide hotline, unraveling long-buried connections and hidden truths from the past.  

The cast also includes Elijah Lynn Langston, making his feature film debut, and Kevin Ryan (Harry Wild, The Rainmaker), along with Don Wallace and Jason Lee Daniel.

Caland will produce under his Junto House Films banner, alongside co-producers Root and Cynthia Bravo, with Zane serving as executive producer. Cinematographer Gonzalo Digenio is also attached.

The project will shoot in L.A., against sweeping views of the cityscape, local architectural landmarks, and a locale in the fire impacted Alta Dena area.

“I am particularly fascinated by the power of art and the creative process to confront, heal, and reveal one’s authentic self,” said Caland.  “Milliseconds explores the journey of loss, grief, destruction and transformation, the process of metamorphosis, life and death, rebirth, and the narratives and belief systems that often imprison us.”

It is Caland’s sixth feature directorial credit after films such as Hollywood Buddha and Ripple Effect, The Guru and the Gypsy, and Repentance, all of which he also wrote and produced.

Having originally broken out as a writer and producer on Jennifer Lynch’s Boxing Helena, Caland also produced Dead Girl, Infinity, and Loved.

Billy Zane earned global recognition as Cal Hockley in Titanic, his villainous role in Dead Calm, and as the heroic lead in The Phantom. He has appeared in over 100 films, actively produced many, and recently garnered attention for portraying Marlon Brando in Waltzing with Brando. He is repped by Paradigm Talent Agency.

John Billingsley, who next appears in the upcoming Paramount+ limited series Unspeakable: The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey, is repped by Trademark Talent and Artium Talent; Scottie Thompson, best known for her recurring roles on NCIS, 12 Monkeys, The Blacklist, and Macgyver, by TalentWorks and Yazzy Entertainment, and Root, who proviously worked with Caland as co-producer Death in Ojai, by Daniel Hoff Agency and Zero Gravity Management.

Jared Leto has told The Hollywood Reporter he has “never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life” amid sexual misconduct claims from multiple women in a new BBC documentary.

In a short statement given to THR via his team on Wednesday, Leto said: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”

Earlier in the day, Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret dropped bombshell claims against the Oscar-winning actor and Thirty Seconds to Mars rocker from 10 different women, including allegations from four women who accuse Leto of criminal sexual conduct. These incidents, the women say, occurred when they were teenagers.

They allege their encounters with the now-54-year-old took place between 2002 and 2016. In the BBC report, one of the women says she was sexually assaulted by the actor and musician in a motel bathroom when she was 17.

A different woman says she had sex with him when she was 17 in California, a state where the act is classified as statutory rape. He “shrugged off” concerns about the state’s age of consent, according to the BBC investigation.

Another of the 10 women says that she was groomed by Leto and that he “abused his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.” She adds that on at least one occasion, Leto suggested they should have sex.

This same woman alleges that she was subsequently sent a non-disclosure agreement to prevent her from talking about her relationship with Leto, but she refused to sign it. The BBC says it has seen the NDA, and “corroborated” a number of the accounts with friends and family of the women involved.

Additional claims come from women who say they received “strange and often very sexual” calls from Leto, as well as one occasion where he made a lewd comment about a 14-year-old’s chest during an autograph-signing event.

This isn’t the first time the Dallas Buyers Club and Tron star has faced sexual misconduct allegations. In June last year, Leto’s reps denied that the actor engaged in sexual misconduct or inappropriate relationships with women after an Air Mail exposé, which contained interviews with nine women. The majority of the contributors stayed anonymous.

Leto is a prolific Hollywood actor and singer, best known for his Academy Award-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), as well as appearances in Fight Club (1999), American Psycho (2000), Requiem for a Dream (2000), and Panic Room (2002). His later acting credits include 2016’s Suicide Squad, in which he played the Joker, and 2025’s Tron: Ares with Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Gillian Anderson, and Jeff Bridges.

He is also the lead vocalist and main songwriter for rock group Thirty Seconds to Mars, known for hits such as “The Kill,” “This Is War,” “Kings and Queens,” and Hurricane.”