James Cusati-Moyer On the World Premiere of ‘Sacred Creatures’ at Edinburgh International Film Festival [VIDEO]

Celebrated and Tony-nominated stage actor James Cusati-Moyer, in his first leading role in a feature film, makes quite the impressive splash!

In Canadian writer-director Frieda Luk’s debut feature, Sacred Creatures, three estranged siblings reunite in the Piedmontese area of rural Italy after the middle sister is released from a psychiatric hospital where she suffered a breakdown of sorts and experienced a deep spiritual awakening.

Cusati-Moyer plays Ray, a good-looking young gay man in a relationship with Renzo (Antonio De Matteo) an older Italian artist. They share Renzo’s country home. When the film begins, Ray’s two sisters arrive, the perpetually angsty ad exec Michelle (Romina d’Ugo) and the enigmatic Miriam (Olivia Luccardi), the ‘problem sib’ who had the psychotic break. But was it that or is she more spiritually attune than normal?

Ray is initially hopeful that Miriam will be fine. Michelle, not so much.

But one day when Renzo’s pushy aunt and, seemingly, the rest of the townsfolk begin to see Miriam as some sainted spiritual guru (although some also see her as the devil) and follow her around, things get very messy.

Cusati-Moyer mesmerizes and grounds the film in a needed realism so when we see his reaction in the final scene we can buy into the ambiguous finale. And the camera loves him. He is luminous onscreen.

The thesp received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play, which transferred to Broadway it’s from New York Theatre Workshop run. He originated the role of Dustin off Broadway and then played the role on the West End in London six years later.

He made his Broadway debut in revival of the revival of John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation in 2017. Off-Broadway credits include

Terrence McNally’s electrifying Fire and Air at Classic Stage Company in 2018, and Messy White Gays in 2025.

He can be seen, off Broadway, later in September, in The Perverse a new play by Borna Barzin at QNCC (Queer Nightlife Community Center).

Other screen credits: Black Adam (2022) and Bradley Cooper’s Maestro (2023) and several shorts including The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick, which he co-wrote, and I’m Gonna Kill You.

On TV he appeared in Inventing Anna and Sistas as well as episodes of The Calling, Prodigal Son, Evil, Blue Bloods, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Sacred Creatures just had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 16^th.

The Contending had the pleasure of a chat with Cusati-Moyer.