James Gandolfini To Star As Ernest Hemingway


James Gandolfini is to topline a drama about the tempestuous romance between Ernest Hemingway and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, according to Variety.

Gandolfini will make the film early next year, then return to "The Sopranos." The final season of the HBO series begins shooting in April. The Hemingway picture takes place between 1936 and 1945. Gellhorn's competitive nature inspired the novelist to pen "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

"She might have been the best war correspondent who ever lived, and she was the only woman who left Hemingway and asked for a divorce," Turner said. "She was drop-dead gorgeous, smart and funny, and they had a competitive, stormy but romantic relationship. She was one of the great romances of his life." Turner said that Robin Wright Penn is a possibility to play Gellhorn.

Gandolfini's interest in Hemingway has led him to become involved in the Hemingway Preservation Foundation, which is restoring the home in Cuba where the author wrote "The Old Man and the Sea."

Producers will look to land a director and financing by early fall, with a January start planned.

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