Hopkins, Bening & Garcia Team Up for 'Hemingway and Fuentes'

Variety reports that stage and screen stars Annette Bening and Anthony Hopkins will star in Andy Garcia's latest film, Hemingway and Fuentes. The film is a period piece that Garcia co-wrote with Hilary Hemingway, granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway.  Garcia will also produce, direct and star in the piece alongside Bening and Hopkins.  Filming will begin next summer after Hopkins finishes filming the big budget Thor.

Hopkins will portray Hemingway and Garcia will play his best friend, Gregorio Fuentes. Bening will play Mary Welsh Hemingway, Hemingway's third wife.

The film showcases the twenty years that Hemingway spent in Cuba fishing with his best friend Gregorio Fuentes, where he fell in love with the Italian woman who inspired "The Old Man and the Sea." 

The project is a passion piece for Garcia who has been flirting with the project since the 1970s.  Says Garcia in Variety, "I was specifically most interested in Hemingway's connection to Cuba, where he spent the last 20 years of his life, and his relationship with his last captain, Gregorio...As an avid fisherman, I got to know older Cuban fisherman who knew Gregorio from the fishing culture of the 40s and 50s, and who would compete in tournaments outside the city of Havana, which was really the beginning of competitive fishing." 

Garcia began collaborating on the script with Hilary Hemingway after seeing her documentary she made on her famous grandfather.  

To read the full report in Variety, click here.

Andy Garcia became known in the late 1980s and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III (Oscar nomination), The Untouchables and When a Man Loves a Woman. More recently, he has starred in Ocean's Eleven and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen. He is the founder of CineSon Productions for which he has directed and co-produced Cachao...Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos (Like His Rhythm There Is No Other), a feature length documentary concert film about the co-creator of the Mambo, Israel Lopez Cachao among others. He starred in, produced and made his feature film directorial debut in The Lost City, written by Guillermo Cabrera Infante. He has been involved with the independent features The Lazarus Child and Modigliani, in which he portrays Amedeo Modigliani in the last days of his life, and which he produced along with Philippe Martinez. Garcia starred in and produced the independent films The Unsaid and The Man From Elysian Fields. Other recent film credits include Twisted and Confidence.  He can currently be seen in New York, I Love You. Garcia received an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for his starring role as the legendary Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval in HBO's 2000 biopic For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story.

Hopkins was seen on Broadway in the original production of Equus, for which he won a Drama DeskAward. A protege of Sir Laurence Olivier in the 1960s, he the Royal National Theatre and became Olivier's understudy, filling in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a production of August Strindberg's The Dance of Death. He additionally worked at the National Theatre, most notably as Lambert Le Roux in Pravda by David Hare and Howard Brenton and as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra opposite Judi Dench. Considered to be one of film's greatest living actors, he is known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, its sequel, Hannibal, and its prequel, Red Dragon. His other notable film credits include Magic, The Elephant Man, 84 Charing Cross Road, Dracula, Legends of the Fall, The Remains of the Day, Amistad, Meet Joe Black, The Mask of Zorro, The World's Fastest Indian, Hearts in Atlantis, Nixon and Fracture. He will next be seen starring with Benicio Del Toro in the Joe Johnston-directed "The Wolfman," released by Universal next February, and Woody Allen's "You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger."

Annette Bening, an American Conservatory Theater-trained stage actress, Bening recently completed a run as Medea at the Freud Playhouse at UCLA.  Bening debuted off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre (McGinn-Cazale Theatre) in the role of 'Holly Dancer' in Tina Howe's widely acclaimed Coastal Disturbances (1986) opposite Tim Daly which then transferred to Broadway. For this she was nominated for a Tony Award and won the Theater World Award. She has appeared in Hedda Gabler at the Geffen Playhouse, and as Ranyevskaya in the Mark Taper Forum's The Cherry Orchard.  Bening saw her Hollywood fame blossom with each portrayal of an unlikable yet unforgettable character in The Grifters (Oscar nomination), Bugsy, American Beauty, Being Julia, Mrs. Harris, Running With Scissors, and more. . Her television debut was with the made-for-TV movie Manhunt for Claude Dallas (1986).