Andy Garcia has an old time passion project that he wants to bring to the big screen. Garcia looks Italian which is why he’s played Italian roles in his career (Godfather part III, Hoodlum) but we all know Garcia is not an Italian name, he’s Cuban and there’s a story that always hits close to home for him. It’s the story about the late great Ernest Hemingway who spent 20 years living in Cuba, fishing with his best friend Gregorio Fuentes. Over there, the writer fell in love with a beautiful Italian girl. This is what the period drama HEMINGWAY & FUENTES will depict…
They say good things come to those who wait, and persistence does pay off, Garcia has been working for months trying to get Anthony Hopkins to play Hemingway and according to Variety, the great actor finally said yes but he’ll do it after he finishes playing Odin for Marvel’s THOR.
Fair enough, we all want to see Hokins rule Asgard anyway just as Hopkins rules the world of acting.
Annette Bening has also signed on to star as Hemingway’s third wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway. Bening is wonderful and talented actress who in her last 2 Oscars, happens to have had the unfortunate luck of being nominated in the same category and year as Hillary Swank. Her American Beauty performance got crushed by Swank’s Boys Don’t Cry and Being Julia was overshadowed by Million Dollar Baby.
Garcia will direct this project and he’ll also star as Fuentes.
He co-wrote the script with Hilary Hemingway, the granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway. Like I said earlier, this one hits close to home because Garcia himself loves fishing so the story will be mostly set aboard Pilar, the modified 34 foot Wheeler Playmate craft. Production will start next summer in the Caribbean rim and a location to replicate Ketchum, Idaho, where Hemingway committed suicide or as Robin Williams jokingly said it in World’s Greatest Dad trailer, Hemingway tried to scratch an itch in the back of his head with a shotgun.
* Here’s another look at Annette Bening
