After playing the eponymous criminal in The General, the busy Irish actor Brendan Gleeson is set to play another gangster known as The Monk. However, this character is an Irish-American operating out of New York City in the 1860s, and the role is a key one in Martin Scorsese's $100 million production, Gangs of New York, which starts filming shortly at Cinecitta Studios in Rome. Gleeson joins a cast that includes Daniel Day-Lewis in his first film for four years, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz.
This week, Gleeson's Dublin-based agent, Teri Hayden, concluded a deal for him to appear in Steven Spielberg's A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), which started shooting on Monday in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. The secrecy-shrouded project is a science-fiction film which the late Stanley Kubrick had been developing for years - he had been waiting for technology to catch up with his vision of the film. Spielberg's first outing as a director since Saving Private Ryan, A.I. features Jude Law and the 11-year-old star of The Sixth Sense, Haley Joel Osment.
Before going to work on the Spielberg film, Brendan Gleeson will participate in a public interview at Galway Film Fleadh tomorrow and he features in the cast of Conor McPherson's Saltwater, which has its Irish premiere at the fleadh tonight. And Gleeson can be seen at a cinema near you, playing a shady Sydney pharmaceuticals tycoon in Mission Impossible II.
Irish director Tom Comerford was the winner of one of three major prizes at the Wrangler Short Film Awards, presented in London recently. Wrangler Jeans invited entrants to submit five-minute films on the themes of rugged individuality, the great outdoors, or heroism, and Comerford won the best film award in the heroism category for his short, The Pawn. The judging panel included directors Kenneth Branagh and Mike Barker, and the three winning films will be widely released in Britain on the Odeon cinema circuit.
Tom Comerford, who is from Doonbeg, Co Clare, studied film at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. He recently completed a degree in cinematography and won the Arriflex award for best cinematography at the 1999 Fuji Film Awards.
Having gone through a succession of directors, the big-budget comic-strip adaptation, Spiderman is finally set to go before the cameras in New York in November with Sam Raimi on board as director. However, Raimi and Columbia Pictures are still searching for their star, and whoever is chosen will have only four months to get in shape for the physically demanding role.
Among those vying for the role of Peter Parker, the teenager who becomes Spiderman after being bitten by a radioactive spider, are Tobey Maguire, Freddie Prinze Jr, Scott Speedman and James Franco, all of whom have screen-tested for Raimi. In addition, Raimi is reportedly considering Ewan McGregor, Heath Ledger and Wes Bentley.
Meanwhile, Tim Burton, who originally planned to direct Spiderman, is now set to remake Planet of the Apes, with Mark Wahlberg in the Charlton Heston role.
POP diva Mariah Carey is to star in a loosely autobiographical movie which tells the rags-to-riches story of a singer's rise to the top from a childhood spent in foster homes. Rap star Da Brat will join Carey in the cast of the film, All That Glitters, which has been scripted by Kate Lanier, the writer of the Tina Turner biopic, What's Love Got To Do With It, and will be directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall.
Having co-starred in the superb, Tony-winning Sam Mendes production of Cabaret on Broadway, Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh are collaborating as screenwriters and co-directors on the movie, The Anniversary Party, for which they have drawn on their respective romantic problems for its scenario revolving around a party thrown by a couple after their separation.
Judi Dench took lessons from the saxophonist in Humphrey Lyttleton's jazz band to prepare for her role as a former second World War musician in the romantic comedy film The Last of the Blonde Bomb- shells. The cast also features Joan Sims, Billie Whitelaw, June Whitfield, Cleo Lane and Ian Holm.
Holm, who recently returned from New Zealand after five weeks filming his role in The Lord of the Rings, is oozing with enthusiasm about Peter Jackson's big-budget film trilogy based on the Tolkien novels. "I'm not allowed to say much about it but it's going to make Star Wars look like a weekend in the lavatory," Holm says. "There are 130 special effects people and it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant."