Four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening, fresh from her critically admired, Golden Globe and Indie Spirit nominated turn in Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women, has joined the cast of Dan Fogelman’s upcoming ensemble romance Life Itself. Fogelman, creator of the hit NBC drama This Is Us, is directing from his original screenplay; Fogelman and Bening previously collaborated on his 2015 directorial debut Danny Collins. Life Itself is co-production between FilmNation Entertainment and Temple Hill. Deadline was the first to report Bening’s involvement.
Life Itself, which films shortly in both New York and Spain, is a new inter-generational romantic feature that tracks the course of multiple lives on both sides of the Atlantic. Bening joins the impressive ensemble that already includes Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina), Olivia Wilde (Her), Samuel L. Jackson (Kong: Skull Island), Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Antonio Banderas (The 33). While the film marks Fogelman’s second directorial project, as a screenwriter, he was previously credited with penning the animated hit Cars (2006), Bolt (2008) and Tangled (2010) as well as the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) and The Guilt Trip (2012).
Bening, who last year appeared in not just 20th Century Women but also in a supporting turn for husband Warren Beatty’s long-gestating Rules Don’t Apply, will next be seen opposite Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) in Michael Mayer’s upcoming adaptation of the classic Anton Chekhov play The Seagull. She also recently completed work on Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, in which she plays Oscar-winning Hollywood legend Gloria Grahame.
Life Itself is likely due to hit theaters sometime in 2018.
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