News: Julia Roberts

We haven’t seen much of Julia Roberts since 2004’s disappointing Ocean’s Twelve, with this week’s Charlotte’s Web featuring merely her voice as the titular spider, following her earlier voice work on the animated The Ant Bully last year. If you’re a fan of the tabloids you’ll doubtless know why – she gave birth to twins in November 2004, and is currently expecting another child, due in the summer.

Nonetheless, she found time amidst all the pregnancies and childcare to star alongside Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman in what looks set to be a pretty major movie (as if the three stars – with nine Oscar nominations between them – aren’t indication enough…). Charlie Wilson’s War is due out in December in the States, just in time to qualify for the 2008 Oscars, and it’s a pretty likely contender for a slew of big nominations. Directed by the rather good Mike Nichols (with five Oscar nominations under his belt), who directed Roberts in 2004’s Closer, it is based on the true story of Texas Congressman Charles Wilson (Hanks) who, soon after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, was the man who realised that the United States needed to get subtly involved in the conflict. The upshot? The funding of covert CIA operations and training of local tribesmen – including a number of Islamic fundamentalists who would go on to form a little group by the name of Al-Qaeda. Topical, political, and plenty of scope for epic storytelling. It has Oscar written all over it.

The only other film Roberts has in the works is The Friday Night Knitting Club, a rather more low-key affair, based on the novel by Katie Jacobs about a group of women who make friends in a knitting shop in New York. Roberts is the only name currently attached – though whether it will happen now she’s pregnant again is anyone’s guess.

News: Jeffrey Wright

Although it looks likely that he is now destined to be remembered as James Bond’s CIA buddy Felix Leiter in this week’s Casino Royale (he is as yet not – publicly – signed up for the sequel), Jeffrey Wright has been knocking around for a fair while now, in films like Ali and Syriana. By rights he should have hit the big time after his outstanding turn as oddball artist Jean Michel Basquiat in the 1996 biopic Basquiat (which co-starred such immensely big names as Dennis Hopper, David Bowie, Benicio Del Toro, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe and Gary Oldman), but somehow his career never really hit the big time.

Nonetheless, Wright is hardly short of work. Next up will be another role alongside Casino Royale star Daniel Craig in the sci-fi thriller The Invasion, followed by a starring role in indy flick Blackout, set during the Brooklyn power cut of 2003. He will also be appearing in the abysmally-titled fourth Die Hard movie, Live Free or Die Hard, due out in the UK in July 2007, but only in a minor role.

Most promisiong for Wright’s future career, however, looks likely to be 1001 Nights, for tip-top The Graduate and Closer director Mike Nichols. Largely because of Nichols’ involvement, it must be said, as very little is known about the movie as yet – although it is supposedly in pre-production, due for a 2007 release, and Wright is set to star. Still, in the land of movies, anything can happen – as Wright’s failure to achieve global stardom is a sure testimony to.