Garcia finds Hemingway

Andy Garcia has been sitting on his own script about Ernest Hemingway for a few years now, and his attempts to shop it around this year’s AFM will benefit the recent addition of a big name to play the legendary writer.

Garcia announced Sir Anthony Hopkins to be officially on board his film HEMINGWAY AND FUENTES about the writer’s final years spent mostly fishing in Cuba, where his story “The Old Man and the Sea” was inspired. Garcia will direct in addition to playing Hemingway’s fishing companion Gregorio Fuentes, with Annette Benning signed on as the man’s third wife Mary Welsh Hemingway.

“Anthony is one of the greatest actors, and I’d heard he’d been interested in playing the character in the past. I’m blessed that he responded,” the actor/writer/director told 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.“

Garcia can take his time to find a buyer for his project though; Hopkins won’t be picking up the fishing rod before he’s done with THOR.