By Andrew Gans
25 Jul 2003

Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen will star in the upcoming film of Patrick Marber's award-winning play Closer.

Liz Smith reports that the four actors will begin filming in January 2004 under the direction of Academy Award winner Mike Nichols. Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play, Closer opened March 25, 1999, at Broadway's Music Box Theatre following a London run at the Royal National Theatre. Playwright Marber also directed the piece, which featured Anna Friel, Rupert Graves, Ciaran Hinds and Natasha Richardson.

Closer explores the ever-changing state of modern relationships through a quartet of lovers tangled in a web of love, lust, sex and betrayal. The play won the 1997 Evening Standard Best Comedy Award and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play.

It's an especially busy time for director Nichols, whose screen adaptation of Tony Kushner's Angels in America will hit HBO this year. Nichols received an Academy Award for Best Director for the 1968 classic "The Graduate." He was also Oscar-nominated for Best Director for his work on "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "Silkwood" and "Working Girl." On Broadway, Nichols received Tony Awards for directing The Real Thing, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Plaza Suite, Barefoot in the Park and Luv and The Odd Couple.