Kevin Kline, Ryan Phillippe, Juliette Binoche and playwright Steve Martin are confirmed for the film adaptation of Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Variety reports. Fred Schepisi, who is also helming the new Michael Douglas picture starring Bernadette Peters, is set to direct the Martin work for Abandon Pictures, and filming is due to begin in February. Martin's play, which premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in Oct. 1994, opened Off-Broadway in 1995, garnering 1996 Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Off-Broadway Play and Best Playwright. Set at the turn of the century, the comedy concerns a chance meeting between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in a French cafe. Both the physicist and the artist attempt to pick up the same young woman, and a comical debate about the nature of true genius ensues. Stage and screen actor Kevin Kline — who won an Academy Award for his performance in "A Fish Called Wanda" — has also appeared in the films "The Big Chill," "Dave," "In & Out" and "The Anniversary Party." Kline nabbed two Tony Awards for his roles in Broadway's On the Twentieth Century and The Pirates of Penzance. Ryan Phillippe, the young actor married to actress Reese Witherspoon, began his professional career on the ABC soap opera "One Life To Live." He has also appeared in several feature films, including "54," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "Cruel Intentions" and this season's Oscar-nominated "Gosford Park." French actress Juliette Binoche won an Academy Award for her role in "The English Patient" and received a nomination for her work in "Chocolat." Also a stage actress, she starred on Broadway in the revival of Harold Pinter's Betrayal, for which she received a Best Actress in a Play Tony nomination.
Comedian-actor Steve Martin, who is best known for his work on TV's "Saturday Night Live" as well as such films as "The Jerk," "Parenthood" and "Fatherhood," has also emerged as a successful playwright and screenwriter. He is currently represented Off-Broadway with his new hit comedy, The Underpants, which runs through May 12 at the Classic Stage Company.
