First announced last spring, "The Snowtown Murders" director Justin Kurzel's adaptation of John Le Carré's "Our Kind Of Traitor" has been moving slowly. There was a brief flick of life in November when it was reported that Mads Mikkelsen, Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain were rumored for roles. But now it seems the first actor has come aboard, and it's none of those names.
According to the usually plugged-in Baz Bamigboye, Ewan McGregor has joined the picture in an unspecified lead role. The film, penned by Hossein Amini ("Drive," "Snow White and the Huntsman"), follows an English couple who get mixed up with a Russian businessman who turns out to be an oligarch, and one of the world's biggest money launderers. They get caught up in his plans to defect and are soon positioned between the Russian Mafia and the British Secret Service, neither of whom they can trust. We presume McGregor is one half of the English couple.
There's no start date just yet for that one, but now worry is the actor will be shooting "Son Of A Gun" first. That's the movie he signed on for in the fall where he plays a bank robber who busts out of jail and takes on a protege (or something like that — details are scarce, but there's also said to be a heist element). Shooting on that picture begins next month with Julius Avery at the helm. So as always, plenty of interesting stuff on the horizon for McGregor and we're anxious to see who joins him in 'Traitor.'