Anthony Hopkins to play Hemingway in biopic

Los Angeles: Hollywood legend Anthony Hopkins has given his nod to play Nobel prize-winning American writer Earnest Hemingway in a film that depicts the last 20-years of the author`s life.Andy Garcia, who will also be directing the movie, has co-written the story with Hemingway`s granddaughter Hilary Hemingway.

Garcia will play Gregorio Fuentes, Hemingway`s best friend in "Hemingway and Fuentes," which will see Annette Bening playing the character of author`s third wife Mary Welsh Hemingway, Variety reported online. The film chronicles the two decades that Hemingway spent in Cuba fishing with his best friend, Gregorio Fuentes. The author fell in love with an Italian girl who inspired him to write his timeless classic "The Old Man and the Sea." The writer committed suicide shortly after returning to the US. Garcia wanted to make a film on Hemingway`s Cuba stay since 1970s, when he first came in contact with some of the fishermen who had fished alongside the author in the 1940s and `50s. "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," Garcia said. The actor-director had been hoping for months to rope in Hopkins, who recently committed to do the film after he completes "Thor." "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," Gracia said. Bureau Report