It's always nice to see a showbiz marriage not fall apart in six months, and even nicer when the couple in question clearly like each other enough to choose to work together. So well done Helen Mirren and her director hubby Taylor Hackford, who have not only been married for ten years this December but are also planning to work together on Love Ranch - which also marks the re-emergence of Joe Pesci, taking the lead role opposite Mirren.
The story is a drama inspired by the real lives of Sally and Joe Conforte, who opened the first legalised brothel in Nevada, called The Mustang Ranch, only to find scandal when boxer Oscar Bonavena was shot at the ranch in 1976, apparently because he was having an affair with Sally.
Mirren would, of course, play Sally, with Pesci as Joe - his first major role since 1998's Lethal Weapon 4, following a brief cameo in The Good Shepherd earlier this year.
"I've developed this project for a long time, and one of the things that excited me most was the chance to work again with my wife," Hackford told Variety. "I had to beg; she's a very busy girl. She wouldn't agree unless it was a great role, and this is a great role."
As for Pesci, he said, ""Joe didn't have any desire to work, but he was the first person I had in mind to play the husband, this former cab driver who dreamed of making prostitution legal and carved out a tiny county and convinced the local politicians. He's playing the godfather of legalized prostitution, and it convinced Joe to jump back into the fire."
Filming starts in January in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a script by Mark Jacobson, who wrote the article on which American Gangster is based so clearly has a nose for a good story. But Mirren and Pesci - oddest screen couple ever? Speak your brain below...