Thewlis and Neeson Heaven Bound

Having already secured Britain's leading heart-throb Orlando Bloom as leading man in his next movie, Ridley Scott is plundering British and Irish acting reserves in more casting decisions for his crusading story Kingdom of Heaven. Today we hear that Liam Neeson and David Thewlis are the latest names to sign up for the film. Neeson will play the father of Bloom's character while Thewlis will play a priest called Hospitaller. Slipping into the young blacksmith's role that suited him so well in Pirates of the Caribbean, Bloom plays Salaq Ul-Hul, a Moorish man who leads his people in defence of Jerusalem against the invading Crusaders. "I wanted to do a film with knights in armor, but thought why do some homogenous story when screenwriter William Monahan came up with such rich history?" Says director Ridley Scott. "He based this drama on accurate research, which he spent 19 months compiling and writing." Scott describes the production scale as slightly larger than that of his Oscar-winning epic, Gladiator.