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By Zachary Pincus-Roth
19 Apr 2007

Meryl Streep
photo by Aubrey Reuben

Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman will star in the film version of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt.

Variety also reports that Shanley will adapt the play and will direct the film for Miramax. Scott Rudin is producing the film, which begins production in New York on Dec. 1.

Streep will play the role of a nun who suspects a popular priest, played by Hoffman, of wrongdoing at a Bronx Catholic School in 1964. Cherry Jones won a Tony Award for playing the role of the nun on Broadway and Brían F. O'Byrne received a Tony nomination for playing the priest.

Winner of the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play, Doubt, directed on Broadway by Tony winner Doug Hughes, played 525 performances and 25 previews at the Walter Kerr Theatre before closing July 2, 2006. The play transferred to Broadway after a run Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club's City Center Stage I. The Broadway production is currently on tour.

Streep is busy with Broadway adaptations this year, as she is about to begin shooting the role of Donna Sheridan in the film version of Mamma Mia!, which also stars Pierce Brosnan and Christine Baranski. Streep just filmed roles in Gavin Hood's film "Rendition" and Robert Redford's "Lions for Lambs."

Hoffman — currently starring in Jack Goes Boating at the Public Theater, produced by LAByrinth Theater Company, of which he is co-artistic director — recently wrapped shooting on the Sidney Lumet-directed "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and the Mike Nichols-directed "Charlie Wilson's War." The next film he shoots will be the Charlie Kaufman-directed "Synecdoche, New York." He also stars in "Savages" with Laura Linney, which comes out this summer.

Meryl Streep won Academy Awards for her performances in "Sophie's Choice" and "Kramer vs. Kramer." She was also Oscar-nominated for her work in "Adaptation," "Music of the Heart," "One True Thing," "The Bridges of Madison County," "Postcards from the Edge," "A Cry in the Dark," "Ironweed," "Out of Africa," "Silkwood," "The French Lieutenant's Woman" and "The Deer Hunter." Streep received a Tony nomination for 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, and her other Broadway appearances include Happy End, The Cherry Orchard, Secret Service and Trelawny of the "Wells". Streep was most recently on the New York stage in the Public Theater's presentation of Mother Courage.

Hoffman won the Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of the title character in "Capote." Other film credits include "Mission: Impossible 3," HBO's "Empire Falls," "Cold Mountain," "25th Hour," "Love Liza," "Punch Drunk Love," "Red Dragon," "Almost Famous," "State and Main," "Magnolia," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Boogie Nights," "Happiness," "The Big Lebowski" and "Nobody"s Fool."

His theatre acting credits include Long Day's Journey into Night and True West on Broadway, The Seagull (Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival) and Shopping and F*cking (New York Theatre Workshop). His stage directing credits include The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the "A" Train and In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings, each by Stephen Adly Guirgis, plus Rebecca Gilman's The Glory of Living (MCC Theater).

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