Two-time Academy Award nominee John Lithgow will take the lead alongside Alfred Molina in Love Is Strange, director Ira Sachs’ new indie feature slated to begin shooting in New York in August.
In Love Is Strange, Lithgow will play “Ben”, a painter, who marries his partner “George” (Molina) after 38 years together. On return from their honeymoon, however, George gets fired from his job at a Catholic high school, and the couple is unable to afford their small apartment. Forced to temporarily separate, Ben moves in with his nephew and family, and George with the two gay cops next door, Ted (Cheyenne Jackson) and his partner Nahlin.
“John Lithgow is one of the very greats of his generation and it will be exciting to see what he and Molina will do together in these roles, and as a couple,” says Sachs. “Both actors understand that it is in independent films like this one that audiences now find the kind of human drama and impact that Hollywood movies often leave behind.”
“I am thrilled to be working so closely with Alfred Molina, a longtime friend whose work I love but whom I’ve never acted with,” says Lithgow, “and we’ll be playing the main roles in the best script I’ve read in years, a vivid portrait of marriage, with all its joy, folly, and occasional heartbreak.”
It’s the next film from Sachs following his 2012 award winning Keep the Lights On.
A release date for the film has not yet been annouced.