“The Artist” star Jean Dujardin is being eyed for a role in George Clooney’s film “The Monument’s Men,” a person with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.
Dujardin, who became the first French actor to win an Oscar for Best Actor earlier this year (for “The Artist”) would be cast in a supporting role in this story about a group of men and women who chased down the stolen art of Europe during World War II.
Dujardin also has a role in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming film, “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
“The Monument’s Men” is based on the book “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History,” by Robert M Edsel.
Clooney will star in the film and also direct. He is also producing and writing the screenplay with Grant Heslov. Clooney plays George Stout, a U.S. Army officer and leading art conservationist, who repatriated tens of thousands of pieces of art from the Nazis.
The filmmakers are also understood to be interested in Cate Blanchett for the role of Rose Valland, an art historian and member of the French resistance, and in Paul Giamatti for the role of Lincoln Kirstein, who co-founded the New York City ballet with George Balanchine.
Representatives for the actors would only say that the casting process was in the very early stages.
The film is understood to be shooting in Germany, Austria, Paris and England next spring.
The book, which focuses on the 11-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, tells the tale of a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians who risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of the art.
