Pollack Says Cruise Signed for Civil War Movie

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Actor Tom Cruise will play the lead role in the upcoming American Civil War film Cold Mountain, producer Sydney Pollack told Reuters on Tuesday.

"I'm doing Cold Mountain with Tom Cruise and (director) Anthony Minghella and we're in deep preparation for that at the moment," Pollack said in Sydney. Pollack said he hoped to start principal photography in June for Cold Mountain, the film adaptation of the best-selling American Civil War novel by Charles Frazier, and a crew was scouting locations in North Carolina and Canada.

Minghella directed the Academy Award-winning film The English Patient.

Pollack is in Sydney doing post-production work at Fox Studios Australia on The Quiet American, based on Graham Greene's classic novel set in Indochina, which Pollack produced and Australian Phillip Noyce directed.

While in Australia, Pollack is also appearing at film industry functions, including the Screen Producers Association of Australia conference in Melbourne, where he will deliver the keynote address on Thursday, and the Australian Film Industry awards on Friday where he will present an award for Best Director.

Pollack, who won the best director Oscar in 1985 for Out of Africa, has garnered 46 Oscar nominations throughout his career and starred with Cruise in Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film, Eyes Wide Shut.