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New female lead for Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth

Marion Cotillard will play the scheming Lady Macbeth in Justin Kurzel’s film adapted from the Shakespeare play.

Cotillard replaces Natalie Portman who was named in the role last May, opposite Michael Fassbender’s Macbeth.

It was reported last month that Portman would direct, write and appear in a film based on an autobiographical novel by Israeli writer Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness, which is due to shoot in Jerusalem in early 2014.

Filming of Macbeth is scheduled to start in the UK in January, produced by See-Saw Films’ Iain Canning and Emile Sherman, who collaborated with Fassbender in Steve McQueen’s Shame. The script is by Todd Luiso and Jacob Koskoff.

Transmission will release the film in Australia. StudioCanal is co-financing with England’s Film 4 and handling international sales.

Kurzel said, “I feel extremely blessed that Marion is joining our film. She is one of the bravest and most compelling actors I have watched in recent years and I cannot wait to collaborate with both her and Michael in bringing to screen this very human and tragic love story.”

The French-born Cotillard’s career has sky rocketed since she won the Oscar for best lead actress as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. Her recent credits include The Dark Knight Rises, Midnight in Paris and Rust and Bone.

Portman will next be seen in Thor: The Dark World alongside Chris Hemsworth and in Gavin O'Connor's Western Jane Got a Gun with Ewan McGregor.