Schreiber In Talks To Join Jolie For 'SALT'

Variety is reporting that stage and screen star Liev Schreiber is in talks to star opposite Angelina Jolie in the spy thriller "SALT" for Columbia Pictures. Phillip Noyce will direct the film.

The story centers on Evelyn Salt, a CIA officer who is fingered as a Russian sleeper spy. She eludes capture by superiors who are convinced she is out to assassinate the president. While trying to reunite with her family, she struggles to prove someone else is the traitor.

Schreiber will play Salt's boss and friend on the Russian desk at the CIA. Chiwetel Ejiofor is also being said to have joined the cast.

Liev Schreiber will be "baring his fangs" in the upcoming summer X-Men spin-off Wolverine, starring fellow Tony Award-winner Hugh Jackman in the title role. Schreiber plays the iconic role of Victor Creed better known to comic fans as 'Sabertooth'.

Liev Schreiber has appeared on Broadway in: Talk Radio, Glengarry Glen Ross (Tony Award), Betrayal, In the Summer House, Moonlight. Off-Broadway: The Mercy Seat, Ivanov, Edward II, Escape From Happiness, The Size of the World, and Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). Public Theater credits include Macbeth (Macbeth), Henry V (King Henry V), Othello (Iago), Hamlet (Hamlet), Cymbeline (Iachimo; Obie, Caloway Awards), The Tempest (Sebastian). Film: Love In the Time of Cholera (2007), The Painted Veil, The Ten, The Omen, The Manchurian Candidate, The Sum of All Fears, Kate & Leopold, The Hurricane, Jakob the Liar, A Walk on the Moon, Twilight, Party Girl, Mixed Nuts, Walking and Talking, The Daytrippers, Scream 1-3, Sphere, Ransom, Spring Forward. Television: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, HBO's RKO 281 (Emmy, Golden Globe nominations), Lackawanna Blues, Spinning Boris, Buffalo Girls, People V, The Sunshine Boys. Feature film directorial debut: Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Everything Is Illuminated, which he also adapted for the screen. Training: Yale School of Drama.

The multi-talented Jackman won a Tony Award for playing Peter Allen in Broadway's The Boy from Oz, and also won an Emmy for hosting the 2004 Tony Awards ceremony. He was also nominated for the 1998 Olivier for Best Actor in a Musical for his Curly in the Royal National Theatre's Oklahoma! A musical theatre veteran back in Australia, he played Joe Gillis in the 1996 production of Sunset Boulevard in Melbourne, and Gaston in 1995's Beauty and the Beast. Allen is the executive producer of the new CBS show "Viva Laughlin!." Other film credits include Australia,The Fountain, The Prestige, Scoop, and Someone Like You.

Visit www.variety.com for more information.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.