Tony Winner Fogler is Hitchcock in Upcoming Film ' NUMBER 13'

Starpulse reports that Tony Winner Dan Fogler has signed on to play the heavyweight film genius in "Number 13" - alongside British stars Ewan McGregor and Emily Mortimer.he film is based on the set of Hitchcock's lost and unfinished 1922 movie of the same name, and centres on the death of a lead actor and a love triangle featuring the director and two crew members.

In an interview with Starpulse.com, Fogler reveals he has been immersing himself in Hitchcock's work, so he can become the famous director onscreen.

He says, "I knew the movies that everyone knows, Psycho and The Birds, but I had to do a lot of research with the books.

"I really focused on his early stuff because that's what it's about. It's like Hitchcock in Love, it's about him in his early 20s just finding himself as an artist, as a director.

"It gives you more freedom because people aren't as familiar with young Hitchcock as they are with older Hitchcock. But it's a lot harder in a lot of ways because you have to play his origins. You have to play the seeds of that character everyone knows. It's a fine line." 

The real-life story of Hitchcock's "Number 13" (or "Mrs. Peabody") is a mystery worthy of the acclaimed director himself - the movie was only partially completed before it was pulled from production in 1922. Despite decades of searching, neither the footage nor the script has ever been found, making it more than likely that everything associated with the film has been lost to history. For his part, Hitchcock rarely ever spoke about his first directorial project.

Shooting will begin later in 2009 and the movie is slated for release in 2011.

Fogler won a 2005 Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his work in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, he was also seen in the films "Fanboys" and "Balls of Fury".

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.