Jim Sturgess to star in CLOUD ATLAS

Jim Sturgess is currently starring opposite Anne Hathaway in One Day, but he will also be part of a highly anticipated adaptation of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. USA Today (The Playlist) reports that Sturgess (Across the Universe) will have a role in the film directed by the Wachowski's and German filmmaker Tom Tykwer. The cast already includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon, Ben Whishaw and Jim Broadbent. And considering we've heard each actor will play a variety of characters in the six worlds of the story, it should be quite the spectacle.

Here is what Sturgess had to say about the role:

"[All the actors] play a few characters, it’s very clever what [the directors are] gonna try and do. I’m really really really excited about it. I think it’s going to be bonkers, it’s either going to work or it’s not. I’m really excited to see if we can pull it off, because it’s ambitious what they want to do. And it’s nice, you feel like no one’s ever done that in a film before, it’s like rep theater on a sort of giant movie scale.”

Cloud Atlasfollows six storylines which range from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to California in the 1970s to a post-apocalyptic future. Each actor in the film will be playing multiple roles, but specific roles have yet to be confirmed. Earlier we reported that Hugo Weaving will in fact be playing 6 different characters. Here’s the synopsis of the book:

The story presents six narratives that evoke an array of genres, from Melvillean high-seas drama to California noir and dystopian fantasy. There is a naive clerk on a nineteenth-century Polynesian voyage: and aspiring composer who insinuates himself to the home of a syphilitic genius: a journalist investigating a nuclear plant: a publisher with a dangerous best-seller on his hands: and a cloned human being created for slave labour. These five stories are bisected and arranged around a sixth, the oral history of a post-apocalyptic island, which forms the heart of the story.

Sturgess is a nice addition to an already solid cast. I am very interested to see how Twyker and the Wachowski's translate the story to the big screen. Filming begins in September for a 2012 release. What are your thoughts?