Ray Winstone sings

11 months ago 03rd Dec 13:30

Ray Winstone has signed up to appear in a musical.

The 'Nil By Mouth' actor will star as Julius Caesar opposite Catherine Zeta Jones and Hugh Jackman in 'Cleo', a retelling of the Cleopatra story, director Steven Soderbergh has confirmed.

All the ones that were coming along just weren't for me

According to the director, helming a musical is a dream come true, though he admits he was initially insure which story he wanted to tackle in lyrical form.

He said: "I've always wanted to do a musical. All the ones that were coming along just weren't for me. I wanted to do a real rock n roll musical like 'Tommy.'

"During my research it appeared that most were female driven. So I started thinking about female protagonists. I was thinking about Catherine. It doesn't take too long to think about Catherine and famous female historical figures to get to get to Cleopatra."

Steven also revealed he is delighted with the band's soundtrack, which has been written by former Guided By Voices star James Greer.

He added to MTV: "He went away for like six weeks and wrote this great script! It's like an Elvis musical in a way. It's not serious. I mean it's historically pretty accurate but its sort of like 'Viva Las Vegas' meets 'Tommy.' "