Oliver Stone is to direct Benicio del Toro in 'White Lies'.

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

The 71-year-old filmmaker's upcoming project is rumoured to be an intimate New York-set drama, which will have a markedly different feel to his earlier movies, and Del Toro will star as the central character.

The award-winning actor will play the part of Jack, a child of divorce who finds himself repeating the mistakes of parents, according to Deadline.

Jack feels trapped in his own life and makes an effort to free himself of his everyday problems, but in reality, his efforts only succeed in creating more problems.

Then, though, he finds a woman whose life is the opposite of his own and he embarks on a journey of rediscovery.

The movie is poised to begin shooting in New York next year.

Meanwhile, del Toro previously revealed he feels like he's been fighting a number of stereotypes throughout his career.

However, the Puerto Rican actor has looked to Denzel Washington as a source of inspiration.

He shared: "Denzel is one of those actors who has had to deal with all those stereotypes.

"It's an interesting journey. Me being Latino, I've looked at his career [to] see how to navigate and take those stereotypes and flip them upside down."

He said, too, that he's keen to take on some lighter material at this stage of his career.

He explained: "I wouldn't mind doing something light, but that's going to be work.

"Those roles don't come to me first usually, but [the films] about guys who are conflicted with things exploding come to me. Why is that? You could say typecasting or because of the shape of my eyes. You could say many things. I don't care. Good stuff is good stuff, I don't care if it's upside down or inside out."