David Cronenberg To Co-Star In ‘Body Art’ With Isabelle Huppert, Denis Lavant

Renowned director David Cronenberg is stepping out from behind the camera to co-star in a new film called Body Art.

Following Cronenberg’s dense but dazzling big screen adaptation of author Don DeLillo’s 2003 novel Cosmopolis, the Canadian is re-teaming with DeLillo and producer Paolo Branco to bring DeLillo’s 2001 novel The Body Artist to life.

According to Variety, the film will be helmed by Italy’s Luca Guadagnino and will also star France’s Isabelle Huppert and Denis Lavant.

Huppert last seen in Amour will shortly be seen in Niels Arden Oplev’s Dead Man Down, and Denis Lavant recently thrilled audiences in the surreal Holy Motors.

Nutshelled, Body Art arcs the story of a widow (Huppert) after her husband, a filmmaker commits suicide.

Retreating from the world to grieve, the widow holes up in a rented house on the coast only to finds a mysterious man is living in the room upstairs.

Eventually it transpires that the stranger can recite entire conversations the widow had with her husband before he died, yet doesn’t know his own name or where he came from, The Film Stage reports [via Good Reads.]

As yet, there is no word on what roles Cronenberg and Lavant will be playing.

Cronenberg has acted in 26 productions including The Fly, Dead Ringers, as well as episodes of Alias and Happy Town, and it will be interesting to see what this 70-year-old brings to the table in such august company.

Variety notes that Branca’s Alfama Films will begin pre-sales for the film at the Berlin festival’s European Film Market in February.

Shooting on Body Art is scheduled for summer 2013.