Actor Frank Langella has landed the legendary role of King Lear in a production to be put on by the Chichester Festival Theatre.
Langella will take the title role in the Shakespeare tragedy at the Minerva theatre in November, reports the BBC . The production will be directed by Angus Jackson, and will move to New York in early 2014 .
The triple-Tony award winning actor has enjoyed a critically acclaimed career spanning five decades with roles on stage and screen including Zorro, Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes.
One of the 78-year-old’s best known roles is for playing Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan’s play Frost/Nixon , which first ran at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2006. The play earned Langella one of his three Tony Awards.
Langella’s other Tony-winning roles were in Seascape and Fortune’s Fool .
He reprised the Nixon role for the 2008 film version of the play, for which he received an Oscar nomination.
“We are absolutely delighted to announce that this legendary American actor has accepted our invitation to lead the company of King Lear here at Chichester,” said artistic director Jonathan Church .
In film, Frank Langella was recently seen in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Robot and Frank . He will appear in the upcoming biopic Grace of Monaco with Nicole Kidman and Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight.
The role of King Lear is considered to be one of the most coveted for older actors. In recent years, the part has been played by Jonathan Pryce, Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen.
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