Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet are set to team up in a new period drama about a young Irish couple struggling to survive in New York at the height of Depression.

Oscar-winning Irish director Jim Sheridan is masterminding the £30million Thirties tale East Of Harlem which is due to start filming outside Dublin and in Manhattan next summer.

And the creator of the Daniel Day Lewis movies My Left Foot and The Boxer has special arrangements with his co-stars limiting their salaries to just above the union minimum rate.

A source close to the production said: "The largest part of the budget will be seen up there on screen so it will be a question of how much the film makes at the box office to decide salaries in the long run.

"That was fine with both Kate and Ewan as they are extremely keen to be involved."

According to insiders, East Of Harlem bares no similarity to another New World discovery story Far And Away which starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Last updated: 11:13 Monday 27th November 2000.

IMDB News
McGregor And Winslet To Work "For Scale"
November 27, 2000

Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet have agreed to star in Jim Sheridan's upcoming film East of Harlem for "just above the union minimum rate," the British online magazine Ananova reported today (Monday). The two stars presumably have a back-end deal. A source close to the production was quoted as saying: "The largest part of the budget will be seen up there on screen so it will be a question of how much the film makes at the box office to decide salaries in the long run. That was fine with both Kate and Ewan as they are extremely keen to be involved." The film deals with an Irish couple, who come to America during the Depression.

Guardian Unlimited
Winslet and McGregor Take Pay Cut to Co-star
November 27, 2000

Two of Britain's hottest young stars, Kate Winslet and Ewan McGregor, are to take a pay cut from their usual seven figure salaries so that they can star in a new film together.

Čast of Harlem, the tale of a young Irish couple struggling to survive in New York during the depression of the 1930s, will be directed by Jim Sheridan, who remains best known for My Left Foot. Ananova reports that the Irish director has come to a special arrangement with the pair that will limit their salaries to just above the union minimum rate and allow the majority of the £30m budget to be spent directly on the film.

A source close to the production said: "The largest part of the budget will be seen up there on screen so it will be a question of how much the film makes at the box office to decide salaries in the long run. That was fine with both Kate and Ewan as they are extremely keen to be involved."

The film will be Winslet's first project since the birth of her daughter, Mia, in October. She will next be seen in Quills, the biopic about the Marquis de Sade in which she co-stars with Geoffrey Rush, which is released in the UK on January 19 2001.

Meanwhile, McGregor, who is currently filming the second part of the trilogy of Star Wars prequels, will be hoping that this project will turn his fortunes around as his last three films, Rogue Trader, Eye of the Beholder and Nora, were all box office flops.