• Kate Winslet is in talks to take a co-starring slot opposite Kevin Spacey and Laura Linney in the Universal-backed drama The Life of David Gale, which begins shooting in Austin, Texas on Friday. Produced by Nicolas Cage's production company Saturn Films and directed by Alan Parker, the film promises a Dead Man Walking-style examination of the death penalty in the US. Spacey stars as an ardent opponent of capital punishment who winds up on death row after he is wrongly convicted of the murder of a colleague (Linney). Winslet would play the pivotal role of the journalist who investigates his case.

• In the meantime, Winslet's Enigma co-star Dougray Scott is rumoured to have landed the role of Dylan Thomas in the long-time-coming Map of Love, a biopic of the wild Welsh poet. Scott, 37, supposedly beat out the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Rupert Everett and Robert Carlyle for the part. Sean Kier of the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is approving: "I think they've made a really good choice. As I understand it, the hold-up has been [caused by] trying to find someone who can do the real emotion behind the story. The lookalike element isn't so important."