Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons join aging actors comedy Encore

More than 30 years after Reversal of Fortune, Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close are ready for their Encore.

The pair, who faced off as Claus and Sunny von Bülow in the 1990 Oscar-winning thriller are set to reteam in the upcoming best-agers comedy, from British director Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Downton Abbey: A New Era).

Close and Irons, who also co-starred in Mike Nichols’ award-winning Broadway play The Real Thing, both winning Tony Awards for their performances, last shared the screen in 1993’s The House of Spirits. In Encore, they will play two former Broadway icons, Marie and Nigel, who become residents of a retirement home. Once there, they discover a community of forgotten talents and Marie decides to put on a show, hoping to revive Nigel’s passion for theatre and help him embrace this new chapter in their lives.

Henry Winkler (Barry, Arrested Development) and Don Johnson (Knives Out) are attached to co-star.

Curtis will direct from a script by Oscar-nominated writer Robert Nelson Jacobs (Chocolat). Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen and Isaac Klausner will produce the film for Temple Hill Entertainment, the company behind the Twilight and Maze Runner franchises. Still in pre-production, Encore will be presented as a package to international buyers at the Cannes film market next month. Protagonist Pictures is handling international sales with UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance sharing domestic duties.

Alongside My Week with Marilyn, which earned star Michelle Williams an Oscar nomination, and the hit Downton Abbey sequel, Curtis’ filmography includes Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds, Goodbye Christopher Robin with Margot Robbie and Domhnall Gleeson, and The Art of Racing in the Rain, starring Amanda Seyfried and Milo Ventimiglia.

The 8-time Academy Award nominee Close, who won acclaim, as well as BAFTA and Oscar nominations, for her turn in 2017’s The Wife, and plays Nova Prime in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, has more recently enjoyed run of films on streamers, including Netflix’ Hillbilly Ellegy (2020) and Heart of Stone (2023), and Swan Song on AppleTV+.

Irons’ more recent performances include an Emmy-nominated performance as Adrian Veidt in HBO’s Watchmen miniseries, Rodolfo Gucci in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, and turns as Alfred Pennyworth in DC franchise films The Flash and Zack Synder’s Justice League, as well as a supporting role in indie feature The Beekeeper alongside Jason Statham,.

Happy Days legend Winkler has become known to a new generation of TV fans through his comedic turns in Arrested Development and HBO’s Barry, while Johnson, a TV vet (Miami Vice, Nash Bridges) who also co-starred in Watchmen, is enjoying a late-career movie bump, thanks to roles in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out.

Close, Irons, Winkler and Johnson are repped by CAA. Close is also repped by MGMT Entertainment and Loeb & Loeb, Winkler by Management 360, and Johnson by Edelstein, Laird & Sobel.