Breslin debuts on Broadway

ABIGAIL Breslin (pix), the star of Little Miss Sunshine, is to play disabled advocate Helen Keller in her Broadway debut, it was announced recently.

Breslin, 13, will play the blind and deaf trailblazer Keller in a revival of the 1959 hit play, The Miracle Worker, which opens in March.

"I am so honoured," said the Oscar-nominated teenager. "It’s always been something I wanted to play. Helen is a hero of mine – for so many reasons. She never gave up on herself." – dpa

Kilmer in Georgia for war film

VAL Kilmer (pix), who is known for his role in Top Gun and as singer Jim Morrison in The Doors, has arrived in Georgia to portray a journalist covering last year’s Georgia-Russia war in a Hollywood film about the conflict, the movie’s co-producer Papuna Davitaia said.

Davitaia refused to provide any further details about the role and said Kilmer would be in Georgia for a week of filming.

Georgian media noted Kilmer’s resemblance to a Dutch cameraman, Stan Storimans of the RTL news channel, who was killed during a bombing raid in Gori, and speculated that his character would be based on Storimans.

Garcia to play Georgian premier

ANDY Garcia (pix), who was nominated for an Oscar in 1991 for his role in The Godfather: Part III, was in Tbilisi, Georgia, last week to portray Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in the same film that stars Val Kilmer.

Finnish-American action movie director Renny Harlin announced in August he was shooting the film.

Harlin, who is best known for action movies such as Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger, told Variety magazine he was keen to make a serious movie based on the conflict.

The film, which Harlin said would be a "strong anti-war statement", would follow an American journalist and a cameraman who get caught up in the fighting. – AFP