Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara and Sarah Paulson are already signed on for Todd Haynes' drama Carol, and now they have a further co-star in Kyle Chandler. He'll play Blanchett's husband in the Patricia Highsmith adaptation.
As a novel, **Carol **was originally published as The Price Of Salt in 1952, with Highsmith (Strangers On A Train, The Talented Mr Ripley) writing pseudonymously as "Claire Morgan". The book's lesbian trappings prompted the secrecy: a positive and sympathetic portrayal of a sapphic relationship unusual in an era when such things were viewed as degenerate.
The story involves a bored suburban housewife going through a divorce and child custody battle, whose life is changed by a chance encounter with a much younger woman. Blanchett and Mara are, obviously enough, the couple at the heart of the film, with Chandler the other half of Blanchett's divorce proceedings.
Producing credits aside, this is Haynes' first film since 2009's I'm Not There, which also featured Blanchett as one of the several mythic Bob Dylans.
Phyllis Nagy (Mrs Harris) wrote Carol's screenplay, and production is scheduled to start in New York in March.