Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender to star in Soderbergh's new spy thriller

Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender will co-star in spy thriller ‘Black Bag’.

The 54-year-old actress and the 46-year-old actor are set to work with director Steven Soderbergh on his upcoming feature, with a script by Soderbergh’s ‘Presence’ collaborator David Keopp.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the script is being kept under wraps but the movie will be set in the UK.

There are plans to shoot in May in London but financing and distribution deals have yet to be put in place.

Casey Silver and Greg Jacobs will produce the film.

Soderbergh previously worked with Blanchett in 2006 movie ‘The Good German’, while he produced ‘Ocean’s 8’, which she appeared in.

Fassbender worked with Soderbergh on 2011’s ‘Haywire’, starring MMA fighter Gina Carano.

Speaking previously about working with Soderbergh on ‘The Good German’, Blanchett called it a “near perfect” experience”.

She told The Guardian: “It was one of the great experiences, near perfect, because Steven is unbelievably clear and the vision he had for this film was so complete. There was one day, at midday, when he goes, ‘We’ve shot everything we’ve got to shoot and we can’t move over to the next stage, so we’ll all go home.’ And it’s not because anyone wants to go off and play golf. He knows exactly what he wants and there’s no mucking around. I could pick up the kids from school and have a life while I was shooting.

“I came off ‘Notes on a Scandal’ on a Friday and started shooting ‘The Good German’ on the Monday. I had to pick up a German accent – I’m not a mimic, so I was panicking a bit. The film has a heightened style, and it’s in black and white. But it’s a modern film. It’s almost like Steven Soderbergh has created something unique – because the violence in the film is real, it’s not stylised, the sex, the language, the expletives are not stylised. So we feel like we understand, but then we’re distanced from the action at the same time.

“There’s the epic quality to the story of a love that can never be – it’s been decimated by the realities of war in the way that Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart became estranged [in ‘Casablanca’]. And the political backdrop that’s behind ‘Casablanca’ is also behind ‘The Good German’. It’s quite Brechtian, and the emotions are handled in that Forties way. There’s no introspection in Forties films unless it’s expressed externally, and that was really challenging. It’s not melodramatic, it’s what people do. Often, George [Clooney] and I would say, ‘Whoa, that felt eggy’ – it felt like you’ve got egg on your face – and Steven said, ‘If it doesn’t feel eggy, you’re not there.’ We just had to go for it.”