Juliette Lewis to Star in Fool for Love in London's West End

Juliette Lewis will become the latest film star to test her acting mettle on the West End stage when she headlines a revival of Sam Shepard's Fool for Love. The production, directed by Lindsay Posner, will begin previews at the Apollo Theatre on June 7 and officially open on June 13.

Lewis, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake of Cape Fear, also has a rock career with her band The Licks, and said in a statement, "I've performed in front of all kinds of crowds in my band, but this is the first time doing a play, and I just couldn't say no. The material is so provocative and visceral that I'm really excited to do it." Lewis' other major film credits include Kalifornia, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, Natural Born Killers, From Dusk to Dawn and The 4th Floor.

Fool for Love was originally produced off-Broadway in 1983 with Kathy Baker and Ed Harris. It received its London premiere the following year in a different production directed by Peter Gill at the National's Cottesloe Theatre that starred Julie Walters and the late Ian Charleson and transferred to the West End's Lyric Theatre. It was more recently revived in the UK in 1996 at the Donmar Warehouse. The Roundabout Theatre Company was expected to mount the play, in a production directed by original off-Broadway star Ed Harris, on Broadway in January 2005, but the staging was delayed and never occurred.

The play centers on a pair of ex-lovers, Eddie and May. The two are reunited in a Mojave motel room where they are visited by the ghosts of their own past relationship under the watchful gaze of The Old Man.

The Apollo's current tenant, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, is scheduled to end its limited West End engagement on May 13.