Farina to chip in

Dennis Farina (Saving Private Ryan, Get Shorty, Snatch) is the latest in a long line of Hollywood stars prepared to don dark glasses and a visor for a battle on the green felt in upcoming poker movie The Grand.

The Law And Order star will join the likes of Woody Harrelson, Ray Liotta, Jason Alexander, Ray Romano and cult director Werner Herzog for the improvisational comedy, which follows a group of actors at a celebrity poker tournament.

Zak Penn, who also wrote X-Men: The Last Stand and Elektra, and who directed Incident At Loch Ness, has written the script for The Grand, which is due to begin shooting in the gambling Mecca of Las Vegas next month.

Hollywood has often looked to the world of poker for intriguing story lines and Penn and his assembled cast will be hoping to join a poker film pantheon populated by classics like 1965's The Cincinnati Kid, which starred Steve McQueen, or the more recent Rounders, which starred Matt Damon and Edward Norton.

Arthouse movie favourite John Turturro (Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, Do The Right Thing) also makes a cameo appearance, as a career poker player, in 1998's Rounders.

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