Schwarzenegger will play a kidnapped architect

Reykjavík/Stockholm - Arnold Schwarzenegger is evidently working on his film comeback on several fronts. According to a report from the Icelandic newspaper Frettabladid, the young director Eva Maria Daniels, originally from Iceland, has brought him into her first major film project, Captive. The sixty-three-year-old former bodybuilder and California governor is set to portray an architect who was kidnapped in Brazil and spent 40 days in captivity.
    Daniels chose Schwarzenegger for this role when Robert De Niro declined. The film Captive is the first major Hollywood project for the thirty-two-year-old Icelandic director living in the USA. Filming, with a budget set at 30 million dollars (approximately 533 million crowns), is set to begin next year.
    Daniels is excited about her newly acquired lead actor, she confided to the Icelandic newspaper. During auditions for the role, which "is not typical for him," he reportedly performed excellently. "He has a modest demeanor and obviously has had a tough time," the director said.
    In June, American magazine Variety reported that Schwarzenegger, after ending his political career in January, decided to return to film, in the western drama The Last Stand by South Korean director Kim Ji-woon. He will portray a fading small-town sheriff who stands up to drug lords on the Mexican border. Filming is set to begin later this year. It is unclear, however, whether Schwarzenegger will work on both projects simultaneously or which of the two films will be released first.
    Most recently, Schwarzenegger appeared on the big screen in 2003 in the third installment of Terminator.