Veteran actor and playwright Sam Shepard is in talks to join the cast of August: Osage County, an adaptation of the Pulitzer and Tony-winning play that already stars Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Benedict Cumberbatch, to name a few.

Variety reports that Shepard is in talks for the role of Beverly Weston, family patriarch and eventual catalyst to the events which take place in the story, based on the Tracy Letts play and script.

Drama follows the strong-willed women of the Weston clan, a dysfunctional Midwest family whose members are brought together when their alcoholic patriarch (Shepard) disappears, forcing them to confront unspoken truths and long-held secrets.

Shepard has a long list of credentials both as an Academy Award-nominated actor and a Pulitzer prize award-winning playwright. He has appeared in The Notebook, Days of Heaven, and The Right Stuff, to name a few. He will next appear in Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly, Jeff Nichols’ Mud, and Scott Cooper’s Out of the Furnace.

August: Osage County is being produced by George Clooney and Grant Hezlov, directed by John Wells (The Company Men), and additionally stars Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin, and Dermot Mulroney.

The film is certainly shaping up nicely as it prepares to begin filming next month. Are you excited to see this one?