As we noted a couple of months back, Keira Knightley will star in one of those costume dramas the BBC is noted for, The Duchess. What we didn’t know then but have recently learned, thanks to our good friends at Variety, is that Ralph Fiennes will also be in the cast along with a cople of actors I’ve never heard of, Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper.

The movie will tell the story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire in the late 1700’s and an ancestor of the head-scratchingly popular Lady Diana. Georgiana, married to Fiennes character, was politically and socially active and that led her to being alternatively loved and reviled by society. She set her husband up with her best friend, to be played by Atwell, while she was off fooling around with Cooper’s character, Earl Grey.

Although he doesn’t have much of filmography, Saul Dibb has been chosen to direct based on a script by Jeffrey Hatcher (Casanova) and Susanne Bier. Filming is slated to begin this month so you can expect another proper English historical movie sometime in 2008.