The last time Jonathan Rhys-Meyers made a movie set in France, it was the pulpy and entirely ludicrous From Paris With Love, in which he toned down the raw sexuality and chased John Travolta and his hairpiece around for an hour and a half. Now The Tudors star is going back to France and doing it right this time. Deadline reports that he's set to star in Belle Du Seigneur, an adaptation of Albert Cohen's massive French novel about an affair between a Jewish diplomat and a married Swiss woman on the eve of World War Ii.

He'll be starring opposite Natalia Voidanova, whose most significant role so far as as the heavily CGI-altered Medusa in Clash of the Titans. It doesn't exactly seem like a fair match of acting talent, but at least they're equally pretty, so no need to squabble over high cheekbones. Doing the directing will be first-time Glenio Bonder, from a script by James Dearden and Vincenzo Cerami.