When Charles Frazier's debut novel "Cold Mountain" was first published in 1997, his story of a soldier's search for home and love in the last days of the Civil War quickly received rhapsodic acclaim. The book was based on family stories passed down by the author's great-great-grandfather.

For director Anthony Minghella, the book's mythic story of a 300-mile, life-changing journey was filled with emotion and revelation: "It appears to be a story about the American Civil War, and I don't necessarily have an interest in war stories. But then I realized that war was the not the issue. It's more about a man's return from war, the after effects of war, and the effects of war on the world away from the battlefield."

There was no doubt in Minghella's mind that he wanted to film "Cold Mountain," but it was essential to him to have the blessing of Charles Frazier. "Charles Frazier read the script and expressed a lot of contentment," says producer Sydney Pollack, "and everyone else who read it felt the same."

Progress began on several fronts simultaneously. The first order of the day for Minghella was to reunite his Academy Award winning production team from "The English Patient," without whom he wouldn't consider making a movie. Minghella said: "I felt very lucky to be able to have this team on board for this film. These are essential people for me, a kitchen cabinet of collaborators who are very demanding and expect a lot of me."

One of the most vital tasks remained before filming could get underway: The choosing of locations to capture the starkly rugged landscapes of "Cold Mountain." Deciding where to film "Cold Mountain" took on a particular urgency, and in fact Minghella says that he and Dante Ferretti spent the better part of a year looking for the right place to shoot.

Minghella and the producers began a search for a location that somehow had retained the untamed essence of 19th Century America in the 21st Century. The filmmakers were uncertain about the next step. But as luck would have it, "Cold Mountain's" executive (line) producer Iain Smith had been in Romania on a walking tour of the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. To his amazement, he noticed that the landscape there seemed to resemble North Carolina and he immediately dispatched pictures to Minghella and Ferretti. "And it was full of snow and beautiful," Ferretti adds. "We made a second trip during the spring and found out that it was perfect for each of the seasons in which we had to film."

ABOUT THE CAST

JUDE LAW (Inman) Jude Law was seen most recently in Sam Mendes' acclaimed drama "Road to Perdition," in which he starred opposite Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. Previously, Law was honored with nominations for both an Academy Award® and the BAFTA for his performance as Dickie Greenleaf in Anthony Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" opposite Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow. He also received a Golden Globe nomination for his work as a cyborg in Steven Spielberg's "A.I."

Law's credits include David Cronenberg's sci-fi fantasy "Existenz," opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh and Willem Dafoe; and "Wilde," opposite Stephen Fry and Vanessa Redgrave, for which he won the London Film Critics Circle Award and the Evening Standard Award. He made his American film debut in the genetic-theft thriller "Gattaca" opposite Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman and was next seen in Clint Eastwood's Midnight in "The Garden of Good and Evil" with Kevin Spacey and John Cusack. He recently appeared in Jean Jacques Annaud's World War II epic "Enemy at the Gates," co-starring with Joseph Fiennes, Ed Harris and Rachel Weisz.

On Broadway, Law starred opposite Kathleen Turner and Eileen Atkins in the hit play "Indiscretions," which won him the Theater World Award as well as a Tony nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He originated the role in London at the Royal National Theater, for which he received

the Ian Charleson Award for Outstanding Newcomer. More recently, Jude has appeared recently in two classic plays on the London stage, John Ford's "'Tis Pity She's A Whore" and Christopher Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." As a youth, Jude worked with the National Youth Music Theater and appeared in several productions in London's West End and at the Royal National Theater.

NICOLE KIDMAN (Ada Monroe) won the 2003 Academy Award® for Best Actress and a Golden Globe for her performance as the great 20th century writer Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry's "The Hours." In 2001, she starred in two of the year's biggest box-office smashes, "The Others" and "Moulin Rouge," receiving an Oscar® nomination for her performance in the latter. Most recently, Kidman starred in Lars Von Trier's "Dogville" and in Robert Benton's "The Human Stain" based on the novel by Philip Roth and also starring Anthony Hopkins.

Born in Honolulu, Kidman was raised in Sydney, Australia and made her debut in an Australian film, "Bush Christmas." At fourteen, she began appearing in projects such as "Winners" and the Disney Channel mini-series "Five-Mile Creek." Between films, Kidman studied at the Australian Theater for Young People in Sydney and the Philip Street Theater. The much-lauded 1985 Kennedy-Miller mini-series "Vietnam," made her a virtual overnight star in Australia. Only seventeen at the time, she was voted Best Actress of the Year by the Australian public and the Australian Film Institute. In addition to public and critical acclaim, her performance in the series also attracted the attention of filmmakers throughout Australia. Her other notable Australian films since then include "Emerald City" (for which she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Australian Film Institute), "Flirting" and the mini-series "Bangkok Hilton." For the latter, Kidman was voted Best Actress of 1989 by the Variety Awards and the Australian public. She also appeared on stage, playing lead roles in "Steel Magnolias" at the Sydney Seymour Center, for which she was nominated Best Newcomer by the Sydney Theater Critics, and "Spring Awakening" at the Australian Theater for Young People.

Kidman first came to the attention of international audiences with her critically-acclaimed performance in the 1989 thriller "Dead Calm," directed by Philip Noyce. Since then, she has become one of the most sought-after actresses in film, and has been the choice of such directors as Robert Benton ("Billy Bathgate"), Ron Howard ("Far and Away"), Harold Becker ("Malice"), Bruce Joel Rubin ("My Life"),

Ann Roth's costumes contributed to the actors' sense of their characters' lives.
Joel Schumacher ("Batman Forever"), Jane Campion ("The Portrait of a Lady"), Mimi Leder ("The Peacemaker"), Griffin Dunne ("Practical Magic"), and Stanley Kubrick ("Eyes Wide Shut"). Her 1995 appearance in Gus Van Sant's "To Die For" brought her a Golden Globe, and Best Actress Awards from the Boston Film Critics, the National Broadcast Film Critics, London Film Critics, and the Seattle Film Festival. She also received a BAFTA nomination.

Kidman made a highly-lauded London stage debut in the fall of 1998, starring with Iain Glen in the "The Blue Room," David Hare's modern adaptation of Schnitzler's "La Ronde" for director Sam Mendes and the Donmar Warehouse. For her performance Kidman won London's Evening Standard Award "for special and significant contribution to the London Theatre" and was nominated in the Best Actress category for a Laurence Olivier Award. The Blue Room moved to Broadway for a smash limited run from November of 1998 through March of 1999.

RENÉE ZELLWEGER (Ruby Thewes) received an Academy Award® nomination, a Screen Actor's Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award as Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for her performance as Roxie Hart in the hit musical film "Chicago." The year before, starring in the title role of the smash hit "Bridget Jones's Diary," Zellweger garnered international acclaim and an Oscar® and Golden Globe nomination.

Zellweger's other recent films include "White Oleander" and "Down With Love," a satirical homage to the Rock Hudson/Doris Day sex comedies, co-starring opposite Ewan McGregor. In 2004, Zellweger will be heard in the animated comedy "Sharkslayer" and will reprise her famous role in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason."

Ironically, Zellweger took her first acting class to ensure graduating from The University of Texas with a literature degree, but her rise to leading lady status has been dramatic. After appearing in such television projects as the USA Network telefilm "A Taste for Killing" and the Showtime Drive-In Classics series "Shake, Rattle and Rock," she made her film debut while still in Austin in Richard Linklater's coming-of-age film "Dazed and Confused." This was followed by Ben Stiller's "Reality Bites," "Love and a .45" (for which she received her first Independent Spirit Award nomination), "8 Seconds," "The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Empire Records" and "My Boyfriend's Back."

Her other film credits include "Me, Myself, and Irene" directed by the Farrelly brothers, "The Bachelor," Neil Labute's dark comedy "Nurse Betty," and the critically acclaimed "One True Thing" with William Hurt and Meryl Streep. Zellweger received acclaim with her vulnerable performance opposite Tom Cruise in "Jerry Maguire" under Cameron Crowe's direction, being named Best Breakthrough Performer of 1996 by The National Board of Review, and receiving a Blockbuster Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy and SAG Award nomination.

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN (Veasey) has appeared in a recent string of diverse and acclaimed films including Spike Lee's "The 25th Hour," "Red Dragon," Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love," "Love Liza" (which was written by Hoffman's brother Gordy and won him the Waldo Salt screenwriting award), and "Owning Mahoney," co-starring Minnie Driver. Among Hoffman's other recent films are David Mamet's "State and Main," Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" and Joel Schumacher's "Flawless," in which Hoffman co-starred opposite Robert De Niro, earning a London Film Critics and SAG nomination as Best Actor.

In his first collaboration with Anthony Minghella, Hoffman appeared opposite Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law in "The Talented Mr. Ripley." He then gave another memorable performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia," winning the National Board of Review's Best Supporting Actor award for his work in both films. His film credits also include Anderson's "Boogie Nights" and "Hard Eight," "Happiness" (Independent Spirit Best Supporting Actor nomination), "Patch Adams," "The Big Lebowski," "Twister," "Scent of A Woman" and "Nobody's Fool."

On Broadway, Hoffman starred in Sam Shepard's "True West," earning a Tony Award nomination for his work in dual roles. Additional stage work includes Mike Nichols' production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Natalie Portman at the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, "Defying Gravity," at the American Place Theater, "The Merchant of Venice," directed by Peter Sellars and the Off-Broadway production of Mark Revenhill's "Shopping and Fucking." For his New York-based theater company LAByrinth, Hoffman directed "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train" and "In Arabia We'd All Be Kings," both written by Stephen Adly-Guirgis. He moved the production of "Jesus" to London's Donmar Warehouse and subsequently to that city's West End. In 2001, Hoffman directed the New York premiere of Rebecca Gilman's play "The Glory of Living" for the Manhattan Class Company, and in 2002, he directed "Our Lady of 121st Street" for LAByrinth.

EILEEN ATKINS (Maddy) is a renowned British stage actress whose film appearances include Sidney Lumet's "Equus," Peter Yates's "The Dresser," Peter Medak's "Let Him Have It," Mike Nichols's "Wolf," Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" and, most recently, Stephen Daldry's "The Hours."

Atkins was born in London and attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her initial London stage appearance was in Robert Atkins's staging of "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park. Seasons in repertory followed, including two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She went on to star at the Old Vic in many Shakespearean roles. Venturing into contemporary plays, Atkins starred opposite Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness, among others. She won the 1965 (London) Evening Standard award for Best Actress for her performance as Childie in "The Killing of Sister George," and then made her New York stage debut in the play. Her wealth of U.K. stage credits also includes the title roles of "Saint Joan" and "Medea" as well as an evening of T.S. Eliot's poetry at the Lyric Theatre. She won a Variety Club Award for her role as Elizabeth in Robert Bolt's "Vivat! Vivat! Regina!," and won the London Critics Circle Award, and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Richard Eyre's staging of Tennessee Williams's "The Night of the Iguana." She also received an Olivier Award for her performance in Peter Hall's staging of "A Winter's Tale."

NATALIE PORTMAN (Sara) has established herself as one of Hollywood's most talented and sought after young actresses. Portman was most recently seen in George Lucas's blockbuster hit "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones" reprising the role of Queen Amidala which she introduced in "Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace." Last summer, Portman received critical acclaim in the role of Nina in Mike Nichols' production of a Tom Stoppard version of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" opposite Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Philip Seymour Hoffman at the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park. Portman's most recent films include the coming of age story "Where the Heart Is" and Wayne Wang's "Anywhere But Here," which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

In other screen work, she received international acclaim for her feature debut in Luc Besson's "The Professional" and in "Beautiful Girls." She also starred in Woody Allen's musical "Everyone Says I Love You," Tim Burton's black comedy, "Mars Attacks!" and Michael Mann's "Heat" with Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Val Kilmer. In November 1997, Portman began a six-month starring role on Broadway in the title role of "The Diary of Anne Frank," which was praised by USA Today as "a landmark performance."

She recently completed "Garden State" written and directed by Zach Braff, of television's "Scrubs" and will appear in the forthcoming "Star Wars: Episode 3."

GIOVANNI RIBISI (Junior) has captured the attention of Hollywood with performances in such films as "Saving Private Ryan," "The Gift," "The Boiler Room," "Gone in Sixty Seconds," "The Other Sister" and "Suburbia," positioning him as one of the most respected, versatile and sought-after young actors of his generation.

Ribisi recently starred in Sofia Coppola's "Lost In Translation" with Bill Murray, Tom Twyker's "Heaven" opposite Cate Blanchett, and will be seen in two upcoming films, Adam Goldberg's "I Love Your Work" and "Masked & Anonymous," written by and starring Bob Dylan and directed by Larry Charles.

Ribisi earned an AFI Actor of the Year nomination for his starring role as Mikal Gilmore in the highly acclaimed HBO original film "Shot In The Heart" and received the 1999 ShoWest Male Star of Tomorrow award, previously awarded to Matt Damon, Will Smith and Brad Pitt. Other credits include "The Mod Squad," "All the Rage," "The Postman," "That Thing You Do!," "Scotch and Milk," David Lynch's "Lost Highway" and "First Love, Last Rites." Raised in Hollywood by an artist mother and musician father, Ribisi landed his first on-screen role at the age of nine in a Union '76 commercial.

DONALD SUTHERLAND (Reverend Monroe) is one of the most prolific and versatile of motion picture actors, whose offbeat elegance is evident in an astonishing array of more than one hundred films. These films range from the biting political satire of Robert Altman's "M.A.S.H." to the intimate drama of Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" to the subtle intricacy of Alan Pakula's "Klute" to the eccentric romanticism of Fellini's "Casanova."

Born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, Sutherland began his career as a disc jockey, at fourteen years of age, and won acclaim for a vivid radio portrayal of Scrooge in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." His performance in a University of Toronto production of "The Tempest" brought him to the attention of Herbert Whitaker, then critic of the Toronto Globe and Mail, who suggested to Sutherland that he seriously consider an acting career -- rather than engineering. Before earning his degree, he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and made his London stage debut in "August for the People" with Rex Harrison, and spent the next several years there performing in theatre and television. In 1964 producer Paul Maslansky signed Sutherland for a dual role in "The Castle of the Living Dead," followed by a brief series of other horror films, including "Die! Die! My Darling" with Tallulah Bankhead.

Robert Altman's "M.A.S.H." which was Sutherland's fourteenth motion picture, brought him international stardom. He went on to make films with Bernardo Bertolucci ("1900"), Nicolas Roeg ("Don't Look Now"), John Schlesinger ("The Day of the Locust"), Paul Mazursky ("Alex in Wonderland"), Robert Aldrich ("The Dirty Dozen"), John Sturges ("The Eagle Has Landed"), Herbert Ross ("Max Dugan Returns"), Louis Malle ("Crackers"), Philip Borsos ("Bethune"), Ron Howard ("Backdraft") and Oliver Stone ("JFK"). During the eighteen months or so preceding "Ordinary People," Sutherland starred in "A Man, a Woman, and a Bank;" a remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers;" "The Great Train Robbery;" "Murder by Decree," "Bear Island" and "Nothing Personal," as well as a cameo appearance in the National Lampoon classic "Animal House." Following "Ordinary People," Sutherland starred in Richard Marquand's "Eye of the Needle," and Richard Pearce's "Threshold," for which he received the 1983 Genie Award as Best Actor.

Other 1980s films include "The Wolf at the Door," "Apprentice to Murder," and "A Dry White Season." In the 1990s Sutherland appeared in "Eminent Domain," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Benefit of the Doubt," Fred Schepisi's film adaptation of John Guare's "Six Degrees of Separation," Percy Adlon's "Younger and Younger," Barry Levinson's "Disclosure," "Outbreak," "A Time to Kill," "The Shadow Conspiracy," "The Assignment," and "Without Limits," for which he won a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Sutherland more recently starred with James Garner, Tommy Lee Jones and Clint Eastwood in Eastwood's "Space Cowboys," "The Art of War," and Feng Xiaogang's "Big Shot's Funeral." Television projects include "Behind the Mask," "The Hunley," "Uprising," and "Path to War."

1981 marked Sutherland's return to the stage in a Broadway production of (Edward Albee's adaptation of) Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" on Broadway, and in 1983 he made his American television debut in an adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Winter of Our Discontent" for Hallmark Hall of Fame. He recently appeared at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre of Lincoln Center in Jon Robin Baitz's "Ten Unknowns" earning Sutherland an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination; and starred in London opposite John Rubenstein in "Enigmatic Variations," an English-language translation, by his son Roeg Sutherland, of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's hit French play.

BRENDAN GLEESON (Stobrod) most recently co-starred in two acclaimed features: Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" and Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York." Gleeson will next be seen in John Boorman's "Truth" (his third film for this director) and the highly-anticipated "Troy," directed by Wolfgang Peterson.

The talented Dublin-born actor's numerous other film credits include Ron Shelton's "Dark Blue," John Boorman's "Tailor of Panama," "Artificial Intelligence: A.I.," directed by Steven Spielberg, John Woo's "Mission Impossible II," Mel Gibson's "Braveheart," and "I Went Down" directed by Paddy Breachnach. On television, Gleeson appeared in "The Treaty," "The Snapper" and "Kidnapped." In 1998 he starred in "The General" for Boorman, winning international acclaim for his performance as the Irish mafia figure Martin Cahill. This performance earned him Best Actor awards from the Boston Society of Film Critics, the London Film Critics, and the Irish Film and Television Association.

Gleeson started his acting career in the theatre, performing in many plays for Dublin's Gate and Abbey theatres, as well as writing and directing two plays for The Passion Machine, a Dublin theatre company. He was a teacher for a short time, but the lure of acting took him into the career he is now enjoying.

KATHY BAKER (Sally Swanger) won the Screen Actor's Guild Award for Outstanding Performance By a Female Actor in a Drama Series, in addition to a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Drama and three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her work on the highly acclaimed CBS television series "Picket Fences." She was nominated for back-to-back (2000 and 2001) Emmy awards for her standout guest performances on "Touched by an Angel" and "Boston Public." Most recently, she was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in the much-praised telefilm "Door to Door" with William H. Macy.

Other recent works includes "Assassination Tango," the independent feature "A Little Inside," and "Ten Tiny Love Stories," directed by Rodrigo Garcia. She appeared in Lasse Hallstrom's critically acclaimed "The Cider House Rules," the Showtime movie "Lush Life," and opposite Peter Gallagher and Claire Danes in "To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday," as well as in "Not in This Town" and "Inventing the Abbotts." Baker also appeared in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, "A Season For Miracles," in Showtime's "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her," the feature "The Glass House," the Showtime film "Ratz," the CBS movie of the week, "Sanctuary," and as a guest star in the TNT original series, "Bull." Her credits also include "Mad Dog And Glory," "Jennifer Eight," "Article 99," "Edward Scissorhands" and "Street Smart," for which she received the Best Supporting Actress Award from the National Society of Film Critics, "Clean and Sober," "Jackknife," "Dad," "The Image" and "Mr. Frost." She made her film debut in 1983 as astronaut Alan Shepard's wife in "The Right Stuff."

A veteran of the stage, she originated the role of May in Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love," winning an off-Broadway Obie Award for her performance. She also appeared on stage in Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms" and Wallace Shawn's "Aunt Dan and Lemon." Born in Midland, Texas, Baker grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she began acting at age ten. She graduated with a degree in French from the University of California at Berkeley and then moved to Paris where she obtained Le Grande Diplome from the world renowned Cordon Bleu.

JACK WHITE (Georgia) grew up in Southwest Detroit, the seventh son in a large Catholic family. After high school, wanting to learn a trade, Jack apprenticed as an upholsterer's assistant, eventually opening his own upholstery shop, Third Man Upholstery. As he struggled to develop his business, he began writing songs, and dreaming up an idea for a band he wanted to start. He named the band The White Stripes, and along with his sister Meg White, built the band around the idea of simple, minimalist beauty, with Meg playing drums and Jack playing guitar and singing. The world of White Stripes is composed of lovely melodies encased in garage-punk blues and more traditional rock and roll foundations.

Jack lives in Detroit and has started his own record label, Third Man Records. In addition to producing his own records, he has produced albums for many other bands. "Cold Mountain" marks Jack's acting debut.

RAY WINSTONE (Teague), one of Britain's most dynamic actors, received critical acclaim for his performances in Gary Oldman's "Nil By Mouth," Jonathan Glazer's "Sexy Beast" and Tim Roth's "The War Zone." Winstone was nominated for a European Film Award as Best Actor for "The War Zone" as well as earning a BIFA and BAFTA nomination for his work in "Nil By Mouth." He most recently co-starred with Michael Caine in "Last Orders." Among his other films are "Ripley's Game," "There's Only One Jimmy Grimble," "Five Seconds to Spare," "Ladybird, Ladybird," "Quadrophenia" and many others.

On stage, Winstone has appeared in Sam Mendes' production "To the Green Fields Beyond." He starred at London's Royal Court Theatre in "Pale Horse" and Some "Voices," and at the Royal National Theatre in "Dealer's Choice," which later transferred to the West End. His other stage credits include appearances in plays at the Old Red Lion, the King's Head, Islington, and the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. Winstone's British television credits are extensive and include appearances on the BBC, Granada Television, and Channel Four. His most recent television appearances have been on Granada's "Lenny Blue" and "Tough Love." A former boxer, Winstone lives in London.