Martine's lady luck

After starring opposite Hugh Grant in the British smash hit Love Actually, Martine McCutcheon has developed a taste for the big screen.

Now, it seems, the actress has been exploring the possibility of appearing in a planned new film of Guys And Dolls.

She has met Hollywood producer Neil Meron, who was one of the executives involved in making the Oscar-winning picture Chicago.

'We've chatted and Neil's got copies of my albums and he says he likes my voice, so we'll see what happens,' Martine told me when we met in the bar of Ago, a hip restaurant on trendy Melrose Avenue in Beverly Hills on Wednesday night.

'I love the story of Guys And Dolls and I know every single one of the songs and they're great - they're classics.'

Meron first heard about Martine when she starred in My Fair Lady at the National Theatre.

The conversations relating to Guys And Dolls are, at the moment, purely exploratory, so it's not known whether Martine would be considered for the lead role of Salvation Army girl Sarah Brown (a part which Nicole Kidman was apparently interested in, once upon a time) or whether it would be for showgirl Miss Adelaide.

Despite the drizzling rain, Martine has been enjoying her time in Hollywood and has tickets for Sunday's Oscars ceremony and for several of the major 'after' parties.

Harvey Weinstein, the cochairman of Miramax Films, would also be involved in the project. He and his associates spent a year securing the rights to the original short story by Damon Runyon on which the stage show and film from the 1950s were based. As if you need telling, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons were in the movie.

The new film might also appeal to Hugh Jackman, who has won fantastic acclaim for the Broadway musical The Boy From Oz.