Dustin Hoffman has joined the cast of “Barney’s Version,” a big-screen adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel by Mordecai Richler.

The two-time Academy Award winner will star alongside Paul Giamatti (“Sideways”), who will portray the cantankerous title character, Barney Panofsky. Hoffman will play Izzy, Barney’s foul-mouthed, retired cop father.

In a statement, the film’s director expressed his excitement for the addition of Hoffman to the Canada-Italy co-production.

“Many of the films that Dustin Hoffman starred in (The Graduate, Straw Dogs, Little Big Man) led me to become a filmmaker in the first place,” said Richard J. Lewis, whose credits include episodes of “CSI” and “North of 60.” “Now I have the opportunity to work with a legend.”

Principal photography is slated to begin Aug. 17 in Rome. Filming also expected to take place in Montreal, the Laurentians and New York.

Montreal author Richler won the Giller Prize for his novel, which was published in 1997.

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