Mortensen replaces Waltz as Freud

Oscar-winner for Best Supporting Actor, Christoph Waltz has signed on for the film Water For Elephants, co-starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, and directed by Francis Lawrence (Will Smith's I Am Legend). This means Waltz will not play Freud in another film, a role picked up by Viggo Mortensen.

Adapted from the Sara Gruen bestselling novel, Water for Elephants is an unusual story of a veterinary student who runs off with a traveling circus after his parents are killed. Waltz replaced Sean Penn in the role and had to bow out of previous plans to play Sigmund Freud.

The Austrian actor was set to portray the father of psychiatry in the film The Talking Cure, a German/Canadian production, directed by David Cronenberg ( Crash, Naked Lunch). Based on the play by Christopher Hampton, the story follows the conflict between Freud and his friend and colleague Carl Jung.

Mortensen, who worked with Cronenberg on the films A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, takes Waltz's place. The film co-stars Michael Fassbender as Jung and Keira Knightley as his patient, with whom he has an affair.

Fassbender and Waltz both starred in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

RC