Natalie Portman, Penelope Cruz will star in WWII drama

Natalie Portman can’t seem to get away from the combat zone. First the ”Star Wars” movies, then the Civil War drama ”Cold Mountain,” and now, ”Head in the Clouds,” a movie set in Paris in the years surrounding World War II. According to the Hollywood Reporter, she and Penelope Cruz will shoot the drama in December in Paris, then move to Montreal for more shooting, through February.

Written and directed by John Duigan (”Sirens”), ”Clouds” will star Portman as a budding fashion photographer whose romance with a young man (Jay Rodan, of ”The Caveman’s Valentine” and ”The Triumph of Love”) is interrupted when he goes off to fight the fascists during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. She also takes in a Gypsy, to be played by Cruz, and holes up in Paris until the Allies liberate the city in 1944.

At least in Portman’s next movie, nobody will die under fire. After ”Clouds,” she’ll costar with Zach Braff in ”Large’s Ark,” which will also be the ”Scrubs” star’s directorial debut. He’ll play a man who returns home for his mother’s funeral, who is roused from his funk by Portman. Well, it sounds cheerier than ”Clouds.”