Hugo Weaving is one of Hollywood’s most respected character actors. Having worked with the Wachowskis on THE MATRIX trilogy, it’s no surprise that he’s on board for their upcoming collaboration with Tom Tywker, CLOUD ATLAS.

Of course, it’s probably not as expected that he’ll play more than one character. The Playlist relays a recent quote from Weaving about how he’ll play into the feature: "That’s a project that’s really exciting because all the actors will be playing more than one role. I actually have six characters in the same film and they are all different people in six different stories.”

Based on David Mitchell’s popular novel of the same name, CLOUD ATLAS spans across time as six different stories come together. According to the novel’s synopsis on Amazon, the six plots focus on the following characters:

“A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.”

It’s very similar to how Meryl Streep had several different roles in the highly acclaimed, Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries Angels in America. Considering the film’s stellar array of actors like Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, and Ben Whishaw, it’ll be a challenge to guess who’s playing who, as each actor is slated for more than one role. Of course, that’ll be part of the fun in waiting as this intriguing drama unfolds.

The film starts shooting in September, and given its epic scope, it'll probably hit theaters sometime during 2013.