Hollywood's shooting stars

Scots actor James McAvoy has teamed up with Robin Wright for Robert Redford's new film, The Conspirator, which previewed at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend.

• Robin Wright and James McAvoy arrive for a premiere party in Toronto Picture: Getty Images

The story reveals a new angle of one of the best-known moments in American history: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

But instead of dealing with the shooting in the Ford's Theatre in Washington, the film involves a complex plot that resulted in seven men and one woman being arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the president, the vice-president and the secretary of state.

Wright plays Mary Surratt, and McAvoy is her lawyer. Surratt was the first woman executed by the US government.