Intolerable Cruelty is a 2003 romantic comedy film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Academy Award winners George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush and Billy Bob Thornton with Cedric the Entertainer. It was released by Universal Pictures.

Donovan Donaly (Geoffrey Rush), a soap opera producer, comes home unexpectedly early to find his wife Bonnie (Stacey Travis) with her ex-boyfriend, a pool cleaner named Ollie (Jack Kyle), even though the Donalys have no pool. Miles Massey (George Clooney), a top divorce attorney and the inventor of the "Massey Pre-nup", a completely foolproof prenuptial agreement, becomes Bonnie's lawyer. He is victorious in the divorce case, leaving Donovan with nothing. Meanwhile, Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann) is having a sexual roleplaying session with a blonde in a motel room when a private investigator named Gus Petch (Cedric The Entertainer) bursts in and records everything with a video camera. He takes the video to Rex's wife, Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who married Rex solely to obtain wealth and independence via a divorce. Rex hires Miles. Marylin learns from her friend, a wealthy fellow serial divorcée named Sarah Sorkin (Julia Duffy), that Miles is a dangerous opponent.

Edward Kirk Herrmann (born July 21, 1943) is an American television and film actor. He is best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt on television, and to younger generations for his role as Richard Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, as a ubiquitous narrator for historical programs on the History Channel, and as the spokesman for Dodge automobiles in the 1990s.

Herrmann was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Jean Eleanor (née O'Connor) and John Anthony Herrmann. He has German ancestry on his father's side. Herrmann grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and graduated from Bucknell University in 1965, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright Fellowship.

Herrmann began his career in theatre. One of the first professional productions he appeared in was the U.S. premiere of Michael Weller's Moonchildren at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. in November 1971. He moved with the show to New York City to make his Broadway debut the following year. Herrmann returned to Broadway in 1976 to portray Frank Gardner in the revival of Mrs. Warren's Profession. For his performance he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play.

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received three Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award. Clooney is also noted for his political activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31, 2008.

Though he made his acting debut on television in 1978, Clooney gained fame and recognition by portraying Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. While working on ER, he started attracting a variety of leading roles in films including Batman & Robin (1997) and Out of Sight (1998), in which he first teamed with long-term collaborator Steven Soderbergh. 1999 saw the release of Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War featuring Clooney in another lead role. In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, Ocean's Eleven, the first of a profitable film trilogy, a remake of the film from 1960 with the members of The Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. He made his directorial debut a year later with the 2002 biographical thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008), and The Ides of March (2011). He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005) and subsequently fetched Best Actor nominations for such films as Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011).

Joel David Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957) known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films include Blood Simple, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, and True Grit.

The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, although until recently Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes.

Joel and Ethan Coen, of Jewish heritage, grew up in a Jewish community in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their father, Edward, was an economist at the University of Minnesota, and their mother, Rena, an art historian at St. Cloud State University.

When they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television with a neighborhood kid, Mark Zimering ("Zeimers"),^{[citation needed]} as the star. Their first attempt was a romp titled, Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go. Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966) became their Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear.