(From NBC's PR department)

Oscar nominees Stockard Channing ("Six Degrees of Separation," NBC's "The West Wing") and Sam Waterston ("The Killing Fields," NBC's "Law & Order") will portray the parents of hate-crime victim, Matthew Shepard, in a biographical NBC world premiere movie to be executive-produced by Oscar-winner Goldie Hawn ("Cactus Flower") with Alliance Atlantis' Peter Sussman and Ed Gernon ("Life with Judy Garland: Me & My Shadows," "Joan of Arc," "Nuremberg"), and directed by Roger Spottiswoode ("And the Band Played On…"). "The Matthew Shepard Story" concerns the true-life story of a young Laramie, Wyoming man who was murdered for being gay, and how his parents found the courage to forgive his attackers and end the cycle of hate. Production begins this spring for telecast in the Fall of 2001.