If you’d said in the 80s that one day ‘Hanoi’ Jane Fonda would play arch conservative Nancy Reagan in a movie, people would probably have laughed at you, as there are few people whose outllook on life matches less. However it’s going to happen, as Variety reports that Fonda has joined the cast of The Butler for Precious director Lee Daniels, playing Reagan in this biopic about longtime White House butler Eugene Allen.
Forest Whitaker will play Allen, who first started working at the White House under President Harry S. Truman in 1952, and retired in 1986 during Ronald Reagan’s second term. Oprah Winfrey is in talks to play Allen’s wife, while David Oyelowo is negotiating to play Allen’s son. Liam Neeson and John Cusack are also circling the presidential roles of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Lee Daniels is directing The Butler from a screenplay he co-wrote with Danny Strong. No casting deals are fully locked in yet, although production is expected to begin sometime this summer.
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