Philip Kaufman, Paul Greengrass, Wong Kar Wai, George Clooney, John Sayles, Curtis Hanson, Taylor Hackford, Sydney Pollack, Mike Nichols — there is a reason why outstanding character actor David Strathairn has drawn top tier filmmakers like moths to a flame, and he’s about to add the biggest name yet to his CV.
THR reports that Steven Spielberg has gone ahead and cast the Oscar nominee in his forthcoming dream project “Lincoln.” Based on the best-selling book, “Team of Rivals,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and featuring a script by Tony Kushner (”Angels In America”), the film will focus “on the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War.” And Spielberg already has a brilliant cast to weave the story with Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill and Joseph Cross all set to star.
With DDL and Field set to play Abraham and Mary Todd, with Jones portraying Republican Thaddeus Stevens who supported the abolition of slavery and wrote legislation that helped fund the Civil War. Gordon-Levitt will be Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd, the only one to survive past his teenage years. The rest of roles are still under wraps. As for Straitharn, he’ll get to act opposite DDL himself, playing William Seward, the president’s loyal Secretary of State and fierce abolitionist who served under Lincoln during the Civil War. Just the prospect of those two sharing scenes together, has us very, very excited.
Shooting will begin this fall in Virginia with an Oscar baiting fall 2012 release date in the works.
