Believe it or not, it looks like we’re one more step closer to actually seeing Bill Murray play the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Deadline reveals that Laura Linney (Mystic River) is in final negotiations to play Daisy in the upcoming film adaptation of the radio play Hyde Park On Hudson from Focus Features. Furthermore, Variety reports that the Murray casting is a lock.
The film is about a June 1939 weekend at Roosevelts’ upstate New York cottage in which Roosevelt entertained the King and Queen of England. Of course, that doesn’t sound all that exciting — even though British royalty is SO in right now, you know, with The King’s Speech and all — so here comes the drama: it also features FDR’s love affair with Margaret ‘Daisy’ Suckley… his distant cousin. Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, especially since FDR’s wife, Elanor, was also a distant cousin (she didn’t even have to change her maiden name). Those crazy Roosevelts! While the affair was never exactly confirmed, letters between the two suggests that they were intimate. The relationship was the basis for the radio play by Richard Nelson, who adapted his own play for the film’s script. The film will be directed by Roger Michell (Morning Glory). It is set for a 2012 release.
There have been some groans that Murray is again putting off doing Ghostbusters III to do this project, but as a big Murray fan I’m happy to see him challenge himself in an out-of-the-box role. As long as he can nail that Mid-Atlantic FDR accent, Murray can do it. To be honest, the resemblance isn’t far off. Perhaps he’ll finally win that Oscar that avoided him after his nomination for Lost in Translation (which, ironically, he lost out to his soon-to-be co-star Laura Linney’s co-star Sean Penn for Mystic River!)
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