Jessica Chastain, Reese Witherspoon & More Being Considered For Hillary Rodham Clinton Biopic

It's easy to imagine that the chance to play Hillary Rodham Clinton in a biopic about the politician's life would be seen as a great part for a top notch actress. After all, Clinton is one of the most influential women of the late 20th/early 21st centuries, and has an impressive backstory in addition to being a former First Lady, New York Senator and Secretary of State. Reading a new report from The Independent, which says that Reese Witherspoon, Amanda Seyfried, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Chastain are among the A-list names being considered for the new film, it sounds as though the production is on the same page.

We first heard about the project back in December when it was revealed that screenwriter Young Il Kim's Rodham had made the Black List, the annual list of Hollywood's most popular unproduced scripts. The film will be set during the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration, and will have the young Rodham serving as a lawyer serving on the House Judiciary Committee to Impeach Nixon. Just last month it was revealed that the movie is actually in active development and that indie filmmaker James Ponsoldt, who wowed critics at both Sundance and SXSW this year with his dramedy The Spectacular Now, is attached to direct.

Witherspoon, Seyfried, Johansson and Chastain are four of the most popular actresses in Hollywood, but should any of them get the gig they probably wouldn't have to shift too many things around in their current schedule to make it happen. The film's production is being timed so that the movie will be ready to be released during the 2016 Presidential Election, meaning that the star won't go in front of cameras until 2015 at the earliest.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.