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Last night news broke that Carey Mulligan, the British actress who most recently played Daisy in The Great Gatsby, has become the frontrunner to play Hillary Clinton in the upcoming, buzzy biopic Rodham. It's major Hollywood news that could also have a political impact, with the movie set to come out in time for the 2016 election, meaning that whomever lands the role could help shape public opinion of Clinton. Should the hypothetical Clinton campaign be worried about the leading lady in wait?
The project has been buzzy ever since it appeared on the 2012 Hollywood Black List of screenplays. Written by Young Il Kim, the film tracks Clinton during the Watergate controversy and digs in to her early romance with Bill, which apparently leads to some scandalous bits. Indie director James Ponsoldt is on board to helm the film, and the leading role has apparently been the talk of young A-list actresses, from Emma Stone to Amanda Seyfried to Scarlett Johansson.
But according to The Wrap's Jeff Sneider there were really only two choices for the role: Mulligan and Jennifer Lawrence. Sneider reports that if Lawrence wanted the part, insiders would have found it difficult to say no. Her schedule, however, was too busy for her to appear in the film and still have it be ready in time for release before November 2016. (Unlike Lincoln or Zero Dark Thirty in 2012, this film, as a biopic of an early life before elected politics, appears to have no inhibitions about swaying political perspectives.)