Rachel Weisz to play Elizabeth Taylor in new film

Best Supporting Actress nominee for “The Favourite” Rachel Weisz arrives for the 91st Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on February 24, 2019. Image: AFP/ Mark Ralston via AFP Relaxnews

Actress Rachel Weisz has been cast as Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor in a new biopic, from a script by Academy Award-winner writer Simon Beaufoy of “Slumdog Millionaire”.

Weisz — who also won a best-supporting actress Oscar in 2006 for her turn in “A Constant Gardener” and was nominated in the same category this year for “The Favourite” — will play Taylor in the new film, which aims to tell the star’s journey from actress to AIDS activist.

Titled “A Special Relationship” — and drawn from hours of interviews and exclusive conversations with people who knew Taylor — the plot aims to shift the focus away from the glamorous and scandalous life that most associated with the Oscar-winning actress and create what the filmmakers have described as a “never-before-seen portrait of the real woman behind the violet eyes”.

Told through the lens of her friendship with her assistant Roger Wall — a gay man who grew up in poverty in the homophobic Deep South — the film will recount how, despite their different backgrounds, they developed a deep friendship that would alter the course of both of their lives via The Hollywood Reporter.

The project is being produced by See-Saw Films (“The King’s Speech”, “Lion”) and will be directed by fast-rising female filmmaking duo Bert & Bertie (“Troop Zero”), with See-Saw’s in-house sales arm Cross City Films to launch sales for “A Special Relationship” on the American Film Market in November. CL/JB

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