Liam Neeson to play Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg biopic

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 3:15am

Variety reports that Steven Spielberg has begun talks with Liam Neeson to play president Abraham Lincoln as he steers the North to victory in the Civil War. The plan is for the long-in-the-works biopic to start production next January. The most recent screenwriter on the script is Paul Webb.

The trade adds that Spielberg won't complete principal photography on War of the Worlds until late March. Post-production will be rigorous, as he and star Tom Cruise gear for a June 29 release.

The DreamWorks movie will be based on a bio being written by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. That book will be published next fall, under the title "The Uniter: The Genius of Abraham Lincoln."

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 3:19am

Oh wow, Liam is perfect for that part!

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 8:41am

Reading the thread title my first thought was 'Why would Abe Lincoln be in a biopic about Stephen Spielberg?'

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 8:53am

But, will he play gay?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 8:53am

Will the recent revelations about his sleeping with the captain of the guard, and his love letters to the handsome pal, be included? Or just the usual oh-what-a-cross-to-bear-is-that-crazy-crazy-Mary-Todd stuff. By the way, remember the MOW with Mary Tyler Moore and Sam Waterston? La Moore was pretty right on.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 9:24am

And will they show him in his true light or make him out to be a god as the history books have?

[PB ENT.]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 10:40am

Liam should be great for the part. Don't get the Spielberg thingee though.

SOMM, if Liam could pull off gay, he'd be a Tony nom....trust me on this one.

[wildcat]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 10:44am

If everyone got so upset about Alexander the Great being a big homo, how do you think they're going to feel about Lincoln???!!!

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 1:00pm

I doubt that Spielberg will create an ending intended to leave us cold or that the claims of bisexualilty made by the new book will figure into the film. More likely, it'll tread A Beautiful Mind territory - neither suggesting that Lincoln engaged in homosexual behavior (and it would be just that, "homosexual behavior," because I doubt the man would have identified himself as a "homosexual") nor insisting that he didn't.

On the other hand, The Color Purple - perhaps Spielberg's most serious film to date besides Saving Private Ryan - didn't shy away from "issues" of sexuality nearly as much as it could have. I think this could be a very compelling film under Spielberg's direction in spite of the possibility that the theme of childhood innocence will be awkardly incorporated into it.

[robbiej]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 1:19pm

Lincoln would never have classified himself as a 'homosexual' because, in fact, it wasn't a classification open to him (or anyone) during most of the 19th Century.

Which is why I have a BIG problem with calling Lincoln 'gay'. Gay is an identity with political ramifications. In his day, had he engaged in non-missionary style sexual conduct with ANYONE (male or female) he would have been called a 'sodomite'.

Relationships between men during the 19th century are FASCINATING. They were incredibly intimate, the highest form of love there was...higher than love between a woman and a man. But most believed this love should remain pure, free from eros. Not until Walt Whitman began advocating physical expression of love between men in his Calamus poems in Leaves of Grass did the concept of 'homosexuality' begin to take form.

[CurtainUp2]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 1:31pm

"On the other hand, The Color Purple - perhaps Spielberg's most serious film to date besides Saving Private Ryan - didn't shy away from "issues" of sexuality nearly as much as it could have."

I have to disagree. As much as I love it, The Color Purple did shy away from the sexuality of it's characters considerably. And just for the record, I'd say Schindler's List was arguably Spielberg's most serious work to date.

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 2:05pm

robbiej, I agree with your post completely except for the last line asserting that Walt Whitman was (essentially) the founding father of gay identity. Perhaps it's true, but I'd have to consider gay identity in a global context before I credited it to that one American poet.

CurtainUp, thank you for catching my mistake - I should have included Schindler's List. And once I finish Alice Walker's novel, I bet I'll find myself agreeing with you about The Color Purple more than I do viewing it as a film that - relative to other films made in the same time - wasn't as dishonest about sexuality as it could have been. Hopefully the novel won't cause me to malign the Spielberg adaptation as I do the film version of Ragtime for being a bastardization of its source material.

[robbiej]

Posted: 1/12/05 at 2:46pm

Walt Whitman's work actually directly influenced John Addington Symonds (sp), a Brit who some consider the person who truly broke through with the modern concept of self-identifying as a lover of men or a homosexual.

Homosexual attractions and acts have always existed (in the animal kingdom and our species), but what we think of as 'gay' or 'homosexual' is really only a little over a century old.