Olivia Williams is closing in on the role of Eleanor Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wife, in the upcoming film, Hyde Park on the Hudson, Deadline report.
The film will be directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Morning Glory), and already has Bill Murray and Laura Linney attached. Murray is to play FDR, and Linney will play his distant cousin and lover, Margaret Suckley.
FDR was the only American president to be elected to office for more than two terms, being elected four consecutive times, from 1933 through to his death in 1945, which cut his fourth term short, when Vice President Harry Truman was then sworn in.
It is to be written by newcomer Richard Nelson, and revolves around a weekend in 1939 when King George VI and his wife, the Queen Mother, visited FDR’s private retreat, Top Cottage, in New York near the Hudson River, when (in the film) Eleanor discovers her husband’s infidelity. Whether or not the affair took place in fact is not known.
Williams (The Sixth Sense, An Education, Hanna) is one of my favourite British actresses working at the moment, and I think she’d be excellent playing Eleanor Roosevelt.
