Jackie Earle Haley Is Alexander Stephens In Spielberg's LINCOLN
Will play the pro-slavery historical figure who was Vice President of the Confederates during the American Civil War and a staunch political rival to Lincoln's office.
Deadline say Jackie Earle Haley has joined DreamWorks & Steven Spielberg's rapidly close to filming biopic of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The Oscar nominated actor has taken the role of the infamous Alexander Stephens, a pro-slavery historical figure who was Vice President of the Confederates during the American Civil War and a staunch political rival to Lincoln's office. He infamously said at the Cornerstone Speech;
Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.
Clearly him and Lincoln didn't get on and Haley is likely to be depict him as the bastard that history records (and his own quotes) tell us he was. Stephens was said to be a ghastly physical appearance, always skinny, his face messed up and looking extremely ill with a "shrill and unpleasant" voice. Haley who has played Freddy Krueger and a child paedo in Little Children is a fitting choice, we say! Led by the insanely genius casting of Daniel Day-Lewis as Great Abe, Lincoln will be based on Tony Kushners (Munich) adaptation of the best-selling book Team of Rivals by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The plot will focus on the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War. Recently Spielberg has been a bit more specific and told us the biopic will only cover the last four months of Lincoln's eventful life which if you turned up for your school history lessons you will know that probably means we'll see a few battlefield scenes (Battle of Fort Fisher, Battle of Bentonville but most likely the final days of the American Civil War where General Robert E. Lee surrendered just days before Lincoln was killed) and most likely his landslide re-election. So in around a year since I blogged that Spielberg no longer had the balls to make it, the legendary filmmaker now has an impressive cast of thesps lined up for the biggest film of his recent career. Sally Field is Lincoln's wife Mary Todd Lincoln; Joseph Gordon-Levitt will be Robert Todd, the only son of Lincoln to live beyond his teenage years and who looks more physically similar to James McAvoy, but hes recently just done the Lincoln assassination movie The Conspirator, so he probably wasnt thought of; Tommy Lee Jones would play Republican Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican leader and congressman from Pennsylvania and supporter of abolishing slavery and was critical to writing the legislation that funded the American Civil War. David Straithairn is Secretary of State William Seward who was extremely loyal to Lincoln and even served under him during the Civil War and similarly Walter Goggins is another Lincoln ally, as Democratic Ohio Congressman Wells A. Hutchins who voted to abolish slavery. Bruce McGill is Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Lee Pace is Fernando Wood, a democratic politician but symapthiser to The Confederacy. John Hawkes, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Joseph Cross and Tim Blake Nelson also support, though their roles are as yet undisclosed. With Day-Lewis top-billing the actor has no doubt spent the last year locked away and visiting museums and probably talking to his friends and family as if he is the President and expecting them to call him 'Mr. President'. Just someone needs to tell him not to take his method acting too far and suggest somebody shoot him in the back of the head. Lincoln begins filming soon in Virgina and will be released December 2012.