Felicity Jones To Portray Howard Hughes' Love Interest For Warren Beatty

27 year old Felicity Jones was just a small bairn back in the mid 80's when Warren Beatty first became obsessed with the idea of making a movie about the world's most famous compulsive-obsesser Howard Hughes. Last night, Deadline reported that Beatty has just cast Jones as the love interest in the Hughes biopic that two decades on finally looks like it is going to be made. Jones will play a woman who is having it off with Hughes' driver and rare close confidante, before eventually having an affair with the aging man himself. Beatty, 74, is writing, directing and starring as the billionaire weirdo. Not unlike the last Howard Hughes biopic, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, the film will be set around younger and older periods of Hughes' life so a young leading man is required. Deadline say Justin Timberlake and Alden Ehrenreich (actor in Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro & Twixt) are names being thrown around right now but it probably comes down to who has the best chemistry with Jones. Shia LaBeouf was mentioned months ago as being a candidate. Beatty's old pal Jack Nicholson and his wife Annette Bening are still expected to have supporting roles, along with a part for Alec Baldwin who incidentally also appeared in The Aviator as Pan Am World Airways founder Juan Trippe, Hughes€™ big adversary. Owen Wilson is also wanted for an unspecified role. Felicity Jones, who you will remember as the love interest in Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant's movie Cemetery Junction and who has received a lot of cred for the Sundance indie drama Like Crazy this year has just won her biggest role to date. The still untitled Howard Hughes movie is setup at New Regency but is still trying attract a co-financial backer after Paramount pulled out. Don't expect Warner Bros to be forthcoming either as Christopher Nolan is rumoured to want to make Citizen Hughes, his long-gestating biopic about the reclusive industrialist, after he has completed The Dark Knight Rises. We chronicled the epic journey to the screen for both movies HERE.