Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is said to be considering an offer to co-star in “The Butler,” Director Lee Daniels’ story of Eugene Allen, a black man who worked as butler in the White House, serving eight presidents from 1952 to 1986, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Financing is still being negotiated and no final deals have been made, but reports are Daniels has been busy putting together an all-star cast.
Hugh Jackman, Mila Kunis and John Cusack are names that have surfaced to play real-life figures. Sources say that Daniels wants David Oyelowo, who starred in the recent Tuskegee Airmen action film “Red Tails” and will appear in Daniels’ upcoming thriller “The Paperboy,” to portray the butler.
The project was initially set up at Columbia, which picked up Wil Haygood’s 2008 Washington Post story “A Butler Well Served by This Election.” The project is now being financed independently.
As previously reported, Haygood’s article focused on Allen, who started at the White House as a “pantry man” in 1952, when blacks weren’t allowed to use public restrooms in his native Virginia. He ended up serving eight presidents and had a unique front-row seat as political and racial history was made, from the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.
Winfrey would play Allen’s wife. Insiders say that Kunis would play Jackie Kennedy and Cusack would play Richard Nixon.
If deals are signed, Winfrey could make her first appearance in a live-action movie since “Beloved.” She also has attached herself to an untitled Universal dramedy set at a home shopping network to be directed by Michael Patrick King and co-starring Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock, but development on that project has stalled.
Winfrey, who scored an Oscar nomination for 1985′s “The Color Purple,” has voice-acted in films such as “The Princess and the Frog” and “Charlotte’s Web.” She also has appeared as herself on television, most notably on NBC’s “30 Rock,” and is the co-owner with Discovery Communications of the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Winfrey also worked with Daniels on the director’s 2009 indie “Precious,” coming on board to executive produce the adaptation of the novel by Sapphire. The gritty drama, which benefited from hefty promotion by Winfrey on her talk show, grossed $63.6 million worldwide, received six Oscar nominations and won two.
