Naomi Watts will play CIA agent Valerie Plame, Sean Penn may play Joe Wilson

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Naomi Watts is rumored to have signed on to play Valerie Plame, the CIA operative who was outed in 2003 by, as it turns out, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Colin Powell’s deputy at State, Richard Armitage. Her outing lead to a federal prosecutor (Patrick Fitzgerald) being named to investigate the crime. Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney’s aide, ended up indicted, prosecuted, sentenced and commuted for federal charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. All of this because her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson wrote an editorial questioning pre-Iraq War intelligence in the spring of 2003.

The film is tentatively titled Fair Game. This is because several people in the Bush administration (like Libby) called journalists and outed Plame, saying “Joe Wilson’s wife is fair game.” For months, the name I kept hearing for casting Ambassador Joe Wilson was Tom Hanks, but now it looks like Sean Penn is interested. Variety has more:

“Fair Game,” the drama about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, has come together with Naomi Watts starring, “Mrs. and Mrs. Smith” helmer Doug Liman directing and William Pohlad’s River Road financing.

But the big question is whether Oscar-winning “Milk” star Sean Penn will close a deal to play Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Penn is negotiating, but no deal has closed. Pohlad has a strong relationship with Penn: he was a producer on the Terrence Malick-directed “Tree of Life,” which stars Penn and Brad Pitt, and Pohlad also was a producer and financier for “Into the Wild,” which Penn directed.

Wilson watched his wife’s CIA status become compromised after he wrote op-ed columns that accused the Bush Administration of manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The project, based on Plame Wilson’s memoir, landed at Pohlad’s River Road after Warner Bros. put the project in turnaround. Pic is being produced by Weed Road’s Akiva Goldsman and Jerry and Janet Zucker of Zucker Productions.

Plame Wilson left the CIA in 2005 and she and her husband filed a civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Cheney’s ex-chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. While Rove and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admitted they leaked her agency status to journalists, Libby was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury about his role in compromising her covert status.

Then-President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month sentence in 2007, but stopped short of granting him a full pardon, despite aggressive lobbying by Cheney before Bush left the White House in January.

From Variety

Sean Penn playing Joe Wilson makes me queasy. If the producers wanted to actually create sympathy for Wilson, they should have gone with Tom Hanks, but maybe Hanks wasn’t interested. Hanks actually looks like Wilson, and I fear Penn will bring too much political baggage to the role. Although, to be fair, Wilson really isn’t all that sympathetic (in my opinion).

Valerie Plame, a CIA operative who worked on nuclear proliferation matters in the Middle East while undercover as a State Department employee, was always the sympathetic one. Her career was destroyed. Naomi Watts is actually great casting – she looks a lot like Plame, and Naomi is a great actress. The first actress who was mentioned for Plame was… Julia Roberts. Now, that would have been horrible casting.

Now comes the guessing game for the rest of the cast. Who will play Richard Armitage, the big, bald Marine turned diplomat turned gossip? You know who would be great? Bruce Willis, I kid you not. And what about Libby? Maybe Chris Cooper. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will be hard to cast though… I have no idea who would be good for that.

Note by Celebitchy: Watts has just been publicly announced as the newest addition to Woody Allen’s unnamed new project – which will also star Freida Pinto in her first post-Slumdog role.

Valerie Plame is shown testifying before the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Capitol Hill on 6/13/07. She is also shown with her husband, Joe Wilson, at an event on 10/9/06. Joe Wilson is also shown on 10/31/05. Naomi Watts is shown on 2/9/09 outside The Late Show. Credit: WENN

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7 Responses to “Naomi Watts will play CIA agent Valerie Plame, Sean Penn may play Joe Wilson”

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  1. the original kate says:

    i’m curious as to why wilson is not a sympathetic figure? both he and valerie are pretty sympathetic figures in my opinion: he questioned the validity of the war (and was right) and she had her undercover status compromised. but i agree penn has too much baggage for the role, and i just cannot stand tom hanks these days. i could see someone like jeremy northam in the role.

  2. Kaiser says:

    It was just my take, Kate. I find Joe Wilson to be a bit preening and wanting the attention.

    I do respect what he did, though. I guess I was trying to say Plame is *more* sympathetic than her husband. She literally did nothing wrong, and her career was destroyed.

  3. Rreedy says:

    More government employees jump on the dollar bill. They make me sick. There is no story except their own musings: legends in their own minds. Disgusting and unpatriotic scum.

  4. Emily says:

    She came to promote her book at my school and give a talk. I sadly was not able to go but I heard it was interesting. I feel bad her career was destroyed.

  5. Bob says:

    I just want to point out that Plame wasn’t “covert” or “undercover.” CIA employees by law are not allowed to conduct intelligence operations within the United States. (That’s the job of the FBI.) If Plame wants to claim she was “undercover” while she worked at CIA heaqdquarters, then she’s looking at spending the rest of her life in prison for a serious violation of the CIA charter.

  6. CandyKay says:

    I wonder when we’ll see the first Iraq War movie that will be an actual commercial success. This doesn’t sound like it will be that movie.

    How long did it take after Vietnam? The Deer Hunter was 1978, which was 3 years after the fall of Saigon, as was Coming Home with Jane Fonda.

    If Obama really does draw down the troops in 2009, that would put us on track for a decent Iraq War film in 2012.

  7. the original kate says:

    @ bob: she wasn’t just conducting business in the US, she was an operative both here and in the middle east for over 5 years. according to the washington post and reporters like bob woodward, the CIA had all information about plame and her work on nuclear arms marked as classified, something that ari fleischer and scooter libby knew when they leaked her name to bob woodward.