Banks Playing Laura Bush for Stone

Image credit: John Shearer/WireImage

ELIZABETH BANKS The actress, who just finished Kevin Smith's ''Zack and Miri Make a Porno,'' is joining Josh Brolin in Oliver Stone's ''W''

(FROM HOLLYWOOD REPORTER) – Elizabeth Banks (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Spider-Man) is in final negotiations to play First Lady Laura Bush in director Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic, W. Josh Brolin is already on board to play Bush. Stone, who wrote the screenplay with his Wall Street co-writer Stanley Weiser, has been openly critical of Bush's invasion of Iraq, but he has said the biopic will present a fair and accurate portrait, focused on things like his relationship with his father, President George H.W. Bush, his wild younger days, and his conversion to Christianity. Stone was quoted in Variety last January as saying, ''People have turned my political ideas into a cliche, but that is superficial. I'm a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison, and Alexander the Great.'' Shooting on W is scheduled to start in late April. Banks just finished shooting on Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno. She next appears in the Eddie Murphy comedy Meet Dave and in Bill with Aaron Eckhart and Jessica Alba. (Hollywood Reporter)