Actress Jennifer Lawrence will play Fidel Castro’s lover in a new film from Sony Pictures called Marita, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
A romantic spy drama, the movie centers on Castro’s real life mistress, Marita Lorenz, a German-born American woman who began an affair with the Cuban leader when she was 19 years old in 1959. Lorenz eventually left Cuba, joined anti-communists in the U.S., and was even recruited by the CIA for an assassination attempt on the dictator.
Obviously, the assassination never ended up happening, as Lorenz — according to folk tales — decided not to kill Castro out of love.
Those who believe that story should take it with a grain of salt, though, as the real-life Lorenz also claims that Castro and Venezuelan dictator Marcos Perez Jiminez fathered her children, and that she met Lee Harvey Oswald, who was part of a communist plot to kill J.F.K., according to her.
But all those details do give Hollywood a lot to work with, and the script will likely be very well developed, especially considering the film’s scribe is American Hustle writer Eric Warren Singer. Scott Mednick (300) and Andre Rouleau (Goon) will produce the film.
With her choice to star in Marita, Lawrence once again cements her desire to play interesting real-life characters, having recently starred as Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano in Joy, David O. Russel’s 2015 biopic. And the leap to the more interesting world of a real-life spy should be an interesting one for the young actress, who seems perfectly suited for the role.
Studios also appear tremendously excited at the new film’s prospects. Sony allegedly won an all-out bidding war for the project, with interest shown by Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Annapurna.
Marita has been penciled in for release sometime around the end of 2017, just in time for awards season.
