via James McAvoy in Talks to Join Wikileaks Film.
Just a few short years ago, James McAvoy was best known to audiences for his role as the half-human, half-goat Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. However, in the years since, the Scottish actor has seen his career expand from Oscar bait like The Last King of Scotland and Atonement to big-budget Hollywood fare like Wanted and X-men: First Class.
That eclectic mix of films indicates that McAvoy has little worry about becoming typecast and is willing to take on a risky, even controversial project without a second thought. In his career, he’s already tackled political drama, period romance, high-octane action and superhero spectacle. However, despite risking fanboy ire by taking on the role of young Professor Charles Xavier, McAvoy is now set to take on his most divisive project to date.
According to Variety, McAvoy is in talks to star alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Dreamworks’ untitled Wikileaks film. The actor would play Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the author whose book Inside Wikileaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website serves as the basis for the film. The studio acquired the rights to both that book and Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, and both will serve as inspirations for the film’s screenplay.
I’ve liked McAvoy since seeing him stand his own against Forest Whitaker’s mesmerizing Idi Amin performance in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland. It looks like again he’s going to play another real life character drawn into a dangerous criminal cult. (Though I hardly expect the evil acts of Julian Assange to receive the same honest depiction as Amin.)
Note to self: pick up Inside Wikileaks from the library. The ideologies fueling Wikileaks’ founders in their efforts to sabotage the United States national security efforts need additional study…
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Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Cults: The Mind Enslaved
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