Variety reports that Forest Whitaker is in talks to play the title role in The Butler, Precious director Lee Daniels' upcoming biopic about Eugene Allen, a legendary White House butler who served under eight different presidents. The Last King of Scotland Oscar winner replaces Denzel Washington, who had been slated to star when the project was in development at Sony.

The Butler is currently without a distributor or financing, but producers are reportedly in talks with an actress whose name alone could change all that in an instant: Oprah Winfrey, Variety reports, is currently mulling an offer to star alongside Whitaker as Allen's wife. It would be the former talk-show host's first live-action big screen role since Beloved, Jonathan Demme's 1998 adaptation of Toni Morrison's acclaimed novel.

The project made headlines last week with the announcement that Black Swan star Mila Kunis had signed on to play Jackie Kennedy.

憑借《珍愛》一舉成名的導(dǎo)演李·丹尼爾斯，正在籌備拍攝一部名為《管家》（The Butler）的新片，奧斯卡影帝福里斯特·惠特克有望領(lǐng)銜主演。

影片靈感源自于華盛頓郵報(bào)上的一篇文章，改編自真人真事。主人公Eugene Allen是一位黑人，1952年他應(yīng)聘食品管理員而走進(jìn)白宮工作。在他任職的34年間，美國總統(tǒng)輪換了八位，而Eugene最終也成為了白宮里人人尊敬的首席管家。

與斯皮爾伯格正在熱拍中的《林肯》一樣，李·丹尼爾斯也希望能找來一些人氣演員加盟，飾演歷史名人，包括大衛(wèi)·奧伊羅、約翰·庫薩克、米拉·庫妮絲、休·杰克曼等人都已受到邀請(qǐng)。

《管家》預(yù)計(jì)在今年夏天開始制作拍攝。?