Lee Daniels' "The Butler" adds one more actor to the list. "Magic Mike" star Alex Pettyfer is joining the star-studded movie in the role of Thomas Westphall which has a pivotal influence on Forest Whitaker's Eugene Allen and the rest of the character's life.
Based on Wil Haygood's Washington Post "A Butler Well Served by This Election", the movie has had stellar cast ensemble including Jane Fonda playing Nancy Reagan. There will also be Oprah Winfrey, Minka Kelly, Cuba Gooding Jr.,Terrence Howard, Lenny Kravitz, David Oyelowo and Alan Rickman. Meanwhile,Vanessa Redgrave is still in talks to join.
The pic revolves around Eugene Allen, a black man who served as a White House butler for 34 years. Allen started at the White House as a "pantry man" in 1952 when blacks weren't allowed to use public restrooms in his native Virginia. He ended up serving eight presidents and had a unique front row seat as political and racial history was being made, from the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy Jr.
Filming will start in mid-July in New Orleans.
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Still hot, tbh.
And for anyone interested in more info on this film, IMDB has a whole slew of actors listed including someone I think is a current ONTD fave (Jesse Williams). Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan just boggles my mind.
The original article by Wil Haygood for the Washington Post is entitled "A Butler Well Served by this Election." All the things Eugene Allen must have seen...the people he must have met....wow.