MTV Movies Blog › Emily Watson

Indira Gandhi, India's first and only female Prime Minister, is getting a much-deserved biopic, and big name actors are being wooed for star-studded cameos. According to The Daily Telegraph, Helen Mirren is in talks to return to the role of Queen Elizabeth II, who she won an Oscar for playing in 2006's "The Queen." Emily Watson, meanwhile, has been cast as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Other expected -- or at least sought-after -- portrayals include Tom Hanks as Lyndon Johnson, Tommy Lee Jones as Richard Nixon and Albert Finney as British actor Peter Ustinov.

The biopic, titled "Mother: The Indira Gandhi Story," will be released in two parts, a la Steven Soderbergh's "Che" films. Both will be directed by Indian filmmaker Krishna Shah, who last helmed a pair of American B-movies called "Hard Rock Zombies" and "American Drive-In" back in 1985. Since then he seems to have primarily been a producer of "Sleepaway Camp" sequels. Playing the lead role of Gandhi is Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit, of the very entertaining and hugely successful Indian film "Hum Aapke Hain Kaun...!" (I highly recommend it to anyone curious about modern Bollywood cinema). Read more...

Tags Albert Finney, Emily Watson, Helen Mirren, Mother: The Indira Gandhi Story, tom hanks, tommy lee jones