Halle to star as hero teacher
2006-10-06 09:40
Los Angeles - Halle Berry will play a schoolteacher who mounts an unsuccessful election campaign after being challenged by her students to stand for office, movie industry reports said on Thursday.
In an unusual casting move, Oscar winner Berry will play white Nevada schoolteacher Tierney Cahill, who ran for Congress in the 2000 elections at the promptings of her sixth-grade students, trade journal Variety said.
The single mother lost her bid to an incumbent but ended up winning 35% of the popular vote.
Variety cited a source close to the film as saying that they were not concerned that Cahill was being changed from a white to a black woman, saying the movie's backers "felt it was more important to find the right actress to play the role rather than the right white actress".
Berry won a best actress Oscar in 2002 for her performance in the racial drama Monsters Ball.
- AFP