Actress Natalie Portman will play Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a new film about the Supreme Court justice — and it’s hard to say who’s lending more buzz to film, the Hollywood superstar or the “Notorious RBG.”
Portman will star as Ginsburg in the biopic “On the Basis of Sex,” Deadline Hollywood reported on Friday. The film will detail Ginsburg’s tumultuous fight for equal rights, a path that defined her early career as a civil rights attorney.
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Portman, a graduate of Harvard University, has garnered critical acclaim for her recent role in director Terence Malick’s Knight of Cups, and nabbed an Oscar in 2011 for her role in Black Swan. Ginsburg, who attended Harvard Law School before transferring to Columbia Law School, headed the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project early in her career. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed her as the second woman and first Jewish woman* to serve on the Supreme Court.
If the film focuses on Ginsburg’s early career and rise to the Supreme Court, moviegoers can expect to see Portman deliver calm-yet-fiery defenses of women’s rights. It’s unclear who will be cast to play the love of Ginsburg’s life, her husband and renowned tax lawyer Martin Ginsburg.
Marielle Heller, who starred in The Diary Of a Teenage Girl, is also reportedly in negotiations to direct the movie, which features a script by Daniel Stiepleman. The film is slated to start production by the end of 2015, according to Entertainment Weekly. *Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Ginsburg was the first Jewish person to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. She is, in fact, the first Jewish woman to serve on that court.
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