Oscar winner Melissa Leo, “Star Trek’s” Zachary Quinto and “Selma’s” Tom Wilkinson are in negotiations to play Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill in Oliver Stone’s untitled Edward Snowden movie, multiple individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt will star as the NSA contractor who leaked classified documents, while Shailene Woodley will co-star as his longtime girlfriend Lindsay Mills. Rising star Scott Eastwood is also part of the cast.
Tom Ortenberg‘s Open Road Films and James D. Stern’s Endgame Entertainment recently partnered on the U.S. release of the Edward Snowden film, which writer-director Stone based on the books “Time of the Octopus” by Snowden’s Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, and “The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man” by journalist Luke Harding.
Leo is nearing a deal to play documentary filmmaker Poitras, who directed the critically acclaimed Snowden documentary “Citizenfour” (pictured above). She contributed to the reporting of the NSA disclosures as the Snowden story broke.
Quinto will play Greenwald, a lawyer, author and journalist who Snowden chose to leak sensitive information to, knowing he would handle its publication responsibly.
Wilkinson is in talks to play MacAskill, the defense and intelligence correspondent for The Guardian who helped break the Snowden story that exposed mass surveillance by intelligence agencies.
Moritz Borman and Eric Kopeloff are producing the film, which is gearing up to start production.
Wilkinson is a two-time Oscar nominee who currently appears in two Best Picture nominees — “Selma” as President Lyndon B. Johnson and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” as the author. He’s represented by Lou Coulson Associates and Principal Entertainment LA.
Quinto is gearing up to reprise his role as Spock in “Star Trek 3” and he’ll soon be seen playing James Franco’s lover in “I Am Michael,” which recently premiered at Sundance. He also has NBC’s “The Slap” debuting soon, as well as “Hitman: Agent 47.” He’s represented by CAA and Untitled Entertainment.
Leo next stars in M. Night Shyamalan‘s Fox series “Wayward Pines” and has been hard at work on the action sequel “London Has Fallen.” She is repped by CAA and Untitled.