Angelina to Play Cleopatra

[Sylph]

More here.

[SFK]

This isn't true, Brad denied it on TMZ.

I haven't studied Cleopatra in over twenty years, but I remember reading that she was not in fact a great beauty, maybe even a little heavyset. There was also a line of Cleopatras, I believe some of them racially mixed with African which is where the idea that Cleopatra was black comes from (well, that and geographic location). *Some* Cleopatras may have been black but not *the* Cleopatra.

[Sylph]

But why is The Guardian confirming it? Confused.

Will she or won't she?

[Cat]

From a movie standpoint, just... no. The original Cleopatra had Elizabeth taylor and Richard Burton, the fieriest and most mythic Hollywood couple ever. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are nowhere near what these two represented. Nowhere near.

Secondly, there is a school of thought that Cleopatra's grandmother came from Nubia (now the Sudan) and hence Cleopatra was racially mixed. That could chime with reports from Ancient Rome that talk of her exotic beauty. If that is the case, wouldn't somebody like Halle Berry be better off playing the role? However, there is another school of thought that says that the last line of Egyptian phaoroahs (the Ptolemys, of which Cleopatra is the last in line) were transplants from Greece who usurped the throne and, like most Ancient Greeks, were very northern European looking -- blonde with blue eyes, even. Who knows.

[Sylph]

Cleopatra's ancestry is not really well known, as your post suggests, Cat.

She was the seventh queen of Egypt with that name, thus her full name is Cleopatra Thea VII Philopator.

There are those who say that Cleopatra was born in Greece, even though the tradition lists her birthplace as Alexandria of Egypt. Her father was Ptolemy XII and her mother probably a concubine, which reportedly died a year after Cleopatra's birth. Ptolemy XII was apparently to blame for her death.

Ptolemy had only one legitimate daughter with his sister-wife Cleopatra V Tryphaena, according to Strabo: Berenice IV. Some historians have based their theory of her Egyptian ancestry based on that fact and the fact that she spoke Egyptian.

[SFK]

Sylph, my comment about Brad wasn't to be taken seriously. Yes, he did deny it on TMZ but I was teasing about how actors deny everything (including the truth) when it's still a little too premature.

[Sylph]

http://www.deadline.com/2010/10/james-cameron-flirting-with-cleopatra/

[Cat]

Jesus. 3D Cleopatra? For [!@#$%^&*]'s sake. Hollywood is truly bereft of any new ideas.

[Bright Eyes]

Claudette Colbert is spinning!

[SFK]

3D? Now I know I can look forward to her asp in my face.

[marceline]

*slaps Cat like Erica Kane*

Don't even put that out there! You're right that an actress with a more ethnically-undetermined look would make sense. But I can't let you put that name out there. I'm sorry.

*slaps Cat again*

[SFK]

LMFAO at the visual of that playing out IRL. What's your beef with Halle? You can't help but be in love with the drop dead gorgeous glamorous image of Cleopatra, but as I was saying upthread, she apparently wasn't all that hot. To be accurate, I think someone like Dame Judith Anderson would have been a more appropriate fit.

[marceline]

My beef with Halle is that she can't act. Or more accurately, rarely does. And now, as much as it pains me to do this...

*slaps SFK...twice*

Don't make me do this again. *rubs palm*

[SFK]

Tears...

[sheilaforever]

Pointless reduxes all the way...

And to think that they dare to remake one of THE biggest financial DISTASTERS for any Hollywood studios speaks volumes...