Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” is currently shooting in Savannah, Georgia and faithful readers of The Playlist who live in the area have sent us some exclusive images that lead us to a few scoops.
As previously reported, the picture is a period drama based on true events following the assassination of President Lincoln and centers on the story of Mary Surratt, an alleged accomplice and conspirator of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Robin Wright Penn is playing Surratt, the lone female charged as a co-conspirator, who, when the nation turns against her, is forced to rely on her reluctant lawyer (James McAvoy) to uncover the truth and save her life. To your left is your first look at McAvoy’s Frederick Aiken character who is also an idealistic war hero torn between his sense of morals and his feelings that Surratt deserves a fair trial.
Yesterday we learned that Justin Long joined the cast, playing McAvoy’s character’s best friend, a one-armed Civil War veteran.
Today we’ve exclusively learned of two more players who have joined the cast. A Playlist reader also took a snap of Evan Rachel Wood on the set of the film and apparently she’s playing Wright Penn’s daughter Anna Surratt, which (should) hopefully debunk rumors going around that Wood replaced Wright Penn in the film (one seems too young to replace the other).
While we have no photo yet, we’ve also been told that Toby Kebbell (perhaps best well known as the crack addict rock star in Guy Ritchie’s “Rock N’ Rolla,” he also had a good turn in Shane Meadows’ “Dead Man’s Shoes”) has joined the cast as the assassin John Wilkes Booth, but having parsed the script quickly, you can tell it’s not a huge role and mostly told in flashback. Still it’s a great part and Kebbell also shined in “Control.” In fact, he was our favorite part of that rather dry Joy Division biopic (which led us to put him on our 2007 Breakout Performances list).
Maybe if Redford plays his cards right and stays away from melodrama, we’ll have a frontrunner for the 2010 Oscars.