FRANCE/SOUTH AFRICA FILE: Jennifer Hudson to play Winnie Mandela amid legal threats

Record ID: 1531573

  • Title: FRANCE/SOUTH AFRICA FILE: Jennifer Hudson to play Winnie Mandela amid legal threats
  • Date: 16th May 2010
  • Summary: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (FILE - APRIL 25, 2005) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WINNIE MANDELA AT "RED DUST" PREMIERE
  • Embargoed: 31st May 2010 02:40
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA59NQNJBPIJ4HSHBCQ0I5JYB35
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson is to star in a biopic of former South African President Nelson Mandela's ex-wife Winnie, whose lawyers have already contacted the film makers threatening to block it.
    The announcement was made at a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday (May 15).
    "Winnie", which also features Terrence Howard as Nelson Mandela and is based on a book by Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob, starts shooting in South Africa on May 31 and could be ready for theatres by spring next year.
    Producer Andre Pieterse said Winnie Madikizela-Mandela had asked to see and approve the script before the picture went ahead, but that its backers had refused.
    "We're certain that the threat in the letter that the lawyer sent us, that she reserves her rights, that may interdict the film, will evaporate, once she walks out of that cinema after having seen the film. And therefore, we've been advised by our legal representation and we are in our rights and any action Mrs. Mandela will take (prior to the film being released) will be defended," he told Reuters Television.
    Hudson said while she knew the history of Nelson Mandela, she learned about his wife's role in the struggle for a united South Africa and wanted to take on the role.
    "Well, once I heard of the South African history and of course as an American, an African-American, I got to learn a lot about Nelson Mandela but when I did my research for Winnie Mandela, there are no words for how amazing a figure that she is and so much that she gave to the struggle herself and anything that drives me and which I'm passionate about, which is this, I'm all in for and I'm extremely excited about it and so honoured to be the one to play this role," she said.
    Of playing Nelson Mandela, Howard said he has yet to meet the prisoner-turned president and said meeting him would be similar to biblical times.
    "I don't believe that I'm taking on the role of Mandela, I'm also taking on the role of the struggle for their freedom. The struggle for the fight for equality. I don't think anyone can play Mandela, even he has spent 91 years trying to perfect that character and that person. But what he stood for, that is what I'm trying to portray. To look into his eyes and to see some of the things that have moved him will be comparable to walking with Moses to me," he said.
    Director Darrell Roodt was confident, however, that she would support what he described as first and foremost "an amazing love story".
    Roodt said he heard Madikizela-Mandela had been upset by Clint Eastwood's recent South African-themed movie "Invictus" "because she was relegated to two lines in the picture.
    Madikizela-Mandela is one of South African politics' most divisive figures, once hailed as "mother of the nation" but who was convicted in 1992 of kidnapping a teenaged anti-apartheid activist who was later murdered.
    She has since returned from the political wilderness after a fraud conviction.
    She married Mandela in 1958 and they separated in 1992, some two years after he was released from prison.
    U.S. actress and singer Hudson, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for her debut film role in 2006's "Dreamgirls", said she initially hesitated over such a prominent role.
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