Uma Thurman has signed on to play legendary anti-gay activist Anita Bryant in the biopic, Anita.
The star of such films as Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2 and Pulp Fiction, Thurman has won recognition from the masses as being the sexy, strong female lead in most movies she’s cast in. Can she pull off the role of an aggressive hate-monger, too?
Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman will direct the film from a script by Chad Hodge, which focuses on Bryant’s 1977 campaign, where she successfully overturned a gay rights law in Florida and destroyed her acting career in the process.
It’s not Bryant’s first silver screen portrayal – she was also the antagonist in the movie Milk, as Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk campaigned against the statewide Proposition 6, which would have prevented gays and lesbians from working in California public schools.
Images of the real Bryant will be shown intermittently throughout the film, but Thurman will tackle the role of the highly-opinionated, strong-willed Christian woman that rallied against the gay rights movement during the 70s.
Anita is being discussed among financiers touring the Cannes Film Festival, but the project has been in production since 2010.
