.

Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey To Star In Elvis & Nixon Film

11/07/2014
.
(Radio.com) The film Elvis & Nixon will, directed by Liza Johnson, was co-written by actor Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) and will star Kevin Spacey as Nixon and Michael Shannon as Elvis. Shannon himself is a musician: he plays guitar in a band called Corporal. Also, he played a federal agent (albeit a psychotic one who later ended up as a gangster in Al Capone's employ) in Boardwalk Empire. The film does not yet have a release date.

The White House had one of its stranger photo opportunities in December of 1970, when Elvis Presley showed up, unannounced, and asked to speak with the President. Richard Nixon obliged, and the two men had a conversation that history did not record, but has fascinated generations. What is known about the meeting is that Presley gave Nixon a Colt .45 revolver and asked for a job as an honorary federal agent, believing himself to be uniquely qualified to help keep teenagers off drugs (a feat he didn't manage for himself). The two seemingly vastly different men were united by their dislike of hippies, and a mutual feeling that the culture was passing them by.

Now that strange, historic meeting will be dramatized in director Liza Johnson's upcoming film Elvis & Nixon, co-written by Cary Elwes (yes, that Cary Elwes), and starring Kevin Spacey as the President and Michael Shannon as the King. Spacey is no stranger to slimy politicians, given his current run on House Of Cards. Shannon is the more unorthodox choice, but playing an intense, isolated man who's starting to creep into paranoia and delusion sounds like it's right in Shannon's wheelhouse.

Read more here.

Radio.com is an official news provider for antiMusic.com.
Copyright Radio.com/CBS Local - Excerpted here with permission.

Elvis Music, DVDs, Books and more

Elvis T-shirts and Posters

Share this article

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Pin it Share on Reddit email this article


...end



advertisement