Forest Whitaker. Oprah Winfrey. David Oyelowo. Robin Williams. Alex Pettyfer. Cuba Gooding Jr. James Marsden. John Cusack. Jane Fonda. Terrence Howard. Lenny Kravitz. Melissa Leo. Vanessa Redgrave. Alan Rickman. Liev Schrieber. The Butler, the new film from director Lee Daniels, has one of the most impressive ensemble casts of recent memory, and the brand new trailer seen above, courtesy of Yahoo!, certainly does a good job of showing all of them off.
Based on an article by Wil Haygood titled "A Butler Well Served by This Election" and adapted by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong, the new movie is based on the true story of Eugene Allen (renamed Cecil Gaines and played by Forest Whitaker), a butler who served at the White House for seven different sitting Presidents of the United States. The film will span his entire life leading up to his retirement in 1986.
Naturally, there are plenty of historical figure portrayals at play, including Ronald and Nancy Reagan (Rickman, Fonda), Richard Nixon (Cusack), Dwight D. Eisenhower (Williams), John and Jackie Kennedy (Marsden and Minka Kelly), Jacie Lyndon B. Johnson (Schreiber), and Martin Luther King Jr. (Nelsan Ellis). While many of the actors look great in their parts, and look like they've had plenty of makeup work done (particularly Williams), some of them don't look like they've had their appearances changed at all. It sounds like Cusack has the voice down, but who thinks this is what Nixon really looked like?
The Butler, set to be released by The Weinstein Company, will be in theaters October 18th.
