Natalie Portman will play feminist icon and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in the upcoming biopic On the Basis of Sex.
Deadline reports the film’s script, which was written by Daniel Stiepleman and made the 2014 Black List, will follow Ginsburg’s life as she fights for equality in her career.
Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School, and went on to become a staunch courtroom advocate for gender equality as the director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980 and was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton after his inauguration in 1993.
As a judge, she is considered a part of the Supreme Court’s moderate-liberal bloc, in favor of gender equality, workers’s rights, and the separation of church and state.
In 1999, she won the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award for her contributions to gender equality and civil rights.
The film’s Portman casting announcement comes on the heels of statements made by the actress this week, where she described herself as “quite leftist” in relation to Israeli culture, the country where she was born.
The actress expressed her displeasure with Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent re-election, saying, “I am very, very upset and disappointed that he was re-elected. I find his racist comments horrific.”
She also stated: “I’d feel nervous about being a black man in this country. I’d feel nervous about being a Muslim in many places.”
Entertainment Weekly reports On the Basis of Sex could start production by the end of this year.
Diary of a Teenage Girl director Marielle Heller is reportedly negotiating to direct the film.
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