Oprah Winfrey to return to acting with `The Butler`

Los Angeles: Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is mulling a return to acting with the film ‘The Butler’ about Eugene Allen, a black man who worked as butler in the White House, serving eight presidents from 1952 to 1986.

The Lee Daniels directed film would be her first live-action movie since 1998`s ‘Beloved’, the Hollywood Reporter said. Actors Hugh Jackman, Mila Kunis and John Cusack are names that have surfaced to play real-life figures. Daniels also wants David Oyelowo to portray the butler. Winfrey would play Allen`s wife. Kunis would play Jackie Kennedy and Cusack would play Richard Nixon. It`s unclear who Jackman, who was to have appeared in Daniels` stalled Selma project, would portray. Winfrey also has attached herself to an untitled Universal dramedy set at a home shopping network to be directed by Michael Patrick King and co-starring Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock, but development on that project has stalled. The 58-year-old, who scored an Oscar nomination for 1985`s ‘The Color Purple’, has voice-acted in films such as ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and ‘Charlotte`s Web’. She also has appeared as herself on television, most notably on NBC`s ‘30 Rock’, and is the co-owner with Discovery Communications of the Oprah Winfrey Network. PTI