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Oscar Winner Sean Penn Plays Fair

This year's Best Actor Oscar winner, Sean Penn, is set to team up with his 21 Grams co-star Naomi Watts in Fair Game. Watts was nominated for an Oscar for her work on 21 Grams.

Fair Game is a true-life political drama about the Plame Affair, which involved CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, an undercover operative whose classified identity and relationship with the CIA was outed in the press, which subsequently put her life and work in danger. Mr. & Mrs. Smith director Doug Liman is set to direct the film. Penn is in deep negotiations to take the role of Wilson's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, but nothing has been 100 percent solidified at press time.

Plame Wilson's CIA status was revealed through an article in The New York Times in July 2003. Her husband wrote op-ed columns which criticized the Bush Administration for revealing his wife's status and accused the Administration of finagling intelligence about the Iraq War invasion and weapons of mass destruction. The film is based on Plame Wilson's memoir. She left the CIA in 2005 and she and her husband eventually filed a civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush cabinet.

In other Watts news, the actress may have given birth to her second son just three months ago, but she is wasting no time heading back to work and staying busy. She will also star in an as-yet untitled Woody Allen film alongside Best Supporting Actor nominee (and Penn co-star) Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins in what is shaping up to be an ensemble (and Academy Award nominated) cast. Freida Pinto, star of Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire, has also been added to the film's cast. It's only her second role, as Slumdog was her first film.

As previously reported, Allen is keeping the film's title and plot details tightly under wraps.

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
02.24.09