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Sunday 27 May 2012

Hollywood Beckons

Wednesday, 4th March 2009

You will all be delighted to hear that today I finally signed away the rights to my life story. Stop laughing at the back!

Longstanding followers of The Bright Stuff will remember that I (perhaps rather grandly) said I was leaving the New Statesman to work on a film project. The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War is the story of Katharine Gun, the GCHQ whistleblower who disclosed details of a joint US/UK operation to fix the vote at the United Nations for a second resolution to authorise war in Iraq. As the recipient of the original leaked document from the US National Security Agency asking for GCHQ's help I played a small part in the drama.

Now that Katharine and I have signed up, the writers of the script, Sara and Greg Bernstein can start hawking it around Hollywood's A-list actresses, who hold all the power. I'm sure the Winslets and Blanchetts will be falling over each other to play a woman who stood alone within her organisation to avert what she saw as an illegal war.

Casting the journalist may be a little more difficult. Sean Penn, Christian Bale or Clive Owen would be the obvious choices, but if the casting director takes a look at the photo accompanying The Bright Stuff it may end up being Jack Black.

Filed under: GCHQ (5 more articles) , Hollywood (23 more articles) , Iraq (159 more articles) , Katharine Gun (5 more articles) , United Nations (83 more articles)

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Fergus Pickering

March 4th, 2009 11:29pm Report this comment

Juging by your picture, the guy to play you would be Kenneth Connor the Carry On actor - about forty years ago.

Kevyn Bodman

March 5th, 2009 4:33am Report this comment

An interesting film project about an issue which should be more widely known.

Unfortunately it matters which actress readss the lines written for her because of some shallow audiences.

Get Jennifer Aniston.
I used to think she was just a pretty face but she has demonstrated in a couple of films that she really did learn her trade as an actress before being a hairstyle in Friends.
She really can act.

(Oops, on this blog should I refer to Jennifer Aniston as an actor?)

Or Sandra Bullock.
She has been in some mediocre films but she ALWAYS looks wonderful, and regularly comes top of our male work-place discussions of famous female actors.

Hugh

March 5th, 2009 8:55am Report this comment

Strange as it sounds, I'd go for Emilio Estevez for you: http://images.newstatesman.com/articles/2006/947/947_p36.jpg

Obviously without the 'tache.

Do I get a prize?

THX1138

March 5th, 2009 9:41am Report this comment

Good luck with that but wasn't that story already filmed

The Whistle Blower With Michael Caine

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092206/

Austin Barry

March 5th, 2009 10:13am Report this comment

Fergus, come on, be fair. Martin looks like a million dollars - well, ok, Zimbabwean - and should be played by diminutive no-nonsense actor Verne Troyer. This I would pay to see.

RW

March 5th, 2009 11:00am Report this comment

And there I was thinking you'd left the poor old NS as part of the natural political progression most people make as they grow older and more sensible - towards a conservative outlook. You'd even admitted to having grasped the "difficult thought" that "conservatives are people too", you said.

Stick at it. Don't be seduced by Hollywood glitz. There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repenteth...

fulcanelli

March 5th, 2009 11:56am Report this comment

I know lefties are often depressed, and constantly moaning about how unfair life is etc, etc... but at least show a little smile in the photo.

Probably Dec from Ant and Dec for the role in the film, if only you could smile at the moment.

Wilhelm

March 5th, 2009 3:21pm Report this comment

Here's the list Martin and I want 10%

Whoopee Goldberg as Kathrine.
Chris Rock or Jim Carrey as the male lead.
Jerry Lewis as Saddam Hussein
Julian Clary as Tony Blair
Bill Cosby as Colin Powell
Warren Beaty as Donald Rumsfield.
Tom Hanks as Dick Cheney.
George Clooney as Karl Rove.
Jane Fonda as Rush Limbaugh
Sean Penn as George Bush.

Ruairidh

March 6th, 2009 1:03pm Report this comment

Would it be churlish to point out that Gunn's smoking gun (no pun intended) was little more than a smouldering peashooter and had no impact whatsoever on events. Indeed her revelation was about as shocking as revealing that [hold the front page!] spies actually do some spying? To me at least the most shocking thing about this episode was that GCHQ had sprung such a blatant and traceable leak; the content itself was rather dull.

Mind you once some script writers get in on the act I'm sure that will change and the memo will become something much more devastating, perhaps with shadowy figures attempting to thwart her as shadowy figures do. You know something responsible like that to jazz it up, something to get the David Kelly conspiracy theorists' minds racing in their tin foil hats. Also the nationality of the protagonists has to change. One of the good guys has to be American and since the boss baddy in this tale is American (NSA or George W. take your pick) we need more than one. So either the action will move on mass to the USA or Gunn will be an NSA secondee and the journalist will be in the USA. In fact by the end I’d put money on the final product having only passing resemblance to actual events and a whole load of self serving nonsense, a bit like the WMD reports.

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