Lee Pace is one of those actors where it’s surprising they haven’t had more success in the film world. After Pushing Daisies was cancelled on TV, he has indie success in A Single Man but more mainstream efforts like Marmaduke failed. However he will soon be seen in the adaptations of Twilight: Breaking Dawn, he’s got a part in The Hobbit movies and now Deadline reports he’s joined the increasingly impressive cast of Spielberg’s Lincoln.
Pace will play New York City mayor Fernando Wood. The character was an early ally to the Confederate cause, who frequently corresponded with President Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis). Wood’s action could have changed the course of America forever, as he suggested seceding from the Union to become a ‘Free City’, which would have allowed the incredibly important cotton trade to continue. If that had happened, it could have drastically altered the course of the Civil War, but thankfully Wood’s idea was roundly derided and it was the death of his political career.
Steven Spielberg is directing Lincoln from a screenplay by Tony Kushner (Munich). The superd cast already includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson, and with Spielberg getting great names even for smaller roles, we can expect the list to swell even further before it starts shooting later this year, for release late 2012.