EXCLUSIVE: After playing Monaco’s Prince Rainer III in the Cannes opening-night film Grace Of Monaco, Tim Roth will play another period figure in a major feature. He’s signing on to the cast of Selma, and he will be playing George Wallace, the Alabama governor who favored segregation and whose bullying tactics galvanized Martin Luther King Jr and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. The Ava DuVernay-directed film for Paramount is shaping up with a strong cast that includes David Oyelowo as Dr. King and Tom Wilkinson is President Lyndon Johnson. Wallace turned out to be a key player in the proceedings, though it 
hardly ended up like he hoped it would. He vowed to stop the march, and when the first wave of protesters turned up, they were brutally beaten by Wallace’s Alabama State Troopers. This created national outrage, and protesters white and black began arriving from all over the country. The continued violence led LBJ to say that this was not a black problem or a white problem but an American problem, and it prompted the president to push for the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed African-Americans the right to vote.
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Roth’s repped by CAA and Markham Froggatt & Irwin. Selma is produced by Slumdog Millionaire‘s Christian Colson, DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt and his Plan B cohorts Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner. DuVernay wrote the script with Paul Webb.
What, they can’t find any American actors to play Wallace and LBJ. What’s up with that?
Yeah. It’s because the agents and casting people have a built-in prejudice of Anglophilia. I am sure there are American actors in the south who can portray a southern governor but the PBS mentality of Hollywood would never think to look there. One would never know that there are a slew of resident theaters throughout the USA with performers of high quality. When was the last time you saw a guest playing a teacher who wasn’t a Brit? It’s the shortcut of Hollywood–chose a brand known, rather than explore and discover an American. It makes their job easier even as it helps destroy the creation of home grown talent.
Southern accents are the most tricky because they differ so much from place to place throughout the South. Nothing worse than a badly done Southern accent. Voice coaches will have their work cut out for them.