Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz (The
Favourite) will play Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming biopic A
Special Relationship.
The film based on a script from Simon
Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) will focus on how Taylor
transformed herself from an Oscar-winning actress into an HIV/AIDS
activist who helped raise more than $270 million towards AIDS
awareness and research.
According to Deadline, the movie
from female directing duo Bert and Bertie (“The Berts”) will be
seen through the lens of her friendship with her assistant Roger
Wall, a gay man.
Wall, who grew up poor in the Deep
South, took his own life rather than face a lingering death from the
ravages of AIDS.
In a 1992 interview with Vanity
Fair, Taylor, who died at age 79 in 2011, called Wall's suicide a
year earlier “one of the biggest losses” of her life.
In the same interview, she said that
she knew her friend and former co-star Rock Hudson was gay but
assumed he was dying from cancer.
Taylor's commitment to raising AIDS
awareness turned her into a beloved iconic figure in the LGBT
community.