Hendricks is a bit more--ah--substantial than Chapman, who seems to be fairly petite. Besides, with Staite you have more of a chance to build a spy character who, like Chapman, is probably disarming and charming at first, sexy but subtle--a smoldering temptress. With Hendricks, it's more like a bonfire coming at you!
----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Baxter" <martinbaxt...@gmail.com> To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, July 3, 2010 7:02:26 AM Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Okay, Who's Gonna Play the Russian Spy in the Movie? Keith, my first thought at casting CHapman went to another "Firefly" alum, Christina Hendricks . Extra cred in this, because she just topped one of those innumerable Beautiful People Lists. On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 2:38 AM, Keith Johnson < keithbjohn...@comcast.net > wrote: Despite the large number of people being charged, the focus of the whole affair in the media is undoubtedly mostly on this lady. I've seen her described as the "Sexy spy", the "sultry spy", etc. They're all but leering over some kind of Mahta Hari aspect to this thing, as evidenced by the NY Daily News article below. And the fact that her dad was KGB, her ex-husband says he was "scary"? Well, this has "book" and "movie" written all over it. I guarantee you H'wood is already tossing around ideas as to who'll play a sexy young red haired ingenue who is in reality a cold, manipulative Russian agent. In terms of looks, I could see "Firefly" and "Stargate Atlantis" star Jewel Staite: Chapman: http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/06/30/alg_anna_chapman_closeup.jpg Staite: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/43/79175487_e683e972db.jpg ********************************************* http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/07/02/2010-07-02_spy_babe_raised_by_kgb_daddy.html The red apple didn't fall far from the tree. Anna Chapman - the sexy star of this summer's spy saga - is the daughter of a former KGB agent, reports from Moscow and London say. As nine of the 11 accused spies appeared in court Thursday - and prosecutors revealed that at least one has confessed his loyalty to Russia - more details emerged about the slinky Manhattan spook who has caught the world's fancy. Anna Chapman is really Anya Kushchenko , the daughter of Vasily Kushchenko, a diplomat who worked in Russian embassies in Africa . Her British ex-husband, Alex Chapman , told the Daily Telegraph in London she said her father - still a top official in Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry - had been "high up in the ranks of the KGB." "He was scary," Chapman said of his former father-in-law, whom he met on his honeymoon in Zimbabwe . "He always seemed to have a lot more security than the other diplomats. He had a Land Rover with blacked-out windows and there was always one car in front of it and one car behind." Father and daughter were close, he said. "I felt she would have done anything for her dad," Chapman told the newspaper. "When I saw that she had been arrested on suspicion of spying, it didn't come as much of a surprise to be honest." The couple married in 2002, five months after they met in a London nightclub. She moved from Moscow to London and worked for Barclay's Bank, said Chapman, who is training to be a shrink. "Toward the end of our marriage she became very secretive, going for meetings on her own with 'Russian friends.'... She was transformed into someone with access to a lot of money, boasting about all the influential people she was meeting." They were divorced in 2006. He said that though she had always disliked Americans, complaining about their accents, she suddenly decided in 2007 she wanted to exploit "business opportunities" in the U.S. She moved to New York that year. They kept in touch. Chapman said his ex-wife sounded "distant" when they last spoke four weeks ago. One of New York's other accused spies, Yonkers college Prof. Juan Lazaro , declared his total loyalty to Moscow after his arrest, the government said. In his "lengthy postarrest statement," Lazaro also admitted that his wife, Peruvian El Diario columnist Vicky Pelaez , traveled to Peru to deliver Lazaro's invisible ink letters to "the Service" - the Russian SVR, which used to be called the KGB, prosecutors said. Lazaro told prosecutors he loved the 17-year-old son he had with Pelaez, but "he would not violate his loyalty to the Service, even for his son." Lazaro, who once taught at CUNY's Baruch College , admitted Moscow paid for his house and that he wasn't really born in Uruguay or named Juan Lazaro, but he wouldn't reveal his real identity, prosecutors said. Nine of the 10 suspects appeared in court in Boston , Virginia and Manhattan to petition for bail. All were denied but Pelaez, who is to be freed to house arrest as soon as Tuesday on $250,000 bail. "This would give her an opportunity to explain," said her lawyer Carlos Moreno . "She is not a spy for Russia." Chapman was previously ordered held without bond. The 11th suspect, accused paymaster Christopher Metsos , was on the lam after skipping bail in Cyprus . New documents appear to partially exonerate Pelaez. Prosecutors said that unlike the other defendants, she was not trained in espionage by Moscow and did not use a false name. The FBI found eight unmarked envelopes, each containing $10,000 in crisp new $100 bills, in Pelaez and Lazaro's safe deposit box. Their son was in the courtroom for the hearing. The future of the six children that the feds say three of the Russian couples bore to make their cover more convincing remains up in the air. Besides the two Boston teenagers, Patricia Mills and Michael Zottoli have two toddlers, and Richard and Cynthia Murphy of Montclair, N.J. , have two daughters, 11 and 7. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/07/02/2010-07-02_spy_babe_raised_by_kgb_daddy.html#ixzz0sbBOLsZ7 -- "If all the world's a stage and we are merely players, who the bloody hell wrote the script?" -- Charles E Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik
