SEVILLE, Spain -- Ben Kingsley and actress wife Daniela Lavender are to star together in Indian epic "Taj."
Based on true events, "Taj" turns on the troubled relationship between 17th century Indian Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, best known for building the Taj Mahal, and Persian princess and wife Kandahari Begum.
Kingsley will play Shah Jahan, Lavender Kandahari Begum. Kingsley will produce.
The screenplay has just been completed by British playwright, novelist and actor David Ashton.
Though an epic love story, "Taj" also sports a social underbelly.
"Kandahari was a strong-willed woman and a constant intriguer. But at that time women had to be really strong to have a voice in a world so completely dominated by men," Lavender said at the Seville European Film Festival, where Kingsley was presented with an international honorary award.
A longterm Kingsley project, "Taj" is skedded to roll mid to late 2010.
Born in Bahia, Brazil, Lavender comes to "Taj" having just come off a four-month British Shakespeare Company European tour where she played Hippolyta/Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Budgeted at $25 million-$30 million, "Taj" is set up at Kingsley's London-based production shingle, SBK Pictures. A director has yet to be attached.
Co-producing with London-based Brazilian director Zadoque Lopes, SBK is also developing a seven-part miniseries "Cousin Basilio," based on a book by Portugal's greatest 19th-century realist novelist, Eca de Queiros.
Set in Lisbon in 1848, "Basilio" turns on a repressed scheming housekeeper who blackmails her adulteress mistress. Lavender, who brought the project to SBK, will play the housekeeper.
"Basilio" has yielded a much-praised 1988 TVGlobo telenovela and Daniel Filho's 2007 free movie adaptation, a hit in Brazil.
Script is written by Lopes and Powell Jones, before the latter's death last year.
"The idea is to transform this into a 'Rome'-style adult period drama, bringing out the sex and sexuality underlying everything in that society, its adultery and jealousy," Lavender said.
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