Big-Name Actors in Real-Life Roles This Summer

From Russell Crowe to Julia Roberts to Helen Mirren's turn as The Queen, big-named actors have always lined up to play characters based on real people; perhaps for good reasons. Each of the above-mentioned actors won Academy Awards for their portrayals of real-life characters. That may be why four films of the summer season are not only based on true-to-life characters, but have enlisted some A-list talent to portray them.

Up first this summer is A Mighty Heart, opening across the U.S. at the end of June. In the film Angeline Jolie depicts Mariane Pearl, wife of Daniel Pearl, the reporter for the Wall Street Journal who was captured and killed in Pakistan in 2002. Whether or not this role earns Jolie an award is yet to be seen, but her first major starring role in the HBO film Gia, in which she portrayed real drug addict and model Gia Marie Carangi, won Jolie a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination.

In July, Don Cheadle, who portrayed hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, and received nominations for every major acting award as a result, takes on the role of Ralph "Petey" Greene, an ex-con radio talk show host in Washington D.C. during the Civil Rights era, in Talk to Me.

El Cantante, opening July 1^st, unites husband and wife team Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. Anthony portrays Hector Lavoe, a salsa dancer who helped spread the popularity of the dance craze in the mid-70s, at the beginning of the growth of Latino influence in the United States.

Jane Austen gets the star treatment at the hands of Anne Hathaway in this summer's film based on the author, Becoming Jane. The romantic fable is centered on a short relationship from the youth of one of history's most respected romantic novelists.

Perhaps the most star-powered life-based movie of the year does not make its debut during the summer, but is reserved for Christmas. In Charlie Wilson's War, based on the story of congressman Charlie Wilson from Texas, who attempted to help the rebels in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviets and may have changed the course of history as a result, Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts team up with Oscar-favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman.

It could be the challenge of portraying a person who existed or the opportunity to sink their teeth into great material, or maybe it's a little bit about the potential to earn some acting nominations on the award circuit. Whatever it is that draws actors to the stories of real-life people, this year it is drawing them in droves.