Oct. 05, 2005
Hollywood Reporter

Four join 'Bobby' campaign
By Borys Kit

Writer-director Emilio Estevez is continuing to assemble a high-wattage cast for "Bobby," his passion project about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood, Nick Cannon and Freddy Rodriguez are joining the cast, which already includes Anthony Hopkins and Demi Moore. Estevez also has a role.

Bold Films is financing and producing the ensemble film, which mixes fact and fiction to chronicle the intertwining lives of a grand cast of characters, all of whom are present at Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel in the hours leading up to Kennedy's assassination.

Stone will play the wife of the hotel manager who works in the hotel's beauty salon. Wood's character is marrying a girl to change his draft classification. Cannon is a Youth for Kennedy volunteer, and Rodriguez is a hotel busboy.

Ten more major roles need to be filled, but after 4 1/2 years, Estevez is 2 1/2 weeks away from the first day of principal photography.

Estevez was inspired to make the film by his friend, director Roger Avary, who set his "Killing Zoe" primarily in one location. At the same time, he wanted to make a picture that was indigenous to Los Angeles, especially when so many movies are getting made out of the country.

"In 2000, I found myself at the Ambassador Hotel for a photo shoot with my brother, and I remember calling Roger going, 'I think I found it. I'm not sure what the story is, but I think it's going to be about the day Bobby Kennedy was shot,' " Estevez said. "I started to do the research and started writing. I finished it about a week before 9/11."

Kennedy had made an impression on Estevez when he was a child living in New York.

"I met Bobby when he was running for the Senate in 1967, and he was campaigning down the street from where we lived in New York," he said. "My father was doing some work on his campaign and took me down to this police precinct where they were campaigning. I was on his shoulders, and Bobby leaned out and shook my hands.

"I remember the morning he was shot, I woke up my father and told him the news. And the first stop we made when we moved to L.A. in 1969 was the Ambassador Hotel."

The Ambassador is slated for demolition, so the production hopes to re-create the hotel using the Biltmore hotel, Park Plaza Hotel and Hollywood Park. Some parts of the Ambassador will make it into the movie, however, after Estevez and his art and props department attended an auction on the hotel grounds Sept. 10 and managed to come away with stationary, some doors, keys, an oven, and the operator switchboard.

Bold Films' Edward Bass is producing, while the company's Michel Litvak will executive produce along with his team of Bold Films president Gary Michael Walters and Dan Grodnik. Hopkins also is executive producer. The budget is less than $10 million.

WMA-repped Stone appeared in "Broken Flowers" and next will be seen in "Alpha Dog." She recently completed "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction."

Wood, also repped by WMA, currently stars in Warner Independent Pictures' "Everything Is Illuminated" as well as the indie "Hooligans." He also is lending his voice to George Miller's animated feature "Happy Feet."

Cannon is host of "Wild 'N Out" on MTV and also can be seen in "Roll Bounce." He is repped by Endeavor and the Collective.

Rodriguez, best known for his work on "Six Feet Under," will be seen in the upcoming "Harsh Times" and also will appear in Wolfgang Petersen's "Poseidon." He is repped by UTA and RKM Management.