Katie Holmes to Play Someone More Stylish Than Suri: Jackie Kennedy!

Actress will play the first lady of Camelot in the History Channel's The Kennedys

By Natalie Finn Apr 28, 2010 10:36 PMTags
Jackie Kennedy, Katie HolmesGetty Images; Lester Cohen/Getty Images

We know Katie Holmes can rock a bob, but can she pull off a pillbox hat?

The first lady of Tom Cruise Land has signed on to play Jacqueline Kennedy in The Kennedys, an upcoming History Channel miniseries about the dynastic political family, coming in 2011.

Greg Kinnear is set to play JFK himself, while Tom Wilkinson will portray patriarch Joe Kennedy Sr. and Barry Pepper will suit up as Robert F. Kennedy.

Quite the cast, eh?

"When HISTORY announced this ambitious project in December, our goal was A-list auspices behind and in front of the camera," network President and General Manager Nancy Dubuc said in a statement. "The amazing cast we announced today...is emblematic of that goal."

The Kennedys will be the fun-fact-peddling network's first foray into scripted miniseries. It will not, of course, be the first time the Massachusetts-based clan—and Camelot's enigmatic first lady—has been the focus of one.

From Sarah Michelle Gellar (Jackie as a teenager!) and Roma Downey in A Woman Named Jackie to Jeanne Tripplehorn's more recent portrayal in Grey Gardens, Jackie O. has been reinvented no less than 30 times on stage and screen.

We look forward to seeing what Katie Holmes does to make her Oleg Cassini-wearing, affair-tolerating, endlessly stylish and gracious first lady stand out.

________

Check out who else is planning to play some of our most prominent historical figures (or at least superheros, secret agents and romance-seeking singles) in our Casting Couch gallery.