Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is Getting A Movie — Natalie Portman Will Play Notorious RBG

Natalie Portman has been confirmed for the role of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a movie that will begin production by the end of this year. It’s called On The Basis Of Sex, and it centers on Justice Ginsburg’s role as the second female Supreme Court Justice.

According to Guardian Post, Justice Ginsburg will be portrayed by Natalie Portman in a movie that will follow the career of the Supreme Court Justice, whose scathing dissent in the Hobby Lobby case earned her the title “Notorious RBG.”

There is relatively little information released about the script so far. We know that it made the 2014 Black List (pdf warning) — a list of scripts that film executives loved, but that won’t be in production that calendar year. It made the list with mentions by 17 film execs, compared to several scripts receiving over 30 mentions and one hitting 51 mentions, so it’s not the single most-loved not-yet-begun script among film executives, but even making the list is rather major.

From Deadline, we know the producer is Robert W. Cort, of Mr. Holland’s Opus, Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Jumanji, and numerous others that have racked up a stack of awards. The director is expected to be Marielle Heller, of Diary Of A Teenage Girl and MacGruber.

As for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her career is a snapshot of the fight for women’s equality. According to the Academy ofAchievement, her path has included:

• Being one of only nine women in a class of 500 at Harvard Law School — where her professor asked the females to justify themselves in taking seats that could be occupied by men.
• Serving on both Harvard and Columbia University Law Review panels — Ginsburg wasn’t only the first woman, but the first person to do so.
• Struggling to find employment due to anti-female prejudice, including being declined a job as law clerk by one Supreme Court Justice.
• Co-founding the first law journal in the U.S. devoted to gender equality.

That’s only the tiniest fraction of Justice Ginsburg’s achievements through her career, and an incredible amount of it centers around gender equality. There can be little doubt that Ruth Bader Ginsburg contributed greatly to women’s rights in the U.S.

The upcoming film will focus on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s work for women’s rights, and her struggle to be treated as an equal herself, up to and including an appointment as the second female Supreme Court Justice, and the first who was both female and Jewish.

[Photo by:Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images]