DENNIS QUAID - QUAID TO PLAY CLINTON TO MICHAEL SHEEN'S BLAIR

QUAID TO PLAY CLINTON TO MICHAEL SHEEN'S BLAIR

Dennis Quaid will portray Bill Clinton as Michael Sheen reprises his role as Tony Blair in a new television film about the two politicians.

Sheen has already played the former prime minister in The Deal (2003) - Peter Morgan's fictionalised account of the supposed arrangement between Blair and Gordon Brown - and The Queen, Morgan's 2006 film about the death of Princess Diana.

And while Sheen has since played David Frost in Frost/Nixon and Brian Clough in The Damned United, he will return to his most noted role as Blair for The Special Relationship, a new film about the political partnership between Blair and former US president Bill Clinton.

Oscar nominee Julianne Moore is to play ex-First Lady Hillary Clinton while British actress Helen McCrory will return to the role of Cherie Blair.

The Special Relationship has not yet been given the green light but should HBO and BBC Films raise funding for the project, it could mark the directing debut of Morgan.

He previously told the Daily Express newspaper he found the relationship between Blair and Clinton more interesting than that between the former and George W Bush.

"I couldn't write him with any dignity or elegance," he said. "I don't want to spend the time thinking about him.

"Everything that happened pre-9/11 is now Jurassic history and we've completely forgotten it and therefore to explore what happened ten or 15 years ago is really, really interesting."