Rob Lowe certainly looks the part! On Wednesday, June 12, National Geographic Channel released the first picture of the actor portraying late American President John F. Kennedy in the upcoming movie Killing Kennedy. In the moving image, the actor recreates one of the politician's most famous portraits. Production on Killing Kennedy began in Richmond, Va., earlier this week and the movie is slated to air in November.
"Just saw Ginnifer Goodwin as Jackie Kennedy in the sad and awful blood-stained dress," Lowe, 49, tweeted June 11. "Extremely emotional." Killing Kennedy will be directed by Nelson McCormick, with whom Lowe previously worked with on The West Wing.
The two-hour docudrama is based on the best-selling book by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. The film chronicles the final years of Kennedy and his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Will Rothhaar) before their deaths in November 1963. Michelle Trachtenberg plays Oswald's wife, Marina Oswald Porter.
"I am so excited for the challenge to portray Marina Oswald, and to do my first role speaking only in Russian," Trachtenberg, 27, told Us Weekly in May. "I'm the only actor playing someone who is still alive, so I want to stay as true to her as possible. This is a story about JFK's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife Marina. And it is fascinating."
The real Oswald Porter, 71, currently lives in Dallas, Texas. Like many conspiracy theorists, she contends that her deceased husband was innocent. She remarried in 1965 and has two sons.
Lowe isn't the only star who'll be portraying the late president; James Marsden plays the American icon in director Lee Daniels' upcoming movie The Butler, slated for release on Aug. 16.
