Altman, Blanchett Spy On 'mata Hari'

Robert Altman and Cate Blanchett are teaming up to play a spy game.

The conspirators may be Oscar nominees — Altman's a seven-time nominee, most recently for directing last year's "Gosford Park," and Blanchett garnered a best actress nom for 1998's "Elizabeth" — but this time they are plotting a project for the small screen, the HBO feature "Mata Hari." With Altman at the helm, Blanchett will play the exotic and notorious real-life World War I spy, whose name is synonymous with espionage.

Altman said in an interview that he had always intended the project to be a vehicle for Blanchett and decided that HBO offered the perfect outlet for it because he is planning a three-hour tale, nearly the same length as the cable network's recent "Path to War," a White House view of the Vietnam War directed by the late John Frankenheimer.

"To do it the way I plan on doing it would not fit a theatrical release because it would be too long a picture," Altman said. "It's such a big undertaking that if we did it at HBO, we could do it in a full three hours. It pleases my soul to be able to go after an audience that will get what we are doing."

Altman, who generally finds a new twist to whatever genre he tackles, envisions telling this particular spy story as a "Rashomon"-like saga because, in his view, Hari was "a different person to different people."

According to history, Hari was an exotic dancer who moved in the highest circles of Europe. She was recruited by the French secret service to mingle with the Germans and collect military secrets. She later may have become a double agent, working for both the French and the Germans, exchanging information between the sheets. She was eventually arrested by the French, who condemned her to death by firing squad in 1917.

Altman said that, in his "Rashomon" version, "you'll see one man tell his view of her where she is a spy, and then in a parallel version you'll see another person's view where she is not a spy. The stories will not be told in a linear way but will all be shuffled together."

Julie Talen ("Harriet the Spy") is writing the script, which Altman and Donna Gigliotti ("Shakespeare in Love") will executive produce.

Altman, who expects to see the first draft of the script by November, plans to shoot the project in Europe, complete with battle scenes involving mustard gas attacks.

"Mata Hari" reunites Altman with HBO, for whom he directed the 1988 HBO miniseries "Tanner '88" and the 1985 telefilm "The Laundromat." Altman, repped by ICM, most recently directed "Gosford Park." Before going into production on "Mata Hari," Altman said he plans to shoot Killer Films' "The Company," about a company of ballet dancers, which could go into production as early as the fall.

Although Blanchett worked in television in her native Australia, HBO's "Mata Hari" will mark the first time she will have worked on the American small screen. The actress has played several real-life characters, including the title roles in "Elizabeth" and the upcoming Walt Disney Co. feature "Veronica Guerin," about the slain Irish journalist of the same name. In last year's feature "Charlotte Gray," she played a Scottish woman who joined the French Resistance during World War II. In addition, she is playing Galadriel in the three "The Lord of the Rings" features. Blanchett is repped by WMA.

The role of Hari was made famous by Greta Garbo in the 1931 MGM feature of the same name.