Harris Taken For Grant-ed In Spielberg's Lincoln

Jared Harris has been cast as Ulysses S. Grant in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln biopic says Variety.

Daniel Day-Lewis will play Abraham Lincoln, in the Steven Spielberg directed pic. While Academy Award winner Sally Field will star as Mary Todd Lincoln, wife to the 16th President of the United States

Grant, who later became the 18th president, was the most successful  Union general during the American Civil War, starting with victories at Shiloh and Vicksburg.

The great cast for this epic biopic also includes Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, David Strathairn John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson Bruce McGill Joseph Cross David Costabile, Byron Jennings, Dakin Matthews, Boris McGiver, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, Walton Goggins Lee Pace Jackie Earle Haley David Oyelowo and David Warshofsky

Based on the best-selling book, Team of Rivals: by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the screenplay was penned by award winning writer Tony Kushner.

Spielbergt talked "Lincoln" in an interview with The Orlando Sentinel some weeks back saying that "we’re only focusing in on the last four months of Abraham Lincoln’s life" and about the great work he did in those early months of 1865 before his assassination in mid-April.

Other events likely to be included in the film are Lincoln’s landslide re-election, his second inaugural address, and the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment.

The long gestating film that once had Liam Neeson playing Lincoln will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Spielberg.

Shooting will begin soon in Virginia for release after next year's US election