"Queen of the Desert" adds Robert Pattinson to the cast

The cast of Werner Herzog’s indie “Queen of the Desert,” which will star Naomi Watts as English writer Gertrude Bell has been joined by Robert Pattinson in this biopic of Gertrude Bell.

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Naomi Watts is starring as Bell, described as the female Lawrence of Arabia for the impact the English woman had in the Middle East and her work in establishing what would become the modern framework for Jordan and Iraq. 

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Pattinson will play T.E. Lawrence, the archeologist-turned-British Army officer whose writing earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, on whom David Lean’s classic 1962 epic is based. T.E.Lawrence played key roles in Middle Eastern revolutions in the same time period and became close friends with Bell. Peter O’Toole portrayed the explorer in the 1962 classic.

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This film will chronicle Bell’s life as a writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political attache for the British Empire. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford at the turn of the 20th century, she traveled through the Middle East, defining the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Cassian Elwes and Nick Raslan (Herzog’s “Rescue Dawn”) are producing the pic, which is aiming to start production in late fall.

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