News > Angelina Jolie will play Edwin A. Salt

Via: Variety 

The character of "Edwin A. Salt" recently had his gender reassigned, so he is now a she, and she will be played by Angelina Jolie and not Tom Cruise, who was originally expected to star in the espionage thriller. 

Jolie is close to a deal to play the title character, a CIA officer who's accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy and must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence.

Cruise had long flirted with the project, but that ended recently. The well-regarded script had several male movie stars circling.

Jolie took a liking to it, prompting the studio's decision to rewrite it. Sources said the project won't require that much of an overhaul to suit her.

After Universal beefed up Jolie's role in "Wanted" and then marketed the action film squarely on Jolie's shoulders and watched it gross $132 million domestically, Jolie reestablished in the wake of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" that she is the rare female who is viable in an action genre that has been almost the exclusive domain of men.