"I couldn't get Julia out of my head when I was reading Lolly's book. Elinor is such a strong, complicated woman, and bringing her to the screen required Julia's integrity, empathy, humor and legs," Coffey said.
Roberts is currently in production on Universal's Charlie Wilson's War opposite Tom Hanks and has a voice-over lead role in children's flick Charlotte's Web.
Two US university students featured in a scene from box-office hit Borat had a request for the scene to be removed from the film rejected by a Los Angeles court this week.
Lawyers for the students — whose names have been withheld — had argued the scene had the potential to harm the two men's reputations in perpetuity if it remained in theater and DVD versions of the movie.
As well the scene's removal, the two students are seeking financial damages from the film's makers, claiming they were misled into appearing in the spoof documentary.
However Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph Biderman turned down the request for the scene to be cut.
In Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, British comic Sacha Baron Cohen plays a fictional Kazakh journalist blundering across America in search of cultural enlightenment.
The two students suing the movie's makers appear in the film when Borat hitches a ride in their motorhome.
The scene shows the men appearing to get drunk and watching the infamous Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee sex videotape.
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