Filmmakers in Moscow said Sunday that Hollywood star Leonardo di Caprio, 33, would be ideal to play Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, dpa reported.
"We have compared di Caprio's photos with those of the younger Lenin and the similarity is striking: he could play the role without make-up," renowned screenwriter Alexander Borojanski told Interfax news agency.
The actor had Slavic features and the same expression as Lenin, he said.
It was uncertain whether the producers would manage to get di Caprio to play the role. They said Sunday they wanted to discuss it with di Caprio's agents first.
The film's working title was Lenin's Brain and it was a comedy with a 13-million-euro (20-million-dollar) budget, said Borojanski, who has just starting writing the script.
Russian scientists manage to clone Lenin in the science-fiction comedy and he then sparks a socialist revolution in the United States in the year 2004.
Lenin (1870-1924) led the Russian communist uprising in 1917, known as the October Revolution.
Film experts praised the idea Sunday.
"Lenin has long been an icon of pop culture. Why shouldn't he be the object of a grotesque film?" the chairman of the Russian Film Critics' Association, Andrei Plakhov, said.
"It is common knowledge that di Caprio has Slavic roots. His ancestors on his mother's side emigrated from Russia to Germany," said Natalya Semina, director of the Moscow International Film Festival.