LOS ANGELES - UPI
Comic actress Anna Faris is in talks to co-star with Sacha Baron Cohen in \"The Dictator,\" The Hollywood Reporter said. Faris is best known for her work in the \"Scary Movie\" franchise, as well as in the big-screen comedies \"My Super Ex-Girlfriend\" and \"The House Bunny.\" Larry Charles, who directed Cohen in \"Borat,\" is scheduled to start shooting \"The Dictator\" June 5 in New York and Spain. The Paramount film is based on a novel published anonymously in 2000, but purported to have been written -- or at least influenced by -- by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who was executed for crimes committed against humanity. The studio described the movie in a press release last January as \"the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. It is inspired by the best-selling novel \'Zabibah and The King\' by Saddam Hussein.\" Ben Kingsley and Jason Mantzoukas have also joined the cast of the movie, The Hollywood Reporter said.