Blonde ambition: Johannson cast as Mary, Queen of Scots

She may be the quintessential American starlet and blonde, but that has not stopped Hollywood actress Scarlett Johannson taking on the lead role in a new film about the flame-haired Mary, Queen of Scots.

The production company Relatively Media made the announcement yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival. Filming for the historical epic is scheduled to begin later this summer.

The production company said that the film would see Johannson "battle political enemies, scheming allies, and affairs of the heart in her quest to reunite the warring tribes of her native Scotland." The director will be John Curran, whose work includes the Golden Globe-winning The Painted Veil.

But not everyone on this British-set film will be brought over from the US, as the script comes from Jimmy McGovern, the Liverpudlian writer known for his gritty screenplays. The creator of the drama serial Cracker, McGovern has already written a drama on Mary, Queen of Scots for the BBC in 2004.

The fact that Johansson is American has proved no barrier in the past to her playing foreign roles; she has already performed non-US characters in films such as The Girl With A Pearl Earring, where she played the 16-year-old muse Griet to Dutch artist Vermeer.

Followers of the film's progress have expressed their concern at the lead casting choice, however, with fans writing into the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and commenting that she is "completely wrong" for the role, and citing specifically her "wrong nationality for the part".

Johannson, who won best actress at the 2003 Baftas for her starring role in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation was a performer from a very early age. Her debut was the1994 film North, but her first major role came in 1998, when she acted alongside Robert Redford in The Horse Whisperer.

Since then she has starred in many major Hollywood films, including Woody Allen's Match Point. Brian de Palma's film noir picture The Black Dahlia, is one of her most recent releases, which received mixed reviews.

Johansson, 22, has become as famous for her looks as for her acting career, and was last year voted sexiest woman alive by men's magazine Esquire. This should stand her in good stead for the part of Mary Stuart, an established beauty of her time.

The film follows the Oscar-winning 1971 biopic on the Scottish monarch, starring Vanessa Redgrave as Mary and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth I. But this year's epic is expected to concentrate on Mary's strained personal and political relationship with her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Mary ruled Scotland from 1542 to 1567. She was named Queen of Scotland when only six days old, and was the last Catholic monarch to rule Scotland. She fled to England after the collapse of her third marriage, leaving her son to take the throne. Hoping to take refuge with her Protestant cousin Elizabeth I, she was instead imprisoned, as Elizabeth feared a Catholic uprising. After 19 years in jail, Mary was beheaded aged 42 for having designs on Elizabeth's throne.

The film,which has the working title Mary, Queen of Scots, is due out next year.