Jennifer Lawrence to Portray Fidel Castro's Lover Marita Lorenz in Upcoming Spy Movie

Jennifer Lawrence, who recently won a Golden Globe for playing the title character of Joy Mangano in the biopic Joy, is set to portray another strong female. The 25-year-old actress will soon be playing Marita Lorenz in the upcoming biopic and spy flick, Marita. Although both roles are of real life women, that's where the similarities end and the range of Lawrence's acting begins. Where Mangano is the story of a successful business woman who created the Miracle Mop, Lorenz was the lover of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

The romantic spy drama was pitched to Sony Pictures by Eric Warren Singer, the screenwriter who wrote American Hustle, for which Lawrence won a previous Golden Globe. It will be produced by Matt Tolmach, Scott Mednick, Andre Rouleau and Lawrence herself. Ironically, Cuba as a potential shooting location is a possibility now that the Obama administration has begun opening relations with Cuba once again and some restrictions are being eased.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the plot of the film centers on Lorenz's life and how she met and had an affair with Castro in 1959, which resulted in a pregnancy and subsequent abortion. After leaving Cuba, Lorenz joined the anti-communist movement in America and was later recruited by the CIA. She then returned to Cuba in 1960 to carry out an assassination attempt but abandoned the mission when her former feelings resurfaced. In addition, Lorenz claimed to have been involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination and became a spy for the FBI. She currently lives in Maryland.

Marita is scheduled to be released at the end of 2017. In the meantime, The Hunger Games star is gearing up for the Oscars next month for which she is nominated for Best Actress. Her next projects include X-Men: Apocalypse, due out this summer, and the sci-fi romance Passengers, due out at the end of the year. Lawrence is also in pre-production on the next Darren Aronofsky project and of course still developing her screenplay with Amy Schumer.