Dominic Cooper is the body double of Saddam's son

As Uday 'son of Saddam' Hussein found out even before his death in 2003, being the offspring of a totalitarian dictator can result in many people desiring to visit significant physical violence against you. To deflect such harm-wishers, Uday took to regularly substituting himself for a body-double, and we today learn that Dominic Cooper is set to star in a movie about said doppelganger.

Mamma Mia actor Cooper is, according to Screen Daily, set to take on the lead role in The Devil's Double, the true story of Latif Yahia, a former schoolmate of Uday's, who between 1987 and 1991 reluctantly served as the latter's public stand-in. Now a writer and blogger, Yahia's curious vocation consequently meant he was forced to witness the excesses of the notoriously brutal Uday - which will no doubt give scope for the filmmakers to crank up the nastiness quota of their movie. Director Lee Tamahori (Mulholland Falls and Die Another Day) is due to call the shots on a scheduled January shoot, and Molière actress Ludivine Sagnier looks set to sign on as Cooper's co-star. Michael Thomas, scriptwriter for Backbeat and ancient Matthew Broderick fantasy Ladyhawke, has penned the screenplay, based on the dual tomes by Yahia, I Was Saddam's Son and The Devil's Double.

With Dominic Cooper having made most impact to date in such fuzzy-edged fare as the aforementioned ABBA-fest and The Duchess, there can be no doubt that The Devil's Double marks a distinct change of direction for him. However if it had been Latif Yahia trawling round for a body double, then it seems unlikely Cooper would have struck him as a particular dead ringer.

Source: Screen Daily.