Kidman to play outed CIA spy

Nicole Kidman has been cast as Valerie Plame, the CIA agent who was outed in a Washington Post article in 2003.

The film will be directed by Doug Liman and based on Plame's memoir, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House.

Liman is enthusiastic about working with Kidman after the pair almost teamed up on Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

"She’s perfect if you’ve ever met Valerie. Nicole was supposed to play Jane Smith in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. We owe a movie together! "

Though much of Plame's book was censored by the American government, Liman feels he can still tell a compelling story.

He told MTV News: “I have a really, really insane take on how to tell it. It’s so outrageous.

"Ultimately, I’d be doing something no one has ever done before. Therefore it’s automatically appealing to me. I’m just starting to explore whether it is even possible to do."

Plame is the wife of former politician Joseph C. Wilson and was identified by a US journalist as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction". She was forced to quit the CIA after 20 years of service in 2005.