Blanchett to play Mata Hari is spy film

Actress Cate Blanchett is to play Mata Hari in a TV film about the infamous First World War spy, it emerged today.

The Elizabeth star will team up with Gosford Park director Robert Altman for the production which is being made for US cable station HBO.

Altman said he had always wanted Blanchett to play the femme fatale who turned from an exotic dancer to a suspected double agent working for both the French and the German military intelligence.

The film was best suited for the small screen because the producers are planning a three-hour mini-epic, he told the Hollywood Reporter.

‘‘To do it the way I plan on doing it would not fit a theatrical release because it would be too long a picture.

‘‘It pleases my soul to be able to go after an audience that will get what we are doing.’’

Dutch-born Mata Hari was hired by the French Secret Service at the start of the war to perform for the German high command and try to obtain military secrets.

But after it emerged that German officers were paying her she was arrested by the French, denounced as a traitor and later shot by a firing squad in 1917.