Model and heiress Lydia Hearst Shaw has landed her first big Hollywood role as a comic character based on troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan. Hearst, a 26-year-old heir to the Hearst publishing fortune and daughter of once-kidnapped Patricia Campbell Hearst and Bernard Shaw, will play the lead role in “Dogs in Pocketbooks.”
Screenwriter Charles Casillo told us, “Lydia will play a bratty movie goddess in and out of rehab, in trouble with the law, and hounded by greedy agents, predatory paparazzi, off-the-wall stalkers and crazed media — a role obviously based on Lindsay Lohan.
“I spent a lot of time casting for the right actress for this screwball comedy, but Lydia is perfect. She’s one of the few supermodels who can actually act. She’s smart, well-read, charming and very beautiful. We looked at a lot of actresses for this role, and I was really knocked out.”
Casillo — whose short film “Fetish” was a hit on the festival circuit — added, “[The movie] is in no way mean-spirited towards Lindsay. It’s the kind of thing she has spoofed about herself in the past. It’s more of a satire about the crazy people around her and the situations they generate. It satirizes the obsession with modern celebrity.”
“Dynasty” icon Joan Collins will star as a high-powered agent in the picture, which starts shooting here and in LA in February. Collins told us, “The script is a hoot — a satire on the crazed hysteria surrounding show-biz celebrities. I’m playing an aggressive, sexy, powerful woman. For a change.”
Hearst, who has a lucrative modeling career and has shot campaigns for Bottega Veneta, Escada and Lord & Taylor, was abroad on a shoot and couldn’t be reached for comment. She recently relocated from New York to Hollywood to focus on her acting career, and has been dating Jeff Goldblum.