Weisz to play Elizabeth in the biopic

Los Angeles: Rachel Weisz is set to star as Elizabeth Taylor in A Special Relationship, exploring Taylors journey from actor to activist.

The story will be told through the lens of Taylor's friendship with her assistant Roger Wall.

Based on the screenplay written by Academy Award-winner Simon Beaufoy, the upcoming production will be helmed by the female directing duo Bert&Bertie, reports variety.com.

Taylor won Oscars for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Butterfield 8 and was nominated a total of five times.

Though famous for her glamorous lifestyle and multiple marriages, she also took a crusading role in the fight against AIDS, which stemmed from her hiring of Walls, a gay man who grew up in poverty in the homophobic Deep South in the mid-1980s.

Weisz won a best supporting actor Oscar for her turn in 2005's A Constant Gardener and was nominated in the same category earlier this year

for The Favourite.