Lifetime Courts Lindsay for Liz

ABOVE: LOHAN (LEFT), TAYLOR

We can’t seem to quit Lindsay Lohan. Throughout it all—the arrests, the inappropriate beauty choices at her court dates, the probation violations, the community service, I Know Who Killed Me, the creepy New York Magazine photo spread, the equally creepy and airbrushed-to-hell-and-back Playboy spread—we’ve held onto some glimmer of hope that young LiLo might someday find her way back to a productive life. Just one good role, we’ve been saying for years—we know she can act; let’s just give her one good role and everything else will fall into place! Maybe a biopic, so she can draw from existing material. Baby steps!

Then came the news that she was set to play abused porn star Linda Lovelace in Inferno, an independent film about Lovelace’s life—which didn’t provide much reassurance. Lovelace had a tough, graphic life—perhaps something a bit less demanding? Last spring’s announcement that Lohan would be playing mobbed-up Kimberly Gotti, wife of Junior, didn’t sit right, either.

All of which is why we’re cautiously optimistic about The Hollywood Reporter‘s story today reporting that Lohan is currently in talks with the Lifetime network to play Elizabeth Taylor. Sure, a Lifetime movie isn’t going to be an Oscar frontrunner, but it could be low-pressure enough to ease Lohan back into the acting game. (And plenty of respected actresses have paid their Lifetime dues: Hilary Swank and Marcia Gay Harden have Oscars, and Virginia Madsen and Joan Cusack have been nominated!) And Lohan, like Taylor, started as a precocious child star and has seen much of her life chronicled in the tabloids. Overall, we think it’s a great fit—and are we the only ones who could see Gerard Butler as Richard Burton?