Michael Shannon, Emilia Clarke and Dane DeHaan are to star in a biopic about US politician Joseph Mccarthy.

Shannon has been cast in the lead role for the movie, which will chart the rise and fall of the notorious and powerful senator and his enablers, a group that features his politically ambitious wife Jean Kerr (Clarke), the ruthless young lawyer Roy Cohn (DeHaan) and his trusted friend Ray Kiermas (McNairy).

The movie – that will be directed by Vaclav Marhoult and has been given the working title 'McCarthy' – will tell the story of how McCarthy rose to prominence in US politics during the 1940s and 1950s on a wave of anti-communist hysteria.

Tom O'Connor has written the original screenplay for the film and will produce with Zach Studin. Rick McCallum, who has worked on several of the 'Star Wars' movies, is executive producing.

The movie is set to go into production in late 2022 in both the United States and Prague.

Emilia's previous credits include her role as Daenerys Targaryen in 'Game of Thrones' as well as the rom-com 'Last Christmas' and she previously hit out at fans who are desperate to find out spoilers.

The 34-year-old actress said: "It's bloody annoying.

"Frustrating ... It's more complicated than people are guessing."

Emilia blamed the "scared and confused" state of the world for fans being so desperate to find out information about their favourite films and TV shows.

She explained: "I'm careful with the way I'm wording this, but it's no surprise, it's common knowledge that the state of our world at the moment is scared and confused and there's a lot of stuff going on that's completely out of our control.

"So when it comes to signing petitions to reshoot the last season of a very popular TV show, or whether it's spoiling a goddamn Christmas rom-com, people are able to do something about that."