A slew of actors are now in negotiations to join the cast of Steven Spielberg’s long-in-gestation Abraham Lincoln biopic Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewis is set to star as our nation’s 16^th president, with Sally Field attached to play his wife Mary Todd. Now, the names of those currently in negotiations to join the project are as follows (deep breath): Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Hawkes, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill (Fair Game), Joseph Cross (Milk), David Costabile (Breaking Bad), Byron Jennings (Julie & Julia), Dakin Matthews (True Grit), Boris McGiver (The Wire), Gloria Reuben (ER), Jeremy Strong (The Happening) and David Warshofsky (Taken). Now that’s one hell of a cast.

Jones will play Pennsylvanian Republican congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a strong supporter of abolishing slavery and a man crucial to the legislation that funded the Civil War. Gordon-Levitt is in talks to play Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd. Robert was Abraham’s eldest son and the only one to live past his teenage years. No word on who the other actors will be playing, but one assumes that Lincoln’s cabinet will make up a good deal of the roles. Hit the jump to read the full press release. Lincoln is set to start filming in Virginia this fall, with a 4^th-quarter 2012 release.