Is Lindsay Lohan Looking to Join a Crime Family?

Is Lindsay tough enough to take a whack at playing the famed mobster's daughter on the big screen? Victoria Gotti thinks so

By Josh Grossberg Apr 12, 2011 8:26 PMTags

Lindsay Lohan is ready to grow up Gotti.

The trouble-prone starlet flew into New York to attend a press conference early this morning hyping an upcoming biopic on late mobster John Gotti and his family in which she's in talks to play his daughter Victoria Gotti.

And while she dodged reporters, preferring instead to pose for pictures with maybe costar John Travolta and Gotti kids Victoria and John Gotti Jr., E! News spoke to Lohan exclusively via email shortly beforehand about the potential casting.

Here's what she had to say.

"I've known [Victoria] and the family for many years and she's a strong willed woman. She is completely devoted to her family and I admire her strength and self respect," said the actress.

Now if only they'd make her an offer she can't refuse.

"We're in very beginning stages [of negotiations]," producer Mark Fiore tells E! News. "She's a terrific actress and she looks a lot like Victoria when she was that age. It would be the same age range so it just kind of hit. And Lindsay and her mom are very good friends with Victoria Gotti."

Travolta, who's playing the Dapper Don, was also on hand with actress-wife, Kelly Preston. Both talked about how excited they were of the prospect of their own real-life daughter, Ella Bleu, taking on the part of Gotti daughter, Angel, in the film. In regard to Lindsay possibly coming aboard, Preston was quick to stress that nothing's set in cement stone.

"Whatever she does, she's great," she told us.

The one person's opinion whom producers value the most of course, is Victoria. The 48-year-old gave Lohan a big vote of confidence, noting the thesp is made of Teflon like her infamous father (after all, she's been to jail too!)

"I think she'd be great and I think she's got what it takes...I think Lindsay can play anyone, but I've always thought that...before we even met," Victoria told us. "I'd be content if she was chosen. Absolutely."

And Gotti came to LiLo's defense regarding her shoplifting case, adding that she didn't think Lohan stole the necklace and that the whole sordid affair was merely a publicity stunt hatched by the Venice, Calif., jeweler.

"I think that whole trial stuff is all nonsense. I think someone's looking for a lot of PR and certainly getting it," she said. "But I think she's shining. I think people are starting to see now sympathetically...and I think it's working for her and I love the fact that she doesn't care. She's not letting it bother her."

"I think she's tough," she added. "I think she can fall down, pick herself back up."

In addition to the Gotti flick, E! News has also learned that Lindsay is being eyed for a role of an as yet unspecified villain in Zack Snyder's upcoming reboot of Superman featuring Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel.

Let's hope the April 22 prelim hearing in Lohan's theft case, which could pave the way for a possible trial, doesn't derail what could be a promising comeback for the star.