Carla Bruni to hit the big screen?

Isn't it just the news you've been waiting for? France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is rumoured to be set to appear at a cinema near you sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Well that's if the Spanish national daily newspaper El Mundo is to believed.

It claims that the wife of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has accepted an offer from the US director Woody Allen to appear in his next movie which begins filming in 2010.

But according to the French daily, Le Parisien, it's far from being a "done deal" with unnamed "members of her entourage denying that she has been signed up by the US director."

Speculation of a possible role for Bruni-Sarkozy in Allen's next movie has of course been rife since June, when the 73-year-old director was in Paris to promote his most recent film, "Whatever works".

During and appearance on the mid-evening television news magazine "Le Grand Journal" on Canal +, Allen was full of praise for France's first lady.

"I would love to work with Carla Bruni, he said.

"She's an accomplished artist, very beautiful and I'm sure she has a gift for acting," he added.

"I would really like to offer her a role in my next film and what's more I promise that her participation wouldn't create any embarrassment for the president or the image of France."

Should Bruni-Sarkozy - and it's probably still a might big "should" in spite of the story in El Mundo - really have accepted Allen's offer, it wouldn't be the first time she'll have appeared in a film.

She has been seen on the big screen before, albeit briefly and playing herself in the 1994 fashion satire "Prêt-à-Porter" ("Ready to wear") directed by the late Robert Altman.

And acting is certainly in her blood. Her mother, Marisa Borini, as well as having been a concert pianist has also appeared in several films.

And of course Bruni-Sarkozy's older sister, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, is an accomplished film, television and theatre actress and director.

So after modelling and singing (who can forget the hullaballoo that accompanied the release of her third album just months after her marriage to the French president? If you're curious about that and want even more coverage of her musical exploits it's all here) could Bruni-Sarkozy now be ready for the big screen?

Perhaps more importantly, are the French ready to see their first lady slip into a new role as a performer or would it be, as the entertainment and celebrity news site Purepeople.com puts it, simply be "too much"?