In what is likely be one of the easiest paydays for a casting director, Rooney Mara is set to play the lead role in an upcoming Audrey Hepburn biographical drama, directed by collaborator and acclaimed Algerian-Italian director Luca Guadagnino.
Originally reported by Puck, the upcoming project centred around one of the greatest female screen legends from Classical Hollywood cinema will join a host of highly anticipated projects coming to Apple Studios. American playwright Michael Mitnick (Vinyl, The Current War) will be on screenwriting duties, with the Hollywood icon, fashionista and famed humanitarian's life story offering rich and complex source material from which to draw for a potential epic retelling.
Born in Belgium in 1929, Audrey Hepburn's mother was a Dutch noblewoman, whilst her father was a fascist who supported Oswald Mosley. During the Nazi occupation, her family would lose their fortunes, with Hepburn famously speaking of their struggle with starvation, leading to various medical complications throughout the remainder of her life.
Having trained as a ballerina during her formative years, Hepburn moved to London in the 1950s and later starred in various small parts before her breakout role in 1953's Roman Holiday. Hollywood would soon come calling, and Audrey Hepburn would appear in hit after hit. Sabrina, War and Peace, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Charade and My Fair Lady would have global audiences succumbing to her elegance and grace - an antidote to the over-sexed on-screen personas of other famous female stars of the time. As would French couturier Hubert de Givenchy, cementing her legacy as an icon of both fashion and film.
In her private life, Audrey Hepburn married twice. Her first marriage to actor Mel Ferrer, whom she met whilst performing together in a Broadway production of Ondine. Her second marriage to Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti would come shortly before stepping away from the film industry, deciding to devote her life to her humanitarian work with UNICEF and her two children.
The two-time Academy Award nominated Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Carol) will star and produce, reuniting with Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, I Am Love, Suspiria) following their collaboration on the BBC/HBO mini-series adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, expected later this year. Whilst it remains unclear when we will see the upcoming biographical drama arrive at Apple, the duo's love of 35mm celluloid film and exciting-yet-sensitive cinema makes for exciting anticipation.
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