Madonna is making her grand return to acting, more than two decades after her last attempt flopped critically and commercially.
Madonna, 67, will play a fictionalized version of herself in the upcoming season of Seth Rogen’s The Studio, inside sources confirmed to Variety on Tuesday.
The pop icon has not starred in a film or TV project since her disastrous 2003 movie Swept Away recouped just 10 percent of its budget at the box office. She also made a cameo on Will & Grace the same year.
The Apple TV show will revive Madonna’s canceled biopic for her two-episode arc, which she was pegged to write and direct in 2021, but was shelved after her longtime manager Guy Oseary convinced her to embark on a world tour of her entire discography.
In the upcoming series, Rogan’s fictional film studio, Continental Studios, refinances the pop star’s biopic, whose Venice Film Festival premiere is a triumphant return to the location of her “Like A Virgin” music video, according to Variety.
Unlike her shelved biopic, Madonna will not play the film’s director in The Studio, according to Variety’s report. The pop star’s Venice-based Instagram spree did include photos with Atlanta creator Donald Glover, so he is speculated to take on the role.
Other behind-the-scenes photos from Madonna reveal that she will be accompanied by Weapons star Julia Garner, the actress who was cast to play Madonna in the original biopic, to generate Oscar buzz and hype the film at the festival.
After a grueling audition process that involved a “singing and dancing boot camp,” Garner, 32, won the role in 2022, beating out stiff competition like Oscar nominee Florence Pugh. Though Netflix is producing an upcoming series on the pop star’s life, the Ozark actress will not be playing Madonna in the project helmed by Stranger Things director Shawn Levy.
The starry cameos on Rogen’s show are nothing new, as the first season saw Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, Zoë Kravitz, and Ron Howard all play fictional versions of themselves.
The show parodies the Hollywood film industry by placing Rogan, 43, at the helm of a film studio after Catherine O’Hara’s character was let go. The late actress, who won an Actor Award in March for her performance, will not reprise her role as she died from cancer weeks before shooting was set to begin. An emotional Rogan accepted the award on her behalf and called her a “genius.”
The latter half of Madonna’s arc will focus on the controversial film festival practice of standing ovations, whose duration and intensity have dominated media coverage of film premieres.
Though the pop star’s extensive acting filmography has largely received mixed reviews, Madonna could be eying her first acting award for her guest role in The Studio, which won 13 Emmys and two Golden Globes for its first season.
Season 2 of The Studio is currently filming and has not yet set a release date on Apple TV.
