LEADING LADY

Apple’s New Audrey Hepburn Biopic Finds Its Lead Actress

“Call Me by Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino is helming the project.

Rooney Mara, a two-time Academy Award nominee for her star turn in 2011’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and her lead role in 2015’s Carol, has been tapped to play Audrey Hepburn in a forthcoming biopic.

Variety reports that Mara, 36, will also produce the Apple production. Luca Guadagnino, the Oscar-nominated director of Call Me by Your Name, will direct the film, and the script will be written by The Giver co-writer Michael Mitnick.

Depicting Hepburn will be no easy feat. The British actress and humanitarian is considered one of the all-time screen legends, with iconic performances in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady, and Wait Until Dark. She is one of just a handful of people to win Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony awards.

Off-screen, she devoted much of her time to UNICEF projects and was the subject of rabid gossip coverage, particularly after her affair with Bloodline co-star Ben Gazzara. She died of a rare form of abdominal cancer in 1993, age 63.

Mara follows in the footsteps of Jennifer Love Hewitt and Emmy Rossum, who have played Hepburn in other dramatizations of her life.

Variety reports that the plot details of the latest project are under wraps. Guadagnino, an Italian director, has worked on the 2021 HBO miniseries We Are Who We Are and recently finished filming a romantic horror flick, Bones and All, starring Timothée Chalamet.

Rachel OldingSenior Breaking News Editor

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