Our Greenlit series keeps readers updated on the latest upcoming projects. These UK-based biopics now have casting directors attached.
‘Lee’
After the success of 2020’s slow burn Ammonite, Kate Winslet is set to star in another offbeat feature drama based on a real-life heroine—this time one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed photographers, Lee Miller.
Rather than being a stock biopic, Lee covers a decade in its subject’s life, picking up after Miller had been a celebrated Vogue model and hung out with the surrealists in Paris. John Colee and Liz Hannah’s script focusses on her celebrated career as a photojournalist throughout the Second World War.
Based on archives and the writings of Lee’s son Antony Penrose, the film co-stars Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Andrea Riseborough, and Josh O’Connor. It has only just entered preproduction, and we can confirm casting directors Lucy Bevan and Olivia Grant are attached. Shooting is set for later this year.
Major UK Casting Directors: How To Get on Their Radar ‘Mary’s Monster’
Fan-owned production outfit Legion M is set to produce a slick high-concept thriller based on the life of author Mary Shelley. Set around the writing of her most famous creation, Frankenstein, the film stars Clara Rugaard as Mary and Kit Harington as the imaginary monster she unleashes in order to write her genre-defining horror tale.
Acclaimed director Farren Blackburn (a trusted hand on scores of TV series like The Fades, Doctor Who, The Innocents) is working from a script by Deborah Baxtrom, Stephen John Hallett, and Ziggy Heath exploring artistic creation, the subconscious mind, and wrestling with inner monsters.
The film will also reimagine Mary’s literary circle, with Lord Byron played by Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (Sing Street) and Sebastian De Souza (The Great) starring as her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Casting director Kelly Valentine Hendry is on board, and shooting is set for March 2023.
Check out Backstage’s UK audition listings!