While we await the delayed tennis ménage-à-trois comedy Challengers, and the already-wrapped Queer, we had already started to get excited about the next Luca Guadagnino project: a biopic of Audrey Hepburn with Oscar-nominee Rooney Mara taking on the lead role. But it seems like we got too excited too soon. It turns out the film, which was announced in 2022 and was scheduled to start shooting this year, won’t happen anymore, according to the director.
Here’s what we know about what Luca’s Audrey Hepburn biopic was supposed to look like and more on why the film was pulled.
What was the Audrey Hepburn biopic supposed to be about?
We never found out if the film would cover the entirety of Audrey Hepburn’s life or an isolated period of it. The actor, considered one of the greatest in Hollywood’s history, was born in Belgium and lived in Amsterdam in the aftermath of World War II before becoming a West End star. She’d go on to win an Oscar for her 1953 film Roman Holiday, and earn four more nominations before her death in 1993. Considering Rooney Mara has slipped into the 50s so effortlessly in Carol, we imagined the film would have focused, at least, on Hepburn in her most iconic era.
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Who was set to star in the Audrey Hepburn biopic?
Rooney was the only actor attached to the project.
Who was working on it behind the camera?
Luca had been attached to the project since its announcement in January 2022.
Michael Mitnick, who previously worked with Luca on the script for his Valentino-supported short film The Staggering Girl, wrote the script. Other credits of his include executive story editing the HBO series Vinyl and the Martin Scorsese-produced The Current War. This would have marked Rooney’s fourth project as a producer.
When will the Audrey Hepburn biopic start shooting?
On 3 January, Rooney appeared on Rain Phoenix’s LaunchLeft podcast and discussed creative control as an actor and her work as a producer, having launched her production company with partner Joaquin Phoenix, Valentine Pictures. On it, Rooney said that the film was likely to shoot after she makes her next project with Cold War director Pawel Pawlikowski in spring. That film was inevitably pushed back, and is set to shoot later in 2023 and into early 2024. She said: “We’ll see if it all works out.” Sadly, it turns out it didn’t.
Why was it cancelled?
We’re not sure why. Luca appeared at a festival talk at the Reykjavik International Film Festival, where he was asked by a fan (@sunflowroceans) what the plans were for his Hepburn biopic. “Unfortunately that project is not happening,” he said. “It’s very sad because it was a great script. Of course, [Rooney is] a great actress to play Audrey. Maybe one day.” We can only hope!