Jazz Age legend Zelda Fitzgerald is a character ripe for the big-screen treatment. A novelist and socialite who shot to fame during the early 1900s, her life and career often inspired the work of her significant other, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it’s fair to say that the pair were the closest thing you’ll get to a power couple for their time.
We now have confirmation that that story will indeed unfold on the silver screen, with Jennifer Lawrence attached to the part of Zelda Fitzgerald. The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop, revealing that Fitzgerald is the latest real-life figure that has caught the eye of the Oscar-winner, who is hot off portraying business magnate Joy Mangano. Inferno‘s Ron Howard is said to be developing the biopic as a potential directing vehicle, overseeing a script penned by Emma Frost (The White Queen). It’ll take cues from Nancy Milford’s best-selling biography, Zelda.
As for Lawrence, the biopic comes packing another cracking, complex role for the actress to sink her teeth into. It’ll also tee up a reunion with Lionsgate executive Allison Shearmur, who lobbied for the actress to land a starring role in The Hunger Games all those years ago.
Meanwhile, this period drama centers on the “wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his indispensable muse and fiercest competitor. Desperate to define herself through her own art, the film explores the question: Can love exist between creative equals? Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Zelda Fitzgerald was dubbed by her husband as “the first American Flapper,” but her life descended into madness (she was diagnosed with schizophrenia).”
Zelda Fitzgerald is the latest icon that Jennifer Lawrence will tackle on the big screen, though there’s no mention of a production timeline just yet. Next up for the actress is a trip into the inky blackness of space for Passengers. Also starring Chris Pratt, look for that one to land on December 21.
