Will the Queen be doing a spot of shoplifting?
Olivia Colman is in discussions to play a chainsmoking kleptomaniac if time can be found from her commitments as the Queen in netflix series The Crown.
The actress, who won an oscar for her marvellously twisted portrait of Queen anne in The Favourite — a critical and boxoffice success for Film4 and Fox Searchlight — wants a role in the film adaptation of mikey Walsh’s best-selling memoir Gypsy Boy.
The boy’s father is gypsy royalty; a bare-knuckle fighter described as ‘a black knight of raging firepower’ who often beats his son, breaking bones and blacking eyes. The kid’s sexuality makes his life so unbearable that he’s forced to run away.
Colman would play his aunt minnie. Walsh wrote about accompanying her on shoplifting escapades where she would wear a floor-length fake fur coat roomy enough to stash stolen loot. Dominic West will play the pugilist father (replacing Benedict Cumberbatch, who withdrew).
Producer Kevin loader confirmed that he’s talked to anne-marie Duff about playing the boy’s mother. (ms Duff is currently rehearsing the title role in Sweet Charity, Josie Rourke’s last show as artistic director of the Donmar.) of Colman, loader told me: ‘There definitely have been conversations and we’d be absolutely thrilled if olivia was available to play aunt minnie.’
Gypsy Boy, which is being directed by morgan matthews from a script by James Graham, is due to begin shooting in late autumn — around the same time as the fourth season of netflix hit The Crown begins filming.
However, i understand there’s a desire for the two productions to work together so Colman can have some larks shoplifting.
Colman and Duff met up on Wednesday night at a British Film institute tribute to Colman where she was awarded a BFi Fellowship.
Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller would also like Colman to appear with anthony Hopkins in the film of Florian’s play The Father. if time allows, Colman would play the daughter of Hopkins’s character.