The chance to play Grace Kelly in Grace Of Monaco has attracted every actress who fits the basic visual profile (plus a few who probably don’t, but might have been hoping to find a great makeup artist or borrow Andy Serkis’ performance capture suit), but it looks like they’ve all been beaten by one Nicole Kidman, who is now in negotiations to take on the role.
Producer Pierre-Ange Le Pogam grabbed Arash Amel’s hot script fresh off the Black List last year. Now Olivier Dahan will direct the tale of Kelly, focusing on her personal life amid the politics of the time.
Born in Philadelphia to a wealthy family whose patriarch was a former Olympic gold medal rower who ran a successful business, Kelly was bitten by the acting bug early and headed to New York to study her craft. She started working in live television in the early 1950s and broke onto the big screen in a small role in 1951’s Fourteen Hours. Rising quickly to the top of many casting directors’ lists, she caught the eye of Gary Cooper, who picked her as his leading lady in High Noon. Her appeal was not lost on Alfred Hitchcock either, which led to roles in Dial M For Murder, To Catch A Thief and Rear Window. She also won an Oscar for her role in 1954’s The Country Girl.
But her life changed forever at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955, when she was introduced to Prince Rainer of Monaco, leading to marriage, children and a tragic death in 1982 when she suffered a stroke while driving and crashed her car.
Don’t go expecting to see all that crammed into one film however: like The King’s Speech, Monaco will focus on one snippet of her life, specifically a six month period between 1961 and ’62, when the city-state got into an argument with France over its tax status and the princess worked behind the scenes to help smooth things over. You can see why it might attract attention from actresses looking for a memorable role, and you just know that the awards buzz will begin before a frame has been shot…