Occasionally Parker Posey will show up in a blockbuster (Superman Returns, Scream 3), but her heart lies with the idiosyncratic indies, and they don't come much less likely than Grace Of Monaco. Hence, Posey has just signed up to join the eclectic cast of Olivier Dahan's Grace Kelly drama.
You wouldn't quite call it a biopic, since the film concentrates on a particular event in the life of the actress-turned-princess. It deals with the political hoo-hah in 1962, when French president Charles De Gaulle, running out of patience with Monaco's tax-haven status, gave Monaco's Prince Ranier III (Kelly's husband) a short deadline to sort out its financial laws. Kelly then had to work cunningly behind the scenes to head off a likely-looking coup in her adopted principality.
As previously reported, Nicole Kidman is playing Kelly, with Tim Roth as Prince Ranier. Paz Vega (Sex and Lucia) is playing Maria Callas, with Frank Langella as Catholic priest Father Francis Tucker and Roger Ashton-Griffiths as Alfred Hitchcock (yup, another Hitchcock), who had directed Kelly three times and very much wanted her for Marnie.
Posey will play Madge Tivey-Faucon, Kelly's lady-in-waiting. By most accounts, Tivey-Faucon was a ruthless social climber who couldn't wait to sell unflattering tell-alls to the French press once she left Kelly's employ. Which sounds like exactly the kind of insidious frenemy villain role that Posey excels at.
Heroes' Milo Ventimiglia also looks set to sign up as Kelly's publicist Rupert Allan. Arash Amel wrote the screenpay, and Grace Of Monaco is currently in pre-production, with the cameras set to roll shortly.