A new Madonna has been crowned! Well, on film at least.
Sources close to the Queen of Pop’s upcoming biopic tell Variety that Julia Garner has been offered the lead role, which will follow the popstar from her early days in New York City through her 1990 smash hit “Vogue.”
The 28-year-old Bronx native beat out a long, confusing list of actresses rumored to be in the running, including singers Bebe Rexha and Sky Ferreira, Florence Pugh, Euphoria’s Alexa Demie and Odessa Young from HBO’s true-crime miniseries The Staircase.
It was reported this past spring that the Material Girl hopefuls were put through a grueling boot camp that included “intense choreography training sessions lasting up to 11 hours a day with Madonna’s choreographer and the pop icon herself.” An “insider” told The New York Post, “You have to be able to do everything.”
Garner most recently played convicted scammer Anna Sorokin in Inventing Anna. Her bizarre, unplaceable—but apparently spot-on—accent and captivating physical transformation garnered critical praise despite the show’s overall lukewarm reception.
It’ll be interesting to see what she does with the role. We can already picture her short, unkempt blond tresses from Ozark morphing into Madonna’s iconic early ’90s hairdo. And if she brings an ounce of the commitment she brought to her role as Anna, it’ll be enough to get people talking.
Garner’s representatives did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
The as-of-yet untitled biopic is in development at Universal Pictures. It’s being produced by Amy Pascal, who also produced hits like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Little Women.
Madonna wrote the script with Diablo Cody, which means we could be in store for some of the same witticisms and surrealism seen in Juno, Tully, and United States of Tara. The Grammy winner has revealed that the movie will detail her “struggle as an artist trying to survive in a man's world as a woman, and really just the journey.”
Asked by Jimmy Fallon why she’s taking on the project, Madonna replied, “The reason I’m doing it is because a bunch of people have tried to write movies about me, but they’re always men.”
Throughout 2020, Cody was often featured in Madonna’s chaotic, gold-plated Instagram videos. The pair usually appeared sitting on a couch as Cody typed away on a laptop, while Madonna roasted the screenwriter's outfit or talked about her own vagina.
We can’t wait to see what comes from this.
