EXCLUSIVE: The lifetime of considered one of Hollywood’s main males, Cary Grant, is to be portrayed by Jason Isaacs in an ITV and BritBox Worldwide drama, Deadline can reveal.
Philomena and Stan & Ollie author Jeff Pope is writing and exec producing Archie, named after Grant’s birthname Archibald Alexander Leach. ITV Studios is producing and the four-parter might be a flagship premiere on soon-to-launch streamer ITVX.
Grant is well known as considered one of Hollywood’s main males, gaining a status for his transatlantic accent, sense of comedian timing and good-looking, debonair demeanor over greater than 70 movies in a decades-long mid-twentieth century profession.
He was twice nominated for an Academy Award, in Penny Serenade and None however the Lonely Coronary heart, and labored with the most important stars of the day together with Sophia Loren, Grace Kelly and Doris Day.
Archie will begin together with his start in Bristol in 1904 and inform the story of a childhood spent in excessive poverty, coping with his father’s adultery and the lack of older brother John. At 14, he joined music corridor act the Bob Pender Troupe and moved to the U.S. and, quickly after, Cary Grant was born.
The present will intercut scenes from 1961 when, on the peak of his fame, Grant was desperately sad in his non-public life after two failed marriages. Grant then started wooing TV star Dyan Cannon, who was 30 years his junior and didn’t instantly fall for his charms. He married her in 1965 and retired from movie appearing one 12 months later.
“There was just one Cary Grant and I’d by no means be silly sufficient to attempt to step into his iconic sneakers,” mentioned Isaacs. “Archie Leach, alternatively, couldn’t be farther from the character he invented to avoid wasting himself.”
Isaacs is a large coup for ITV, which has already secured his fellow Harry Potter star Helena Bonham Carter to steer comparable showbiz biopic Nolly from Russell T Davies, with each showing to be setting the tone for what’s to come back on ITVX.
Isaacs may most just lately be seen within the newest season of Netflix’s Intercourse Training together with Anthony Fabian characteristic Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. He’s presently filming A Winter’s Journey from Alex Helfrecht alongside John Malkovich, through which he performs a lovelorn poet enterprise a hazardous journey.
Pope mentioned Archie adopted the sample of lots of his scripts that “begin on the finish and work backwards.”
“Cary Grant turned one of the iconic figures of the 20 th century, beloved by presidents and paupers,” he added. “The important thing to every little thing, lay in his childhood.”
Grant’s daughter Jennifer Grant and former spouse Cannon each gave Archie their blessing, describing Pope’s script as “clever, understanding” and “capturing him so brilliantly.”
ITV Head of Drama Polly Hill added: “Jeff’s scripts fantastically inform the story of Archie, the Bristol boy who was deserted by his father and ran away to Hollywood, the place remarkably he reworked and have become Cary Grant.
Isaacs is repped by Unbiased Expertise Group, The Gersh Company and Silver Lining Leisure.
