With Meryl Streep playing its lead, self-funded (and deluded) singer Florence Foster Jenkins, Stephen Frears’ latest already looks a contender to follow Philomena into awards reckoning, even as the cast continues to take shape. The latest to join the jamboree is Nina Arianda. According to Deadline’s scoop, she’s billed to play Agnes Stark, “a sexy showgirl” trying to work her way up the social ladder with her husband’s help.
While still an unfamiliar name in film circles, Arianda has been making waves on Broadway. Her turn in David Ives’s two-hander Venus In Fur won her critical acclaim and a Tony Award. She’ll reunite with her on-stage co-star Hugh Dancy for season three of Hannibal. She appears next on the big screen alongside Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy in The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby.
Frears' film will chronicle the life of Jenkins (Streep), an heiress and socialite whose driving passion was opera. Specifically, she wanted to get on stage and sing, but was held back by the fact that she could barely warble a correct note.
Yet while Florence was convinced that the voice she heard in her head was mellifluous and lovely to all, her partner/manager, aristocratic actor St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) became determined to protect that delusion, convincing everyone around them to support her. He ended up organising a Carnegie Hall concert for her in 1944, which racked up ticket sales of more than 3,000. Jenkins died a month later. Simon Helberg is set as pianist Cosme McCoon, who accompanied her on stage.
For more on Florence Foster Jenkins, listen to Streep talking about it during a recent visit to the Empire Podcast.