Eva Green and Gemma Arterton have signed on to bring Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West’s epic romance to the big screen, The Hollywood Reporter confirms. The pair will star in “Vita & Virginia,” which is based on a true story — the literary giants’ long-term affair and friendship. Chanya Button (“Burn Burn Burn”) is directing a script by Eileen Atkins, who is adapting her own 1992 play of the same name.
“Virginia Stephen married Leonard Woolf in 1912, and then met socialite and author Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, in 1922,” THR writes. “They began a sexual relationship that lasted nearly a decade, as shown in their various letters and diary entries. After their affair ended, they remained friends until Woolf’s death in 1941.”
Sackville-West was the inspiration behind “Orlando,” Woolf’s influential 1928 novel about a poet who changes sex from a man to a woman. Woolf recorded the conception of the story in her diary: “And instantly the usual exciting devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the year 1500 and continuing to the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only with a change about from one sex to the other.”
Green will play Woolf, Arterton Sackville-West. They’re both among the executive producers on “Vita & Virginia.” Blinder Films’ Katie Holly and Mirror Productions’ Evangelo Kioussis are producing.
Atkins portrayed Woolf in the 1991 TV movie “A Room of One’s Own.” She adapted Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway” for a 1997 movie of the same name starring Vanessa Redgrave (“Call the Midwife,” “Nip/Tuck”).
Green’s most recent credit is “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” a dark fantasy that’s now in theaters. She starred in Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful” from 2014–2016. You can next catch Arterton, whose previous credits include “Orphan” and “Quantum of Solace,” in Lone Scherfig’s “Their Finest.” She plays an underappreciated writer in the period dramedy, which opens March 24.
British director Button received the BFI LOCO Film Festival’s Discover Award for outstanding debut feature in 2016. “Burn Burn Burn” made its world premiere at the London Film Festival in 2015. When we asked Button what advice she has for women directors, she said, “Don’t be afraid to talk about being a female director! Of course I’d so much rather we were just ‘directors’ and not singled out for our gender. But whilst we’re still working in an industry where there’s such a profound lack of diversity in the director’s chair, I think it’s important we’re all cool with talking about it until things change.” She added, “More diversity of filmmakers means more diversity in the stories we get to see on screen — and that can only be a great thing.”
