Hailee Steinfeld’s eclectic resume is expanding. She’ll follow up her blockbuster turn in “Transformers” spin-off “Bumblebee” by playing Emily Dickinson. Apple has given a straight-to-series order to “Dickinson,” a half-hour show about the 19th century poet with Steinfeld in the title role, Variety reports.
Described as “a comedic look into Dickinson’s world,” the series will explore “the constraints of society, gender, and family from the perspective of a budding writer who doesn’t fit in to her own time through her imaginative point of view.”
Dickinson’s best known poems include “‘Hope’ is a thing with feathers,” “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died,” and “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.” The famously reclusive poet often wrote about mortality, so it seems likely that “Dickinson” will be a dark comedy.
Alena Smith, an alumna of “The Affair” and “The Newsroom,” will write the series and is among its executive producers. David Gordon Green (“Stronger”) is directing.
“Sex and the City’s” Cynthia Nixon played Dickinson in the 2016 biopic “A Quiet Passion.”
“Dickinson” marks Steinfeld’s first major role on the small screen. She received an Oscar nod for Western “True Grit.” “Pitch Perfect 3,” “The Edge of Seventeen,” and “Barely Lethal” are among her other credits. Her next film, “Bumblebee,” hits theaters December 21.
Other Apple shows in development include a drama set in the world of morning TV starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston and Octavia Spencer-starrer “Are You Sleeping,” which examines the nation’s obsession with true crime stories.
