“Picnic at Hanging Rock” dropped on Amazon today, and the miniseries’ star already has another TV project in the works. Natalie Dormer will topline and produce a series about Vivien Leigh of “Gone with the Wind” and “A Streetcar Named Desire” fame, Deadline confirms. She’s joining forces with FremantleMedia and UK production company Mainstreet Pictures for the untitled project.
Each episode of the series will focus on a specific project Leigh worked on. “In that context of 1940s Hollywood and its shell of glamour and global scope, plus Tony Award winner Leigh’s 20-year marriage to Laurence Olivier, issues of mental health, career, female empowerment or the lack thereof, and love will be explored in the series,” the source hints.
Stewart Harcourt (“Agatha Christie’s Poirot”) is locked down to write the script. No word on who will direct.
“We are incredibly excited to be collaborating with the brilliant Natalie Dormer to play an iconic star like Vivien Leigh and to bring this extraordinary unknown story to a wider audience,” said Mainstreet’s Sally Haynes and Laura Mackey.
Best known for her roles in “Game of Thrones” and “The Hunger Games” franchise, Dormer has suggested that the small screen offers better opportunities for actresses. “I’m glad that cinema is catching up to what television has known for a while: that three-dimensional, complex women get an audience engaged as much as the men,” the “Tudors” alumna said in 2014.
Dormer’s newest feature, “In Darkness,” hits theaters today, May 25. The thriller sees her playing a blind musician who hears a murder committed in her apartment building. She co-wrote the script.
