Riley Keough is the latest actress to begin her own production company. Deadline reports that the “Logan Lucky” star has officially launched company Felix Culpa with producer Gina Gammell. What’s more, the duo have already lined up three female-centric projects: adaptations of the books “Sweet Lamb of Heaven,” “Heartthrob,” and “The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America’s First Supermodel.”
“Sweet Lamb of Heaven: A Novel,” written by Lydia Millet, “blends domestic thriller and psychological horror to tell the story of a mother fleeing her estranged husband,” Deadline summarizes. Felix Culpa will produce the feature adaptation of the National Book Award winner with Scott Free Productions.
Felix Culpa is executive producing Christopher Sebela’s graphic novel “Heartthrob” as a series. The “unexpected love story” sees Callie — the recipient of a heart transplant — meet and fall for a thief who is also her heart donor.
Finally, Felix Culpa is developing and producing James Bone’s best-selling biography “The Curse of Beauty” for film and TV. Bone’s book is “a deep, investigative dive into the extraordinary life of actress and artist model Audrey Munson — who rose to fame in the 1920s as ‘the world’s most perfectly formed woman’ — and the exploitation and remarkable tragedy that ultimately led to her downfall.” Keough and Gammell will produce with Pilgrim Media Group’s Lauren Pfeiffer and Craig Piligian and Regan Arts’ Judith Regan and Nathan Ament.
“Gina and I are so excited to launch Felix Culpa with three distinctive, character-driven stories,” Keough announced. “We are, very simply, lovers of film and literature. Our company is dedicated to developing material that gives a voice to talent and stories that deserve attention and need to be heard.”
“While Riley and I are interested in telling all kinds of human stories, as women filmmakers, we are proud that the first three projects out of the gate for Felix Culpa happen to feature wild, complicated, intelligent female protagonists,” added Gammell, whose producing credits include the Keough-starring “Dixieland” and “Welcome the Stranger.” “We look forward to discovering new, compelling material to bring to the screen.”
Keough has spoken up before about the need for interesting, complex female characters. “The roles they write for women are so shitty,” she observed. “I think part of me just rebels against it, so I immediately make myself not able to do [the part]. I walk in the room, and they are like, ‘Oh, never mind.’”
You can catch Keough in theaters now in the Rebecca Blunt-penned heist comedy “Logan Lucky.” Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey” and So Yong Kim’s “Lovesong” are among her other credits. In 2016 Keough earned a Golden Globe nod for playing high class escort Christine Reade in Season 1 of the Starz series “The Girlfriend Experience.”
