Gemma Arterton is going to the Toronto International Film Festival with one film and leaving with another. The Hollywood Reporter confirms the “Vita and Virginia” actress will portray music legend Dusty Springfield in biopic “So Much Love.” “Carol” screenwriter Phyllis Nagy has signed on to direct, making this her feature directorial debut. Rocket Science is presenting the film to buyers at TIFF.
The artist behind hits “Son of a Preacher Man” and “Just a Little Lovin’,” Springfield was a ’60s icon and part of the massive British Invasion music movement in the U.S. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the UK Music Hall of Fame inductee made 13 records during her career. Another album, “Faithful,” was released posthumously in 2015. Springfield died of breast cancer in 1999 at age 59.
“So Much Love” will be set in 1968, during the height of Springfield’s career. The film “will follow the singer’s journey to Memphis, Tenn., to record her career-defining record, ‘Dusty in Memphis,’ which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001,” THR details. “As she navigates her way through the politics of both the recording studio and the city, what she sees, hears, and experiences there draws her back to key moments in her life and artistic development — including her destiny-altering encounter with the music of Motown, her stand against Apartheid policies during her aborted South African tour, and her thorny brushes with men in the music industry who were intimidated by both her talent and her insistence on moulding perfect performances rather than settling for good ones.”
Nagy penned “So Much Love,” and her “Carol” producers Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley will produce via their Number 9 Films shingle. Number 9 is collaborating with Universal Music on the film’s soundtrack. Production is set for spring 2019 in the U.S. and the UK.
“In the tradition of ‘Walk the Line’ and ‘La Vie En Rose,’ all-time great films about female singers, ‘So Much Love’ tells the as-yet un-filmed story of a woman whose work redefined the cultural landscape as the greatest soul singer to come out of the UK,” said Karlsen.
“Dusty Springfield has long been a hero of mine — an innovative, brilliant artist and a complex, contradictory woman,” Nagy remarked. “I can’t wait to bring her to life on screen.”
“I have been an admirer of Dusty Springfield since I was a teenager: her effortless husky voice, the way she conveyed emotion through music, how she helped bring Motown to the UK,” agreed Arterton. “Dusty was ahead of her time in many ways and inspired so many future artists. She was generous, witty, mercurial, shy, extroverted, and a true English eccentric. I simply cannot wait to play her.”
Last month, alongside co-founders Jessica Malik and Jessica Parker, Arterton launched production company Rebel Park with the satirical short film “Leading Lady Parts,” in which she also starred. She portrays Vita Sackville-West in “Vita and Virginia,” a biopic about the romance between writer Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. The film will debut September 11 at TIFF. “The Escape” and “Their Finest” are among Arterton’s more recent projects.
Nagy received an Oscar nod for writing “Carol” in 2016. She previously wrote and directed the 2005 TV movie “Mrs. Harris.” Nagy is also attached to write and direct “The Vanished,” based on an investigative report on the real-life annual disappearance of nearly 100,000 citizens throughout Japan.
TIFF kicks off today, September 6, and will run through September 16.
