Just when Keira Knightley thought she might get a break from period drama, she’s been offered the lead in Nick Cassavetes’ next film, 1920s-set drama The Beautiful And The Damned.
If she signs, Knightley will play Zelda Sayre, the story’s lead and the woman who becomes famous along with Great Gatsby author F Scott Fitzgerald during the Jazz Age, according to The Hollywood Reporter .
The real-life pair burned brightly during their relationship and marriage, but their life together turned sour and dissolved into bitterness and jealousy as Zelda sought her own artistic identity.
A bad ending
Both Fitzgerald and Sayre used their tumultuous love as fodder for their fiction, but while Fitzgerald ended up dying, Sayre saw out her days in and out of sanitariums and battling mental issues.
Sounds like prime stuff for Knightley to get her teeth into, with a script by newcomer Hanna Weg. If Cassavetes (who last made Alpha Dog) gets his way, the movie should be shooting next April.