Jared Leto starred in 2021’s House of Gucci and now he’s a fashion guy. Everybody’s absolute favorite long-haired method acting Oscar-winner/star of cinematic catastrophe Morbius will play notoriously asshole-ish fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, per an exclusive report from Woman’s Wear Daily.
Karl Lagerfeld was the creative director for the fashion house Chanel from 1983 until his death in 2019 at the age of 85. The project will be produced by Leto with Emma Ludbrook through their production company, Paradox. The film is still in its early stages, with no director attached at this time. According to WWD, the film follows “key relationships in Karl Lagerfeld’s life, told through an unpredictable lens, much like the man himself.”
“I feel like this is a full-circle moment, and Karl would be proud of what we are doing,” Leto told WWD. “Karl was an artist. Period. He was a fashion designer, he was a photographer, he was an artist. There was no defining him. He was a creative powerhouse.”
Leto has already gotten some of the people who were closest to Lagerfeld involved in the film as executive producers: fashion house chief executive Pier Paolo Righi, senior VP of image and communications Caroline Lebar, and personal assistant and bodyguard Sébastien Jondeau.
“My role is to portray him on screen as honestly as possible,” Leto said. “With celebrity, most people don’t get to see under the surface. They see one or two facets of a person as presented through a public lens. Karl was a human being. We all have beauty within us and we all have faults. We have masks and then we have moments when we reveal the mask. I’m always interested in seeing what’s behind the mask.”
Earlier this week it was announced that the 2023 Met Gala will feature a Lagerfeld theme, prompting Good Place actress Jameela Jamil to blast the announcement, writing: This man … was indeed, supremely talented, but used his platform [in] such a distinctly hateful way, mostly towards women, so repeatedly and up until the last years of his life … Why is THIS who we celebrate when there are so many AMAZING designers out there who aren’t bigoted white men?”
So surely this film won’t generate any controversy! And let the stories about Leto’s insufferable method acting commence!
(Via Women’s Wear Daily)