Happy and Glorias: Oscar winners team up to play feminist pioneer
FEMINIST pioneer Gloria Steinem will be portrayed by Oscar winners Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander in a film that will explore five decades of the activist’s life, and include the time she went undercover as a Playboy bunny.
The movie, to be directed by Julie Taymor, will be based on Steinem’s 2015 tome My Life On The Road — though the picture’s working title is ‘The Glorias’.
The Glorias will begin in the Sixties, when Steinem was a journalist, and follow the varied chapters of her life, during which she always made room for other voices.
The director is exploring, with Steinem, whether she should actually appear in the film herself. And if she does, might she partake in one of her famous circles, where she gets people to tell their stories?
It’s the early days of preproduction, so no firm decisions have been made on whether Steinem will complete her own circle.
Meanwhile, Taymor has been visiting locations in Savannah, Georgia, to see if women from local universities want to be involved in the project.
The filmmaker has secured the services of British three-time Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell, who will be represented this awards season by her work on Mary Poppins Returns (starring Emily Blunt) and Film4’s shining gem The Favourite (with awardworthy performances by Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz).
The latter is being shown at the BFI London Film Festival next Thursday.