Kate Moss casts The Serpent's Ellie Bamber to play her in biopic: Moss & Freud

Virgin Radio

4 Feb 2023, 13:17

Supermodel Kate Moss has picked the actor who she wants to play her in the upcoming biopic, Moss & Freud. British actor, The Serpent's Ellie Bamber, has bagged the enviable job of taking on the catwalk queen.

Directed by Oscar-winning James Lucas, The Phone Call (2013), the story will be an 'intimate study' of the supermodel sitting naked for painter Lucian Freud in 2002 while she was pregnant with daughter, Lila, and is backed by the Lucian Freud Archive.

"Set around Freud's Holland Park studio and London in the heady days of early 2000s Britain, the story opens up to explore Freud's mysterious past and Moss's life as a globally recognised supermodel," a plot description for Moss & Freud reads.

"At the peak of the supermodel era, Kate Moss, already a global icon, but at a crossroad in her life and work, agrees to sit for acclaimed painter Lucian Freud over an arduous, intense nine-month period at his studio in Holland Park," the synopsis continues.

"Although from seemingly different worlds and often at odds, as their relationship develops, the two enigmatic personalities discover they're kindred spirits with lots to learn from each other and, as a consequence, about themselves. The process becomes cathartic, leaving both changed forever."

Closely involved with the project and casting, executive producer Moss said: “As this is such a personal story of mine, it has been essential that I be involved with James in all aspects as the project has developed.

"I am thrilled by the recent casting and excited that the film will begin shooting soon. I cannot wait to see it.”

Speaking last year about the upcoming feature and the portrait, which was sold at Christies in 2005 for £3.5m, she said: “He didn’t really like the picture, and I didn’t really. I mean, I had a great time. [But] it’s not, like, my favourite Lucian painting.”

According to an essay in the Christies catalogue, Freud declined to paint Diana, Princess of Wales, because he 'couldn’t get beyond the sheen of glamour'.

Moss explained about working with Freud, who first approached her for a portrait after learning that it was one of her life's ambitions. She said in 2014: “If I was five minutes late, he would kick off.

“But only once I was five minutes late, and he said, ‘Are you on drugs?!’ And I said, ‘No, I’m pregnant!’”

During the sessions, which took place between 7pm and 2am three nights a week, the artist tattooed two birds on to her lower back.

She told Vanity Fair in 2012: “I wonder how much a collector would pay for that? A few million? If it all goes horribly wrong I could get a skin graft and sell it! It’s probably the only one on skin that’s still around.”

Ellie Bamber, the star of Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals in 2016 and Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie, will appear alongside Derek Jacobi, who plays Freud.

Here's what's coming to Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, Prime Video and Sky in February 2023.