Scarlett Johansson has been attached to the title role in a movie called Mary, Queen Of Scots for a while – but today, she finally found a director.
Phillip Noyce has signed on to call the shots on the Jimmy McGovern-scripted drama, which will focus on the rivalry between the young Roman Catholic who became Scotland’s Queen, before she was even a year old, in 1542.
After becoming a rival to the English throne of Elizabeth I, Mary was imprisoned for decades at the Queen’s behest on charges of plotting to murder the Protestant monarch, and was finally beheaded in 1587.
It’s a heck of a role for any actress – Samantha Morton played the role alongside Cate Blanchett in the recent Elizabeth: The Golden Age – but this one promises to hew much closer to Mary’s side of the story.
Johansson is certainly on a period movie trip at the moment – she recently starred in The Pledge and can next be seen affecting an English accent as Anne Boleyn’s sister in The Other Boleyn Girl. It’ll be interesting to hear her accent in Mary, Queen Of Scots, but Noyce has been on excellent form of late (Catch A Fire, The Quiet American, Rabbit Proof Fence), a world away from his glossy thrillers of the 90s, and he should be able to extract a solid performance from Johansson.
Filming will start in April, in London and Scotland.
