27 Mar 2015
First reported by Deadline Hollywood
The Big Bang Theory‘s Simon Helberg has just been cast in Stephen Frears’s next film Florence Foster Jenkins which stars Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. Written by Nichols Martin and produced by Qwerty Films’ Michael Kuhn and Tracey Seaward, the film will be funded/distributed by Pathé International.
Streep plays the starring role of Florence, a high-society, wealthy blue-blood in the 20th Century that used relationships to gain fortune and to leverage her way to become a singer. The problem is, she had terrible pitch and rhythm issues and could not carry a tune. Unknown to her, she was often ridiculed at her well-attended performance. Helberg will play Cosme McCoon who becomes her accompanist on the piano who is new to the blue-blood world. Grant will play Florence’s butler and best friend, whose job is to protect her from becoming self-aware that the sound of cats drowning is more soothing than her vocals.
Helberg has just starred opposite Melanie Lynskey and Zachary Quinto in We’ll Never Have Paris, written, produced and co-directed with his wife Jocelyn Towne about their real life love story. He and his wife also produced I am I which released shortly before Paris.
Florence Foster Jenkins is currently in pre-production and a release date has not been disclosed at this time.