A main pop girl is starring in a movie about castrati, and it’s not Ariana Grande? Adele will star in fashion designer Tom Ford’s first film since 2016’s Nocturnal Animals, an adaptation of Anne Rice’s 1982 novel Cry to Heaven, per Deadline. Ford wrote the screenplay and will both direct and produce under his production company, Fade to Black. The book follows two men pursuing opera in 18th-century Italy — one, named Guido, is castrated to preserve his soprano singing voice, and the other, Tonio, is castrated by his brother Carlo in an attempt to control their family line. The two meet in Venice, where Guido teaches Tonio to sing. Along with Adele, Cry to Heaven will star some of Ford’s previous collaborators. Nicholas Hoult and Colin Firth, who played excited college student Kenny and lonely professor George in the director’s 2009 feature-film debut, A Single Man, will star along with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who won a Golden Globe for playing a sadistic gang leader in Nocturnal Animals. There is no confirmation yet as to who’s playing whom.
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The large supporting cast is made up of more fashionable names, per Deadline. They include Mark Strong, currently in Oedipus on Broadway; Academy Award nominee for Belfast Ciarán Hinds; Euphoria icon Hunter Schafer; Westworld Emmy winner Thandiwe Newton; Adolescence star and fellow Emmy winner Owen Cooper; Pedro Pascal’s sister Lux Pascal; and Avenger Paul Bettany. Given the cast, it feels like any studio would jump at the chance to make the film, but Ford is instead choosing to self-finance and shop it to studios later. The movie is set to release in late fall 2026, peak awards season. Will we see Adele follow in Grande’s footsteps and score an acting Oscar nomination? Solo il tempo lo dirà.
