Knightley in talks for ‘Fair Lady’

Oh the horror! I simply do not understand Hollywood’s obsession with Brit thesp (if you want to call her that) Keira Knightley. Columbia Pictures has just announced that they are redoing the classic 1964 play turned musical turned movie musical My Fair Lady and are in talks to cast Ms. Knightley in (one of) Audrey Hepburn’s defining roles as flower girl Eliza Doolittle.

Hepburn’s tarnished Cockney waif foil for Rex Harrison’s misogynistic professor is going to be hard to beat, but Columbia Pictures promises a more realistic, if not better, film, which will spend more time on the emotional toll of Professor Higgins’ tutelage.

It’s not entirely an update either, more like a reinterpretation. Most attention will be paid to George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” for new source material but the film will maintain the original Lerner score and the same 1912 setting. While the original movie was filmed on soundstages only, Columbia plans to film mostly on location in London.

Knightley will be teaming up with someone familiar for this new role – Duncan Kenworthy, a producer of her film “Love Actually”. London West End producer Cameron Mackintosh will co-produce with Kenworthy, commenting that the film “couldn’t be more timely in a contemporary world obsessed with overnight celebrity”. Mackintosh’s description has a ring of the truth and maybe I am being presumptive in already casting a shadow over this slightly promising update

So far this is all speculative, as Columbia Pictures will not comment on their casting. With Mackintosh having produced two stage revivals of “My Fair Lady”, Columbia’s biggest worry is finding their devilish slippers…I mean, finding the perfect Higgins.