While Jeff Whitty would write the first four drafts of Can You Ever Forgive Me?, summoning a screenplay from a memoir, he wasn’t anticipating the assignment. A Tony Award winner known at that point for Avenue Q—a raunchy and witty puppet musical, which has had a long run, on and off Broadway—the aptly named Whitty was…

In Fox Searchlight’s dramedy Can You Ever Forgive Me?, comedy star Melissa McCarthy turns another corner raising her drama game as late curmudgeon and celebrity biographer Lee Israel who when her career went south, she went criminal selling off forged author letters. Today at Deadline’s Contenders in New York…

Melissa McCarthy landed an Oscar nomination for her breakout turn in Paul Feig's Bridesmaids, which started a string of comedy blockbusters for the pair. Now she's back in the conversation with Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which may be considered one of her first dramatic turns, but only to those who have failed to catch…

Jack Hock, as played by British thesp Richard E. Grant, storms into Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? with every ounce of bluster he can conjure. It's hard, on the surface, to see how he could strike up a friendship with Melissa McCarthy's quiet, introverted Lee Isreal, the author and literary forger who…

In his first film as David Lowery's cinematographer, The Old Man & the Gun's Joe Anderson got the opportunity to work with a legend—to celebrate a career's worth of magnetic turns from the iconic Robert Redford, with images to mirror his signature charm. Based on a New Yorker article by David Grann, and following up…

The yet-to-be-titled Tom Hanks-starring Mister Rogers project has set its supporting cast as filming of the TriStar Pictures feature is currently underway. Enrico Colantoni (Veronica Mars), Maryann Plunkett (Blue Valentine), Tammy Blanchard (Into The Woods), Wendy Makkena (Sister Act films), Sakina Jaffrey (Timeless)…

EXCLUSIVE: As the fight for parity and 50/50 representation wages on, Deadline is continuing to take a deep dive into how the major studios are stacking up when it comes to how many female directors are being hired. Sony is in the spotlight this week. As of right now, the studio’s 2018 film release slate does not…

The first look trailer for Melissa McCarthy’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? is out from Fox Searchlight, a biopic detailing the literary forgery crimes of author Lee Israel. Israel, a high-profile magazine writer and celebrity biographer who had written about Estée Lauder and Tallulah Bankhead, was down on her luck and…

Marielle Heller made quite an impression with her Sundance 2015-premiering directorial debut The Diary Of A Teenage Girl, a film taking on the tricky subject of burgeoning female sexuality—a topic which has perhaps never been treated with this level of honesty. The film, which was based on a graphic novel by Phoebe…

With her first American role as Minnie in Marielle Heller's The Diary of a Teenage Girl, an adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel, British actress Bel Powley has exploded onto the scene as one of the most exciting young talents to watch, subsequently booking major roles in some highly-anticipated independent…

Andrew Haigh has won the Best British Film award at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival with 45 Years, about a troubled marriage. The film stars Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling, who shared the award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film with James Cosmo for his performance in The Shammassian brothers’ The…

EXCLUSIVE: Natalie Portman is set to play Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On The Basis Of Sex, with Marielle Heller (The Diary Of A Teenage Girl) in negotiations to direct. Focus Features is in talks to come onboard to finance. The script, which follows the travails of Ginsburg as she faced numerous…