Deadline has reported that ITV and Britbox are working on a new drama series centrered on the life of famous Hollywood icon Cary Grant. Grant is widely recognised as one of the most iconic leading men in the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Jason Isaacs, known for his roles across cinema and TV, will portray Cary Grant, or more accurately, Archibald Alexander Leach. The new series, titled Archie, will chronicle the actor’s early life in poverty and his rise to fame. Leach created his stage persona Cary Grant after he moved to the US to perform with the Bob Pender Stage Troupe.
“There was only one Cary Grant and I’d never be foolish enough to try to step into his iconic shoes,” Isaacs commented on his casting. “Archie Leach, on the other hand, couldn’t be further from the character he invented to save himself.”
Cary Grant
The series will be premiering on ITV’s soon-to-launch streaming service ITVX and will intercut scenes from 1961 when Grant was at the height of his career and his youth in Bristol. The four-part series will be written and executive produced by Jeff Pope, best known for his work on Philomena and Stan & Ollie.
No stranger to the biopic formula, Pope told Deadline: “Cary Grant became one of the most iconic figures of the twentieth century, beloved by presidents and paupers.
“The key to everything lay in his childhood,” he said further, adding that the script would follow his usual structure of “start at the end and work backwards.”
The project has been blessed by Grant’s daughter and his former wife. The ITV Studios production doesn’t have a premiere date yet, but we can expect it to still be a while away.
