Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter Join Tom Holland in Sony Pictures’ Upcoming Fred Astaire Biopic

The trio will portray Fred Astaire, Adele Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the upcoming musical biographical drama.

Summary

Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter join Tom Holland in Sony’s Fred Astaire biopic.

Qualley will play Adele Astaire, while Carpenter portrays Ginger Rogers.

Paul King directs the long-developing film, which currently has no release date.

Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter have joined Tom Holland in Sony Pictures’ long-developing Fred Astaire biopic, expanding the project’s central trio of performers. Holland remains set to portray the legendary dancer and actor, while Qualley will play his older sister and original stage partner Adele Astaire, and Carpenter will take on the role of Ginger Rogers, the screen partner with whom Astaire became one of Hollywood’s most enduring musical icons.

Before his film career, Fred and Adele built a celebrated act together across Broadway and London’s West End, while his later collaborations with Rogers produced some of the defining dance sequences of Golden Age cinema. The casting also places three performers with extensive dance backgrounds at the center of the film, with Holland having previously starred in Billy Elliot the Musical on the West End.

The currently untitled film has been in development for nearly five years, with Holland first revealing his involvement in 2021. Paddington and Wonka filmmaker Paul King is directing from a screenplay co-written with Steven Levenson, adapting Kathleen Riley’s book The Astaires: Fred & Adele. King has indicated that the story will place particular emphasis on Fred’s formative partnership with Adele -  whose dancing survives in no known footage – before tracing his emergence as a Hollywood star alongside Rogers. Amy Pascal and Rachel O’Connor are producing through Pascal Pictures, with Holland also producing via his Billy17 banner; Fred Astaire’s daughter Ava Astaire McKenzie is supporting the project, while her son Tyler McKenzie serves as consultant and co-producer.