Adele is finally taking her talents to the big screen — and she’s chosen a suitably big-name director for her first film.
The singer, 37, is set to star in Cry to Heaven, the long-awaited new film from Tom Ford, marking the designer-director’s first feature in nearly a decade.
Adapted from Anne Rice’s 1982 novel of the same name, Cry to Heaven is set in 18th-century Italy and tells the story of a Venetian nobleman and a castrato singer whose lives intertwine amid the sensual and treacherous world of opera.
Adele joins an extraordinary ensemble that includes Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Colin Firth, Thandiwe Newton, Ciarán Hinds, and Hunter Schafer — a cast that suggests Ford isn’t holding anything back in his return to cinema.
Ford has written the screenplay himself and will direct and produce through his Fade to Black company.
He made his directorial debut with A Single Man, which premiered in competition at the 2009 Venice Film Festival to widespread acclaim.
The film went on to earn an Academy Award nomination, a BAFTA win, the AFI Film of the Year honor, and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film.
He followed it with Nocturnal Animals in 2016, which captured the Venice Grand Jury Prize and secured nine BAFTA nominations and three Golden Globe nods — including Best Director and Best Screenplay for Ford himself.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson won Best Supporting Actor at the Globes, while Michael Shannon earned an Oscar nomination in the same category.
‘I loved making the two films that I made,’ Ford previously said in a GQ interview.
‘That was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life. I’m 62. Hopefully, I’ll remain somewhat together until 82. So I wanna spend the next 20 years of my life making films. And the clock is ticking. And so it was time to say goodbye to fashion. Fashion is a younger man’s game.’
Previously, Adele had seemed to hint at working with Ford.
‘There is one movie I want to do, but the guy whose movie it would be, he’s not mentally ready to write the script for it,’ she told The Hollywood Reporter when asked about her acting ambitions.
She continued: ‘I bug him every now and then about it, but he’s just not there yet. But that’s the only role I ever want. Because I think I’d nail it. I think I’d do really, really, really good at it.’
‘I get offered to do biopics of singers, and I think that’s too obvious,’ she said.
‘And also anyone that’s great enough to have a biopic about them, you’re just setting yourself up for disaster. Then would they want me to sing as myself? Because then it would sound like me, it wouldn’t sound like them. So I wouldn’t do it. But that’s all I’ve been offered, really.’
Filming will begin in London and Rome early next year, with a release expected in late 2026.
While details of Adele’s role remain under wraps, her casting already feels like an event in itself.
Ford seems an ideal creative match for the singer of some of the most emotionally powerful ballads of all time.
The world-famous designer has spent the past few years away from cinema after selling his fashion label to Estée Lauder, but this new film marks an explosive new chapter for the multihyphenate creator.
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