Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) is set to play celebrated horror author Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House) in Shirley, which is being directed by Josephine Decker (Madeline’s Madeline).
Based on Susan Scarf Merrell’s 2014 book of the same name and scripted by Sarah Gubbins (I Love Dick), the film follows “a young couple who move in with Jackson and her Bennington College professor-husband, Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), in the hopes of starting a new life. Instead, they find themselves fodder for a psycho-drama that inspires Jackson’s next major novel.”
“No two people write more wildly rich female characters than Shirley Jackson and Sarah Gubbins,” said Decker. “ It’s an honor to bring their female sorcery to life with these incredible partners. I can’t wait to witness Elisabeth Moss’ visceral inhabitation of Shirley’s beautiful tortured spirit and Michael Stuhlbarg’s unflinchingly charismatic-while-cruel Stanley.”
“We are thrilled to join this team, which is uniquely suited for this project,” added producers Jeffrey Soros and Simon Horsman. “There’s no one better than Elisabeth Moss to take on the towering role of Shirley Jackson. As a director, Josephine Decker has already shown herself to be a master explorer of the blurred terrain where reality intersects with fantasy and creativity. Christine Vachon and David Hinojosa, of course, have a formidable track record of producing films of high caliber.”
Filming on Shirley is set to begin this summer. Moss meanwhile can currently be seen in the second season of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
