Richard E. Grant to mentor a young drag queen in Fox's Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

He didn’t win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, but he did get to meet Barbra Streisand, so it’s safe to say the Richard E. Grant renaissance continues apace. Grant appeared in Vanity Fair’s series of first-look photos from Star Wars: Episode IX—The Rise Of Skywalker in character as the villainous Allegiant General Pryde last month, and today The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Grant has also been tapped for a project with a different sort of “pryde”: Fox’s film adaptation of the British stage musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

Grant will portray a wise drag elder named Hugo in the film, based on the musical of the same name that debuted in London in 2017. That was itself based on a 2011 BBC documentary called Jamie: Drag Queen At 16, about a high school student and budding drag performer named Jamie Campbell who was banned from attending his prom in a dress. (Campbell now performs under the stage name Fifi LaTrue.) In the musical, Hugo has retired from drag and runs a shop called Victor’s Closet; with encouragement from his eager protege Jamie, Hugo revives his drag persona, Loco Chanel, and takes the ol’ wig and high heels out for one more spin. RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bianca Del Rio notably filled in as Hugo in a West End performance of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, a role that was originated by Charles Dale. Catastrophe’s Sharon Horgan, Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancashire, and newcomer Max Harwood have also joined the cast.

The Hollywood Reporter doesn’t say explicitly if the film version of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie will also be a musical, but it does say that the original director, writer, composer, and choreographer from the stage production are all on board, which seems to imply that it will be. Grant’s a self-proclaimed horrible singer, but he did release a single called “To Be Or Not To Be” where he recited a soliloquy from Hamlet over house beats back in 1997. There’s some light singing in the chorus, which you can hear below.