Everything We Know About the Vivien Leigh Biopic ‘The Florist’

Gone With the Wind Vivien Leigh, 1939 — Everett Collection

Gone With the Wind star Vivien Leigh is getting her story told in a new biopic called The Florist. Carla Gugino, best known for the Spy Kids franchise and more recently The Fall of the House of Usher, will portray Leigh in the film. Reportedly, the movie will focus on Leigh’s preparation to lead the Broadway production of John Gielgud’s Chekhov adaptation of Ivanov. It will explore her battle with bipolar disorder and the script was written based on a box of her old love letters.

Gugino shared about being cast as Leigh, “I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to excavate a woman as complex, contradictory, and compelling as Vivien. From the moment I read the script, I knew ‘The Florist’ was a journey I had to pursue.”

Ryan Stumpe/IFC Films/Everett Collection

The film is set in the 1960s as Leigh prepares for production and she meets a WWII veteran and florist named Joseph Penn. At this time, Leigh was also receiving electroconvulsive therapy at a local psychiatric facility to help her bipolar disorder. A synopsis for the film reads, “Amidst the backdrop of madness. Leigh and Penn become each other’s sources of truth, beauty, and love.”

Everett Collection

Director Nick Sandow said about the project, “What drew me to the project was the script and how it brings together, for a fleeting moment, two human beings who seemingly couldn’t be more different. I was excited by taking these two discordant existences and making them touch, and seeing what that says about things like love, artistry, mental illness, and celebrity.”