Jack O'Connell To Play Lee McQueen

Jack O´Connell has been cast as Lee McQueen in an upcoming biopic about the designer and his work, Pathé has confirmed.

The storyline of the project will be based on Blood Beneath The Skin, a biography by Andrew Wilson. The director of the project is Andrew Haigh - best known for the Oscar-nominated 45 Years, which starred Charlotte Rampling – and filming is believed to begin next spring.

“In 2009, Alexander McQueen put on one of his greatest shows – a stunningly beautifully re-working of his greatest designs from the past 15 years,” Pathé confirmed, revealing that the film’s plot will focus on the lead up to the London designer’s Plato’s Atlantis collection.

“It was a show that he dedicated to his mother and one in which he tried to make sense of his life and art. The film explores McQueen’s creative process in the months leading up to the show providing an intimate portrait of the man behind the global brand – a moving celebration of a visionary genius whose designs transcended fashion to become art.”

Lee McQueen passed away in 2011, aged 40. Since his death the designer’s work has been the focus of a record-breaking exhibition, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, as well as a play starring Dianna Agron. Former colleague Sarah Burton now helms the house, which is owned by Kering. See a history of his work in Vogue here.

The film isn’t only the biographical vehicle focusing on the life of a famed designer in the works. There is both a film (with Antonio Banderas playing the lead) and TV series telling the story of Gianni Versace expected.How Jack O'Connell Became Hollywood's Golden Boy.