EXCLUSIVE: While he hasn’t yet found the actress who’ll play Joan of Arc in his epic Jehanne d’Arc, Baz Luhrmann found an exceptional young voice to help him unlock the screenplay. That would be Ava Pickett, a playwright who wrote the script with Luhrmann.
Here’s how impressed the filmmaker was with Pickett: recently, pretty much the whole of Warner Bros shut down as the entire teams from production to marketing and publicity headed on over to Chateau Marmont. In the room where the first draft of Rebel Without A Cause was read aloud for Warner Bros brass, Pickett read the first draft of Jehanne d’Arc. Luhrmann and design partner Catherine Martin backed her up with a visual presentation.
Start date for the film isn’t quite there, Luhrmann told Deadline. That depends on the casting of the pivotal role of the teenaged French peasant who believed God had sent her to lead an army. She believed she would save her country during the Hundred Years’ War.
“What we have on paper is a career-defining role that requires the right qualities, skill set, and an ability to capture the essence of youth in this moment,” Luhrmann told Deadline. As he did with Elvis, Luhrmann won’t commit to a production start until he’s completed the exact same workshopping process he followed to find his Elvis. That ended up launching Austin Butler and getting eight Oscar noms and a $288 million global gross for Warner Bros, where Luhrmann makes all his films.
He is very high on Pickett.
“As the story of Jehanne d’Arc is about a clash between generations, between the haves and have-nots, I knew that we needed an authentic, young female voice,” he said. “Our head of development at Bazmark, Jack Flynn, passed along this remarkable play, 1536, which was written by Ava Pickett and had just won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. When I got on the phone with Ava, I knew within minutes that she was the ideal person to collaborate with on the screenplay and the voice of Jehanne d’Arc. When I asked my fellow Australian Tony McNamara about his experience working with Ava on The Great, he put it simply — she’s the best.
“Ava and I have been working together for the past year, deeply inspired by Blood Red, Sister Rose, a novel of Jehanne’s life by the renowned Australian writer Thomas Keneally, the author of Schindler’s List. Our research has taken us from Domrémy, Jehanne’s birthplace, to the Royal Armouries in Leeds, to Kettering where I learned how to ride on a horse in full armor with the team at Historic Equitation, as well as a very emotional trip to Rouen, where Jehanne was imprisoned and where the Church of Saint Joan of Arc stands with a cross on the site of Jehanne’s death at the age of 19.
“I am overwhelmingly excited to celebrate that Ava’s play is getting so many accolades, called “savagely witty” by Time Out, “electrifying” by the Evening Standard, and “effortlessly funny, bold, and ballsy” by the Guardian,” he said. “To quote the review in The Independent: “Ava Pickett’s razor-sharp, darkly comic and blisteringly relevant new play” “isn’t just a period piece; it’s a call to arms, dressed up as a comedy.” It’s great to see young creatives succeed, and I feel a kindred spirit with Ava. To put it in medieval terms, I feel we were both born to jest and forced to joust.”
