Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger to Be Played by Freya Allan, Jojo Macari in Biopic Directed by Zaida Bergroth

By Nick Vivarelli

According To The variety Finnish director Zaida Bergroth (“Tove”) is set to direct a Marianne Faithfull biopic titled “Marianne” with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” star Freya Allan playing the swinging London pop star who passed away in January.

British actor and musician Jojo Macari (“Sex Education,” “Those About to Die”) is attached to star as Mick Jagger.

The project, now in pre-production, is being pitched to buyers by the U.K.’s Altitude Film Sales at the European Film Market in Berlin.

“From angel-innocent pop icon, actress of stage and screen and long-time muse and girlfriend of Mick Jagger, to homelessness, addiction, and ignominy,” says the synopsis for the film. “’Marianne’ will depict Marianne Faithfull’s rollercoaster ride from the brightest lights of the wild 1960s of her youth, to fallen golden girl and then her remarkable phoenix-like rise and resurgence” that “establishes her as one of the great icons and true artists of our time,” it goes on to add.

“Marianne” is being produced by Julia Taylor-Stanley of Artemis Films and Finnish producer Roosa Toivonen. Taylor-Stanley had been shepherding a previously announced Marianne Faithfull biopic that fell apart.

The “Marianne” screenplay is co-written by Taylor-Stanley and Bergroth.

Bergroth’s “Tove” is a biopic of bisexual, Swedish-speaking, Finnish visual artist and author Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins, the globally beloved cartoon characters.

Faithfull, who died in London on Jan. 30 at 78, was launched as a singer in 1964 by the single “As Tears Go By,” co-authored by Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham and the Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. 

Faithfull, a pop star and creative force on her own, and Richards became a fixture of tabloid gossip columns, and in February 1967 they jumped to the front pages when they were arrested in a drug possession bust at the latter’s Sussex estate Redlands. During the raid, Faithfull was infamously clad only in a fur rug, prompting humiliating headlines in the tabs such as “Naked Girl at Stones Party.”

By the early ‘70s Faithfull had become homeless, living on the streets of London. But her 1979 album “Broken English” revitalized her and relaunched her musical and artistic career.