Melissa McCarthy to Star in Dark Comedy About Forger’s Life

melissa mccarthy ghostbusters

Per Variety: Melissa McCarthy will become a slightly less-bubbly version of her usual characters with the announcement today that she will be starring in an adaptation of the Lee Israel memoir, Can You Ever Forgive Me? The film will apparently be a dark comedy, and that’s no surprise given Israel’s history.

Israel was once a well respected magazine writer who profiled celebrities like Katherine Hepburn and Estée Lauder. It was the Lauder piece, which Lauder herself tried to bribe Israel out of publishing, that caused the slow decline of Israel’s writing career. After that ended, the former author moved on to a completely reasonable new career: forging historical documents and selling them on the black market. It is said that Israel created over 400 forgeries, all claiming to be letters from actors and writers of the past. She graduated to full-on theft of actual documents from museums and libraries, which eventually got her arrested, netting her six months of house arrest and five years of probation.

Other than releasing her memoir, which was released in 2008, Israel lived her post-crime days in relative obscurity until her death in 2014 at the age of 76.

Julianne Moore was originally slated to take on the role, but she dropped out of the project due, apparently, to “creative differences.” The tone of the film could go in a bunch of different ways, but the casting of McCarthy, who’s not exactly known for her serious acting style, seems to indicate that the film will take a darkly humorous approach to this unique story. She recently starred in the well-received comedy Spy and the widely-panned The Boss, and is one of the stars of the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot coming July 15th.

Diary of a Teenage Girl’s Marielle Heller will direct the film, with Anne Carey and Amy Nauiokas on board to produce. The film will begin shooting early next year.

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Bill Tressler

Bill is a writer and comedy enthusiast from New York. An avid gamer and podcast fan, he strives to always toe the line between charming irreverence and grating honesty.
Bill Tressler
Bill Tressler
Bill is a writer and comedy enthusiast from New York. An avid gamer and podcast fan, he strives to always toe the line between charming irreverence and grating honesty.