Cary Grant Biopic Coming With 'Harry Potter' Actor Tied to Lead Role

By Daniel S. Levine

The life of Hollywood icon Cary Grant will soon be on the big screen. A film on the legendary actor's life is now in production, with Harry Potter star Jason Isaacs in the lead role. Simply titled Archie, the movie will be written by Jeff Pope, who co-wrote the Oscar-nominated script for Philomena with Steve Coogan. ITV Studios is producing the film for its upcoming streaming service ITVX, with BritBox International.

Archie gets its title from Grant's given name, Archibald Alexander Leach. The movie plans to track Grant's youth, from his birth in Bristol in 1904 to his years as a music hall performer in his teens and his move to the U.S. It will also feature scenes from 1961 when Grant began wooing the much-younger actress Dyan Cannon, to whom he was married from 1965 to 1968. Grant and Cannon had one daughter, Jennifer Grant.

"There was only one Cary Grant and I'd never be foolish enough to try to step into his iconic shoes," Isaacs said in a statement to Deadline in August. "Archie Leach, on the other hand, couldn't be further from the character he invented to save himself."

Cannon and Jennifer Grant have both voiced their support for the project. They called Pope's script "intelligent, understanding" and "capturing him so brilliantly." Pope noted that Grant "became one of the most iconic figures of the twentieth century, beloved by presidents and paupers... The key to everything lay in his childhood."

Archie is already in production, as The Daily Mail published photos of Isaacs in full Grant makeup for shooting in Manchester on Sept. 28. Harriet Walter (Ted Lasso), who is playing Grant's mother Elise Leach, was also seen at the set. Laura Aikman will play Cannon.

Other members of the cast include Dainton Anderson, Calm Lynch, and Oaklee Pendergast as younger versions of Grant. Kara Tointon will play a younger Elise Leach. Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Ian Paulson-Davies, Ian McNeice, Jason Watkins, Lisa Faulkner, and Niam Cusack are also starring.

Isaacs is best known for starring as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. He has also starred in The Patriot, Fury, The Death of Stalin, Mass, Case Histories, The OA, Star Trek: Discovery, Sex Education, Good Sam, and the upcoming Apple TV+ series The Crowded Room with Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried.

Grant was born in 1904 and died in 1986 at age 82. He is still one of the most recognized leading men from classic Hollywood, with dozens of classics on his resume. Some of his best-known movies include His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, North by Northwest, Notorious, and Charade, just to name a few. He earned Oscar nominations for his performances in None But the Lonely Heart and Penny Serenade. In 1970, he received an honorary Oscar and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.

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