Audrey Hepburn’s son Sean Hepburn Ferrer has high hopes for Lily Collins’ portrayal of his late mother in an upcoming biopic.
“I love Lily Collins. Sam Wasson, the book’s writer, is a good friend of mine and I’m very happy for him,” Ferrer, 65, said during an interview with Fox News Digital, published on Sunday, March 8. “I don’t have any huge thoughts on the film as it hasn’t been made yet.”
Collins, 36, received widespread criticism after it was announced late last month that she was cast as Hepburn in the upcoming adaptation of Wasson’s 2010 book, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the Dawn of the Modern Woman.
“It’s with almost 10 years of development and a lifetime of admiration and adoration for Audrey that I’m finally able to share this,” Collins announced via Instagram on February 23. “Honored and ecstatic don’t begin to express how I feel.”
Her post garnered mixed reactions, with some thinking she was the perfect casting. Others were more concerned with the role impacting another season of Netflix’s Emily in Paris.
“I believe that my mother might cringe at ‘Dawn of the Modern Woman,’ but she cringed at any compliment,” Ferrer continued during Sunday’s interview. “And now there are two films in prep for her, this one and Dinner with Audrey.”
He added, “I’m not sure how one adapts such a ‘historical snapshot.’”
The second film Ferrer mentioned, Dinner With Audrey, is set to follow the friendship between Hepburn and designer Hubert de Givenchy. Thomasin McKenzie was cast as Hepburn while Ansel Elgort is set to play Givenchy.
Hepburn became a film and fashion icon throughout her career, which spanned from the late 1940s until the 1990s. She died at age 63 in 1992 after being diagnosed with appendiceal cancer.
She shared her eldest son with ex-husband Mel Ferrer, whom she was married to from 1954 to 1968. (She was also the mother to son Luca Dotti, whom Hepburn welcomed with second husband Andrea Dotti.)
Sean has also written several books about his mother, including the upcoming biography Intimate Audrey, set to be released next month. The book will feature “never-before-seen photographs and excerpts from her personal letters,” according to its description.
“This book is an intimate portrait of Audrey: as an icon, as a mother, and as an altruist who drew on her own experience of hunger and suffering to advocate fiercely for children in war-torn and famine-stricken countries,” the summary continues. “Audrey shines in this moving portrait of a mother by her son; a lyrical ode to a visionary woman who continues to defy all expectations decades after her death.”
