Intro for September 28, 2026

Dear Gossips,

It was announced on Friday afternoon that Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter have joined the cast of the Astaire biopic starring Tom Holland as Fred with Paul King directing. Margaret will play Fred’s older sister, Adele, while Sabrina will play Ginger Rogers. Word is they started pre-production in the summer and are hoping to begin shooting in January. It’s been about five years since Tom started talking about this project, which tells you something about how long it can take for a film to come together, even when Tom Holland is attached to it.

The film is based on a book about the Astaire siblings by Kathleen Riley who will be a consultant. Fred’s daughter, Ava Astaire McKenzie has confirmed her support and her son is involved as a producer and in the statements that have been released to announce that the film is happening, this won’t just be Fred’s story but Adele will be a major part of it too.

When they first started dancing, it was Adele who was said to be the bigger star, the more celebrated sibling. It was after her retirement that Fred moved to Hollywood as a solo performer and eventually of course started collaborating with Ginger Rogers. It’ll be interesting, then, to see how they handle Adele’s part because so little footage has been preserved of her dancing, and as the family has noted, much of her story has been lost in terms of cultural awareness. And it sounds like the filmmakers intend to honour that in this film.

Presumably the soonest we’ll see the movie is 2028, unless they’re super efficient in production and even more efficient in post. It’ll be interesting to see what the reaction to it will be when they’re finally ready. Because of course by then nobody will remember that they were pretty clear right off the top what the focus would be. And inevitably there will be people on Twitter or TikTok all like, what? Why aren’t there more scenes with Sabrina? Unless by then social media is only bots and they all get along and understand everything and never make mistakes.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey