Julia Garner Says Madonna Biopic Status Changes ‘Every Hour,’ But She’d ‘Love for the Movie to Get Made’

Julia Garner is on board to play Madonna onscreen, that is, if the biopic is still happening.

via: EW

Fans might need an immaculate collection of luck for Madonna’s long-delayed, self-directed biopic to see the light of day, per actress Julia Garner.

Years after Entertainment Weekly reported that she was officially cast in a film about Madonna’s life, the Emmy-winning Ozark actress provided a cryptic update on the status of the film that was initially postponed amid Madonna’s Celebration world tour in 2023.

“I don’t know,” Garner, 32, told CBS in an interview (below) that aired Sunday when asked whether the film will ever get made.

Garner added that “every hour it changes, in a way,” and confirmed that “it’s not up to me” if the project moves forward.

“I would love for the movie to get made, obviously, but I also feel, whatever happens, I made a great friend. I love Madonna,” Garner said. The pair have frequently worked together since the film’s grueling audition process — including the 68-year-old legend bringing Garner on stage during a November 2023 tour stop, starring alongside her as themselves on the upcoming second season of The Studio, casting her as another young version of herself in this year’s Confessions II — The Film music video, and bringing her on stage to help perform a medley of Confessions II songs at the MTV VMAs in September.

Garner said she thinks Madonna is “incredible” and “taught me properly how to work” with regard to the audition process for the biopic, which she said involved an intense process of singing, dancing, and acting “as her” in the moment.

“I wasn’t a trained dancer” either, Garner confirmed, adding another layer of complication to the already extreme audition.

In June, Madonna opened up about an alleged “falling out” with Universal over the project, which she told Interview magazine stemmed from her desire to have a higher budget.

Madonna claimed the studio “couldn’t get their heads around” providing a higher budget for the movie, so she attempted to find “a way to make it for less money in Serbia,” but the studio wasn’t “into the idea” of filming there.

“Maybe they just didn’t believe in me. One of their first reactions was, ‘We don’t believe you’d stay in Serbia more than four days.’ And I said, ‘Did you read the script?’ My whole life has been survival. I’m not going there for a holiday,” Madonna noted, before claiming, “But anyway, I was in limbo when that fell apart, and then Netflix reached out to make a series. That was a whole other long process, because I couldn’t use the script I had with Universal unless I bought it from them for an extortionist’s price, even though I wrote it. Don’t ask.”

Amid Garner’s casting, EW also previously reported that actress and socialite Julia Fox met with Madonna about potentially playing the star’s longtime bestie, fellow actress Debi Mazar, in the movie, which Madonna worked on for years with a mix of screenwriters, including Oscar-winning Juno scribe Diablo Cody and Erin Cressida Wilson.

In 2024, Madonna shared on Instagram imagery of herself revising the film’s script at a typewriter, with one image clearly showing that the previously untitled film was, at the time, tentatively titled Who’s That Girl — a reference to Madonna’s 1987 comedy movie and its accompanying No. 1-charting soundtrack tune of the same name.

In the second phase of scripting with Wilson following Cody’s departure, Madonna said on social media that the film was about her “struggle as an artist trying to survive in a man’s world as a woman, and really just the journey.” She categorized the tone as a “happy, sad, mad, crazy, good, bad, and ugly” tale of her rise to prominence, including milestones such as cutting her teeth on the New York City streets, releasing “Like a Prayer,” starring in Evita, and her relationship with Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza and Luis Xtravaganza, members of the Harlem ballroom scene who played an instrumental role in bolstering and inspiring the success of “Vogue.”