The first time Jared Leto met Karl Lagerfeld, the actor told the designer, “You know, one day I have to play you in a movie.”
Lagerfeld responded approvingly, saying, “Just you, honey, just you.”
“I feel like this is a full circle moment and Karl would be proud of what we’re doing,” Leto recounted, revealing to WWD exclusively that he’s teaming up with fashion house Karl Lagerfeld to create a film about late German fashion. Superstar.
Leto will not only play the lead, but will also produce the film alongside his partner, Emma Ludbrook, through their Paradox production company.
“Karl was an artist. Period,” Leto said. “He was a fashion designer, photographer, artist. There was no way to define it. He was a creative powerhouse.”
It’s not yet clear when the cameras will start rolling, and the exact story remains under wraps, though it will delve into “key relationships in Karl Lagerfeld’s life, told through an unpredictable lens much like the man himself.” The producers are currently in discussion with the filmmakers,” according to a press release from the Karl Lagerfeld company.
When asked if the film would be a love story, Leto responded, “There are a multitude of relationships to explore. Karl had a career that spanned more than 50 years, so both personally and professionally he was close to a number of people. I can say that we will focus on the key relationships that convey different parts of the life of him”.
Leto will collaborate with three of Lagerfeld’s most trusted confidants, who will partner with him as executive producers on the upcoming film. They are Pier Paolo Righi, executive director of the Karl Lagerfeld house since 2011; Caroline Lebar, Senior Vice President of Image and Communications at Karl Lagerfeld, who has been at the tireless designer’s side for 35 years advising on press matters, and Sébastien Jondeau, who has been the designer’s personal assistant and bodyguard for two decades.
Karl Lagerfeld, Sébastien Jondeau, Pier Paolo Righi and Caroline Lebar.
Cesar Segarra
Righi said the company has been approached by several Hollywood producers over the years, all eager to partner on a film about Lagerfeld’s life and career.
“It has only been since meeting Jared and Emma that we have felt truly confident that the story is being told in the artistic way that Karl would have loved to see,” Righi said in the statement. “Throughout our conversations, we have created an equally trusting and inspiring creative relationship that will allow us to work together very seamlessly on this beautiful project.”
Without a doubt, Leto has been a keen observer and participant in the fashion scene for many years. He frequently crossed paths with Lagerfeld in St. Tropez, where the designer spent several weeks each summer, and as a guest at a few Chanel fashion shows, including the fall 2015 haute couture show.
In recent years, Leto has been closely associated with Italian fashion house Gucci, even attending the Met Ball last May as a date for creative director Alessandro Michele, dressed as his twin.
“I have worked with Gucci and Alessandro for about seven years and continue to do so. It is an incredible partnership and a beautiful friendship with Alessandro and the entire Gucci team,” she recounted in an exclusive email interview. “Alessandro actually worked with Karl for about five years at Fendi and has always said the nicest things about him.
“My role is to portray him on screen as honestly as possible,” Leto continued of Lagerfeld. “With celebrity, most people don’t get to see below the surface. They see one or two facets of a person as presented through a public lens. Karl was a human being. We all have beauty within us and we all have flaws. We have masks and then we have moments where we reveal the mask. I’m always interested in seeing what’s behind the mask.”
Leto hinted that he is already diving deep into the investigation of what is sure to be an epic role for the seasoned actor, whose breakthrough was likely the 1997 biopic “Prefontaine.” He won an Oscar for his role in 2013’s “Dallas Buyers Club” and recently appeared in “House of Gucci,” in which he played Paolo Gucci. He is also a member of the rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars.
“It’s an exciting part of the process. You start at the beginning and try to learn as much as you can,” Leto said. “I am grateful to do this with an exceptional group of people who were incredibly close to Karl for many years of his life.”
Without a doubt, Righi, Lebar and Jondeau were among the closest witnesses to Lagerfeld’s design career for Chanel, Fendi and his eponymous fashion house, while also juggling a number of surprising side projects.
Jondeau, now a style consultant at Karl Lagerfeld, wrote a book last year chronicling the designer’s four-year battle with cancer, which finally took him away in February 2019. The book also extols work ethic, Lagerfeld’s generosity, intelligence and kindness.
More than a designer, Lagerfeld was a fashion genius, one of the most prolific, admired and multi-talented fashion figures of the modern era, credited with establishing the modern template for reviving and animating traditional brands. .
A polyglot with a photographic memory and a vast knowledge of history, philosophy, art, and popular culture, Lagerfeld ran his own publishing house and bookstore.
“I hate leisure,” the designer told WWD in 2008, “except reading. I really am a person made to work, if drawing is considered work”.
News of the film project comes less than a week after New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that its spring 2023 Costume Institute exhibit would be dedicated to Lagerfeld, focusing on his “stylistic vocabulary as expressed through through lines.”
Source: news.google.com