Zendaya Might Play Doo Wop Legend Ronnie Spector in a Biopic
A24 has reportedly nabbed the rights to Ronnie Spector’s memoir, Be My Baby, which is named after the 1963 hit song by The Ronettes.
Zendaya just can’t seem to stop being booked and busy, can she?
Not only did the critically acclaimed actress star in a secret quarantine movie with John David Washington called Malcolm & Marie, and go on to become the second Black actress and youngest ever to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (for her performance as Rue in Euphoria, which she promises to deliver a bonus episode of some time soon), but up next, she’s in talks to puff her hair up into a beehive and take on the role of Ronnie Spector in a forthcoming biopic about the musician and her doo wop girl group The Ronettes.
According to Deadline, this biopic will be a joint production with New Regency and A24 (which produces Euphoria for HBO). Rights were purchased to Spector’s memoir, titled Be My Baby, after what is arguably The Ronettes’ most well-known song. Jackie Sibblies Drury, the playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2019 for her play Fairview, which opens up with a Black family preparing a birthday dinner for the grandmother-matriarch, is rumored to be writing the film about Spector’s life.
Spector, who formed The Ronettes in the late 1950s with her sister Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley, apparently handpicked Zendaya to play her in the film that will chronicle her rise to superstardom in the 1960s, her volatile marriage to record producer Phil Spector, and her eventual induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And considering Zendaya’s look when she accepted her Emmy this year, beehive and all, maybe she really was made to play this part.
Related: Zendaya Will Follow Up Her Historic Emmys Win with a Special Euphoria Bonus Episode